jgeral0172
New member
Plenty of people have gotten strong and jacked by training through all sorts of ranges of motion.
When the /r/naturalbodybuilding community takes a particular interest in a particular training variable, there’s a tendency for some folks to take things a bit too far. There’s also a tendency for content creators to make more and more extreme content around the hot topic, because the most extreme views tend to garner the most attention.
We do know that training at longer muscle lengths tends to build more muscle than training at shorter muscle lengths, but…
1. That doesn’t imply that the compound exercises people have been successfully using for decades are suddenly ineffective because they don’t load every muscle through the longest conceivable muscle length.
2. That doesn’t imply that you can’t build muscle without access to fancy equipment that allows you to place maximal tension on a muscle in its most stretched position.
3. That doesn’t necessarily imply that training through a longer range of motion or at longer muscle lengths is always superior.
4. That doesn’t imply that you should remove every exercise from your training routine that doesn’t load your muscles through the longest possible muscle lengths.
5. That doesn’t imply that you should perform exercises in ways that are dangerous or painful just so you can train at slightly longer muscle lengths (for example, if your knees or hips bother you when squatting ass-to-grass, it’s perfectly fine to squat to parallel; if it hurts your shoulders to do really deep pec flyes, it’s perfectly fine to not let the dumbbells or cable handles sink quite as deep).
6. That absolutely doesn’t mean you can’t build muscle unless you train through the longest possible muscle lengths all the time for every muscle, nor does it imply that training through short muscle lengths doesn’t also build muscle.
When the /r/naturalbodybuilding community takes a particular interest in a particular training variable, there’s a tendency for some folks to take things a bit too far. There’s also a tendency for content creators to make more and more extreme content around the hot topic, because the most extreme views tend to garner the most attention.
We do know that training at longer muscle lengths tends to build more muscle than training at shorter muscle lengths, but…
1. That doesn’t imply that the compound exercises people have been successfully using for decades are suddenly ineffective because they don’t load every muscle through the longest conceivable muscle length.
2. That doesn’t imply that you can’t build muscle without access to fancy equipment that allows you to place maximal tension on a muscle in its most stretched position.
3. That doesn’t necessarily imply that training through a longer range of motion or at longer muscle lengths is always superior.
4. That doesn’t imply that you should remove every exercise from your training routine that doesn’t load your muscles through the longest possible muscle lengths.
5. That doesn’t imply that you should perform exercises in ways that are dangerous or painful just so you can train at slightly longer muscle lengths (for example, if your knees or hips bother you when squatting ass-to-grass, it’s perfectly fine to squat to parallel; if it hurts your shoulders to do really deep pec flyes, it’s perfectly fine to not let the dumbbells or cable handles sink quite as deep).
6. That absolutely doesn’t mean you can’t build muscle unless you train through the longest possible muscle lengths all the time for every muscle, nor does it imply that training through short muscle lengths doesn’t also build muscle.