Muscle fibre stimulation vs exercise

amazingemmet

Here's an interesting study I came across

-Electromyographical Research and Maximum Muscle Fiber Stimulation (Eric Knight B.A. Hon. Kinesiology, CPT)

Electromyographical (EMG) Research is an essential research tool allowing physiologists to determine the role of muscles during specific movements. EMG is a scientific method of measuring the level of excitation. This is done by placing electrodes over your body and recording the level of muscle activity induced by an exercise. A study was conducted to find which exercises cause the greatest amount of activity within each muscle group and, as a consequence, determine which exercises will produce the greatest gains in mass and strength. This study was conducted by Tudor O. Bompa, PhD & Lorenzo J. Cornacchia. Both men and women were used in the sudy and all subjects had at least two years experience with resistance training.
Here are the results of that study:
(100% would signify maximum muscle fiber stimulation)

Pectoralis Major
Decline dumbbell bench press

---

93%
Decline bench press, Olympic bar(OB)

---

89
Push-ups between benches

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88
Flat dumbbell bench press

---

87
Flat bench press (OB)

---

85
Flat dumbbell flyes

---

84

Pectoralis Minor
Incline dumbbell bench press

---

91%
Incline bench press (OB)

---

85
Incline dumbbell flyes

---

83
Incline bench press (smith machine)

---

81

Medial Deltoids
Incline dumbbell (db) side laterals

---

66%
Standing db side laterals

---

63
Seated db side laterals

---

62
Cable side laterals

---

47

Posterior Deltoids
Standing db bent laterals

---

85%
Seated db bent laterals

---

83
Standing cable bent laterals

---

77

Anterior Deltoids
Seated front db press

---

79%
Standing front db raises

---

73
Seated front barbell press

---

61

Biceps brachii (long head)
Preacher curls (Ob)

---

90%
Incline seated Db curls (alternate)

---

88
Standing biceps curls (Ob/narrow grip)--- 86
Standing Db curls (alternate)

---

84
Concentration Db curls

---

80
Standing curls (Ob/wide grip)

---

63
Standing E-Z curls (wide grip)

---

61

Triceps brachii (outer head)
Decline extensions (Ob)

---

92%
Triceps pressdowns (angled bar)

---

90
Dips with a bench

---

87
One-arm cable extensions (reverse grip) - 85
Overhead rope extensions

---

85
Seated one-arm Db extensions (neutral grip)- 82
Close-grip bench press (Ob)

---

72

Latissimus dorsi (back)
Bent-over Bb rows

---

93%
One-arm Db rows

---

91
T-bar rows

---

89
Lat pulldowns to the front

---

86
Seated pulley rows

---

83

Rectus femoris (quads)
Safety squats (90 degree angle, shoulder width stance) ----88%
Seated leg extensions (toes straight)

---

86
Hack squats (90 degree angle, shoulder width stance) ----78
Leg press (110 degree angle)

---

76
Smith machine (90 degree angle, shoulder width stance) ----60

Biceps femoris (hamstring)
Standing leg curls

---

82%
Lying leg curls

---

71
Seated leg curls

---

58
Modified hamstring deads

---

56

Semitendinosus (inner hamstring)
Seated leg curls

---

88
Standing leg curls

---

79
Lying leg curls

---

70
Modified hamstring deads

---

63

Gastrocnemius (calf muscle)
Donkey raises

---

80
Standing one-leg raises

---

79
Standing two-leg raises

---

68
Seated raises

---

61

BrokenArrows

just a question.

how can they know what percentage of maximum stimulation can be without having an exercise that can stimulate the muscle 100%

would you not need to know what stimulates 100% before you can find out anything less.

amazingemmet

You can achieve 100% stimulation via electro stimulation of the muscle

gabgab

So in theory are these the exercises people should be doing to create the biggest strength or size gains?

Reps etc are different but based on that research, are they the best bang for your buck?

I'm sticking with starting strength but still interesting stuff,

Pugsley

Would it not be more useful to give us an exercise and display all the muscle's involved in it and their level of stimulation? Would be interested in the level of stimulation achieved from deadlift's and squats across the whole body.

Hanley

OMG so you can effectively "isolate" (favour) different parts of your chest by changing exercise orientation?? OMFG no way.

I always find it funny when people say you can't "isolate" different parts of your muscles. Nice to have soem scientific eveidence to back up the under the bar exp that anyone who's spent any time training already knows about!!

The question is tho, are the ones with the greatest EMG% scores the best ones to be doing for size and strength gains?? Looking thru the list, I would say no, but I can't figure out a conclusive argument as to why. The best I can come up with is that you can move greater loads (and adjusted the loading parameters better) on certain exercises, so while their EMG% score might not be as high, they have a greater potential to elict adaptation.

rubadub

Hard to know what to make of it, or how the study was done. e.g. were the people used to doing those exercises? How did they decide what weight they were going to use? They could have been using pretty low weights on the poor scoring exercises. If people are unused to an exercise it may lead to more or less stimulation.

At the end of the day it is a measure of electrical activity trying to be used to show how effective an exercise is, just like many people use their gravitational pull to determine how good they look, it might be a good guide but is open to flaws.

There was similar studies done to show which ab exercise was "best", bicycle situps came top.

1 Bicycle Maneuver 248
2 Captain’s Chair 212
3 Exercise Ball 139
4 Vertical Leg Crunch 129
5 Torso Track 127
6 Long Arm Crunch 119
7 Reverse Crunch 109
8 Crunch with Heel Push 107
9 Ab Roller 105
10 Hover 100
11 Traditional Crunch 100
12 Exercise Tubing Pull 92
13 Ab Rocker 21

http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/studies/BestWorstAbExercises.pdf

http://www.bodyweightculture.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9550

Macha

I've been told that the best ab exercises are squats, deadlifts, sholder presses etc. The guys were Poliquin trained.

Hanley

taconnol wrote: »

I've been told that the best ab exercises are squats, deadlifts, sholder presses etc. The guys were Poliquin trained.

I bet they write articles for T-nation too

Anyone not doing direct ab work and looking for a stonger/better core is wasting their time.

Macha

Hanley wrote: »

I bet they write articles for T-nation too

Anyone not doing direct ab work and looking for a stonger/better core is wasting their time.

Well I disagree. I am looking for a stronger core but I don't think doing bicycle cruches is the best way to go about it. The guys I was referring to have probably never heard of T-nation but they do assist in training the Irish Rugby A squad.

Have you ever done an overhead squat? Damn that hurts your abs...and your quads and your glutes and your..more bang for your buck IMO. And deadlifts? You really have to make sure your core is stabilised. But then again, I'm not really into isolation exercises & would rather do a standing bicep curl than a preacher curl. This may also be because I'm not into gaining mass-not that doing bicycle abs is going to help you gain any mass...

brianthebard

taconnol wrote: »

I've been told that the best ab exercises are squats, deadlifts, sholder presses etc. The guys were Poliquin trained.

its only personal experience,but the first time i did front squats they killed my abs.Every time since then-nothing.Also i thought squat and deads would be enough for the abs,but i believe neglecting direct work was partly responsible for my back injury.I think its the same as treating rows as a biceps exercise as well as lats-yes i noticed some growth,but not what you would expect from direct work.Just my experience.

Hanley

taconnol wrote: »

Well I disagree. I am looking for a stronger core but I don't think doing bicycle cruches is the best way to go about it. The guys I was referring to have probably never heard of T-nation but they do assist in training the Irish Rugby A squad.

Have you ever done an overhead squat? Damn that hurts your abs...and your quads and your glutes and your..more bang for your buck IMO. And deadlifts? You really have to make sure your core is stabilised. But then again, I'm not really into isolation exercises & would rather do a standing bicep curl than a preacher curl. This may also be because I'm not into gaining mass-not that doing bicycle abs is going to help you gain any mass...

If squats, front squats, deads, overhead squats etc are making your abs sore, then your abs are weak. Sure they'll get stronger doing squats and deads, but they won't get as strong as they could potentially get if you were to actually train them!!

Overhead squats are a poor exercise when it comes to training your legs and glutes. They're pretty much always going to be limited by your ability to stabilise the weight (ie your core strenght). In fact I'd go as far as to say that for the majority of people interested in a big squat or deadlift they're useless. There's far better ways of training the muscles and movements involved. Doing overhead squats to cover all the bases instead of doing two or three seperate exercises is just going to short change everything.

If you're just looking to be "fitter", more "functional" or just training for fun then they have their place. But for strength or size.... Nope! (imo of course :rolleyes:)

I never suggested bicycle abs as a method to improve them. Things like standing pulldown abs, hanging leg raises (trying to get straight legs up to your hands, like a pike position) and roll outs are king when it comes to ab strength. I've been hitting them very hard for the last few months and my squat is really taking off as a result.

This whole "don't train your abs directly because squats and deads will do it" malarky is just like the that bloody "you don't need to train your arms directly if you're doing chins and dips" BS. If you want a bigger and/or stronger muscle, train it. End of. You don't have to do fancy sh!t for it, just pick big movements that you can shift a lot of weight on.

Macha

Well I would do (read: attempt) hanging raises & their sort. I suppose what I'm against is spending an extra 20 minutes doing a few half-assed curls on the fitness ball. I like the hanging raises because they also do your shoulders, arms, etc.

The other thing that puts me off devoting a lot of time to abs is that being female, it is unlikely, nay impossible, that I will ever have low enough body fat to see my ab muscles and have a life and be sane, all at the same time.

Mikel

Get the best of both worlds, do leg raises, knees to elbows, L pull ups and various gymnastics bar/ring exercises. To us functional types they don't really count as 'isolation' , but to anyone who wants to isolate they will feel it he next day.

Hanley

taconnol wrote: »

Well I would do (read: attempt) hanging raises & their sort. I suppose what I'm against is spending an extra 20 minutes doing a few half-assed curls on the fitness ball. I like the hanging raises because they also do your shoulders, arms, etc.

The great thing about abs is that they can be supersetted with other exercises quite easily if you're pushed for time.