(intense music)
-: The next thing that we're talking about
for this course is tension.
Tension is extremely important
because it's going to basically be a factor
that goes into all of the training stimulus.
So we look at tension,
it's essentially the pulling force
between the two ends of the muscle.
So if you have the two, the origin and insertion,
and that muscle can only basically
pull those two points together.
The amount of force that's being created
as these things are pulling together,
in this instance, all right, so when this contracts
it can move three kilograms.
So there's three kilograms of tension
in that contracting muscle right there.
So it's able to move that.
That basically tells us how much work,
how much contractile work,
that muscle is doing.
Because it's going to take a certain amount
of contractile tissue to be able to move three kilograms,
or to be able to resist three kilograms.
So the more tension we have, basically,
the more of that muscle tissue is active,
both contractilly and from a metabolic perspective.
So this determines, okay, how much neurological work,
how much total tension and mechanical work,
as well as how much metabolic work.
So tension is basically going to be a key variable
in every single training stimulus.
So a huge portion of understanding how to exercise properly
is understanding how to get tension where you want it,
keep it there, and then either maximize the intensity,
like the amount of that tension,
or your ability to sustain tension in that muscle
through higher reps or multiple exercises,
or whatever method you may be using,
so that you can get the outcome in terms of the muscles
chemistry or mechanical stimulus
that you're trying to achieve with that particular program.
So if we look at tension,
just to quickly recap,
it ultimately determines how much work the muscle's doing.
So we absolutely have to know how much tension there is
and where that tension is being placed on the body
at all times, especially if it's any sort of
physique thing, right?
As soon as we get into just focusing on pure weight loss,
are there times where we just go for
trying to get total energy expenditure?
Absolutely.
When we're looking at sports performance,
are there times where it's like we're looking
only at the external goal?
Absolutely.
But we also need to understand that
in order to get better at that external goal,
or to get better metabolically,
we have to bring up the level
of all of those individual tissues as well.
And there's going to be a longevity effect
of making sure that you're doing work,
or you're creating that performance-based force
with the most advantageous tissue,
because the second your body starts to learn
to use muscles that maybe aren't as good
at producing that movement,
your joint mechanics start to suffer,
and you're going to create a plateau in your performance,
both sports and athletic-wise, as well as metabolically,
because you're going to be taxing tissues
that aren't necessarily meant to be taxed
in that particular way, right?
One of the complications with understanding tension
is that it's not the same in all ranges of movement
because of levers.
So our body is essentially made of levers,
so the length of my forearm is going to be a lever.
The length of my upper arm is going to be a lever
in different types of exercises.
So if I do a lateral raise, my whole arm becomes a lever.
If I do a bicep curl, my forearm becomes a lever.
So our body is this entire system of levers.
And the whole thing is levers create "leverage."
so when we're doing an exercise,
especially like a free weight exercise,
my body's levers are going to determine
how much that weight is actually applying force
to the joint.
So if I'm doing something, when we get into moment arms,
you'll see that the weight is not having the same impact
on my body throughout the entire range of motion.
It's going to be varied.
At a certain portion of that range,
it may be essentially "heavier,"
and at a certain portion, it may be lighter.
So what that means it that the tension
is not going to be consistent
throughout the entire range of motion, which then says,
"Okay, I didn't train the entire movement equally.
I trained a certain part of it more
than I trained the others."
Which is really important when we talk
about exercise pairing and about exercise selection,
to think of, like, "Okay, am I trying to train
the entire range of motion today?
If I do, what are the gaps I need to fill,
and what exercises are going to be applicable?"
So I have to understand where there's tension
in every particular exercise.
When we get to machines,
machines are going to have their own way
of changing the amount of tension that's required
throughout their range of motion.
So then we have the factors that the levers of my body
and the levers, or cams, of the machine.
The other thing we have is movement.
So movement is going to complicate tension
because as soon as we start moving a weight
the amount of resistance that weight has changes.
Think of it this way,
if you go like this with a ball,
that ball may leave your hand and then fall back down.
The ball did not get lighter,
but the momentum I generated carried that ball
through space before it eventually fell back down.
So as we're moving weights,
the amount of resistance they're actually applying to us
changes depending on how fast we're moving them,
whether we're trying to accelerate them,
whether we're trying to decelerate them.
When we get to the physics portion,
we'll understand, "Okay, how is movement affecting tension?"
So then when I understand the mechanics
and I understand the principles that momentum is having,
I can say, "Okay, based off of this, if I do this tempo,
this exercise is going to have this much tension
at this portion of the range,
so I know exactly what exercises I may or may not need
to fill in those gaps,"
or that these would be good exercises to superset,
whereas these exercises would not be good to superset,
depending on the training stimulus
that I'm trying to achieve.
So recapping, tension is required for all, all mechanical
and physiological stimulus.
In mechanical, we're talking about the nervous system,
we're talking about muscular damage,
we're talking about all the responses to volume
in terms of contractile work.
And then the physiological, the metabolic stress,
the metabolites, the nutrient depletion,
all the nutrient passive transport,
all of those things,
those are going to be affected by tension,
in either the amount of tension, the length of tension,
the combination of those,
the relationship between how much time
that muscle is working versus how much time it's resting,
all of that stuff is going to require
tension as a component.
The last variable for the course was execution,
which is basically, like I said,
it's the carrying out or putting into effect
a plan, an order, or a course of action.
That's the legit definition
if you want to look it up in the dictionary.
And that's exactly what you should be thinking about.
"If I have my mechanics down,
if I know my anatomy,
if I understand movements and the levers,
and all of things going on,
I can now create a plan that has everything
from the mechanical side,
as well as what the person needs to be thinking about
mentally to get the outcome that I'm looking for."
So in the course following this,
we're going to go deep into program design
and how different variables of training can create
a different stimuli.
And once you know that,
you have a very powerful tool to be able to
program workouts and to periodize with
for an individual's needs,
to really get fast results and to be able to
get continued results that potentiate
further and further results
rather than running into plateaus
and having to work harder, longer, or diet harder.
You can actually find ways to potentiate things
to be able to maximize performance over
whatever duration your program may be.
So we need that combination of mechanical factors
as well as whatever our specific intent is,
what we're mentally trying to accomplish
in terms of the goal for the individual rep.
Once we have that, we can actually prescribe
really, really good execution.
We can give the appropriate cues,
we can give the appropriate set up
and the appropriate instruction because we're using
a good exercise with the appropriate variables.