WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 But the most important thing that you can do 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.879 as a weightlifter is literally do the motor control, 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:08.000 the motor coordination warm -up. Already lifting 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.380 to absolute maximum and going to reasonably heavy 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:13.599 weight. Might not be the weight you use on the 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.079 platform, but reasonably heavy. And if you do 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:19.179 something else, you can seriously affect it. 00:00:20.910 --> 00:00:23.890 Hi Tony, welcome to Evidence Strong Show. If 00:00:23.890 --> 00:00:25.550 you could briefly introduce yourself. Yeah, hi 00:00:25.550 --> 00:00:27.089 everyone. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks 00:00:27.089 --> 00:00:29.050 for the invitation. Thank you. My name is Tony 00:00:29.050 --> 00:00:31.649 Blazovic. I'm a professor in biomechanics, although 00:00:31.649 --> 00:00:33.609 these days I do quite a lot of research also 00:00:33.609 --> 00:00:36.170 in the neurophysiology space. In the biomechanics 00:00:36.170 --> 00:00:38.369 space, I guess I work mostly in understanding 00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:40.469 how muscles function, and that's why, of course, 00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:41.950 we have to have the nervous system involved. 00:00:42.189 --> 00:00:44.350 Although in athletes, I also work at the whole 00:00:44.350 --> 00:00:46.329 body level, how to run, how to change direction, 00:00:46.409 --> 00:00:48.130 how to move, and of course, all the strength 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:50.390 and conditioning aspects to that. So I guess... 00:00:50.509 --> 00:00:52.250 Primarily, I'm a researcher and a teacher in 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.509 academia, but I'm lucky enough to continue to 00:00:54.509 --> 00:00:56.149 work with athletes on the side. All right. And 00:00:56.149 --> 00:00:59.369 today we're diving into post -activation potentiation 00:00:59.369 --> 00:01:02.409 and post -activation performance enhancement. 00:01:02.530 --> 00:01:05.810 So let's define the terms so we are on the same 00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:08.379 page. Yeah, good idea. You know, maybe... A hundred 00:01:08.379 --> 00:01:10.680 years ago or more, it was already recognized 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:13.319 that if you electrically activate a muscle once, 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:15.519 you get a certain force. And if you activate 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:18.060 it a second time, we get more force. And it's 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:20.140 taken about a hundred or so years to understand 00:01:20.140 --> 00:01:22.799 exactly why that's the case. But right down at 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:26.079 the molecular level, when actin and myosin cross 00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:29.219 bridges in your sarcomeres are generating these 00:01:29.219 --> 00:01:32.180 forces, we seem to get a little bit more force 00:01:32.180 --> 00:01:35.019 because we get some more cross bridges between 00:01:35.019 --> 00:01:37.840 the actin and the myosin attaching. if you've 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:40.180 already done a contraction before. And we might 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:43.090 call that... classic potentiation that force 00:01:43.090 --> 00:01:45.709 is potentiated so it's higher and you can see 00:01:45.709 --> 00:01:47.590 that in the muscle itself now there's still some 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:49.769 debate around the exact mechanisms and everything 00:01:49.769 --> 00:01:51.810 else but you know we can we can discuss that 00:01:51.810 --> 00:01:53.469 if you really really want to on the other side 00:01:53.469 --> 00:01:55.310 of the coin you know a lot of people then say 00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:58.170 well if the muscle generates a bit more force 00:01:58.170 --> 00:02:00.650 after the second or third contraction maybe we 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:02.569 can do that as well in normal human movements 00:02:02.569 --> 00:02:04.370 like when we're warming up we might be able to 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:07.609 do these funky high force contractions and then 00:02:07.609 --> 00:02:10.229 when we do something after it that requires force 00:02:10.229 --> 00:02:12.330 or power, maybe we're going to be better. And 00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:14.629 a lot of people call that potentiation as well. 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:17.189 So it gets a little bit confused between real 00:02:17.189 --> 00:02:19.770 life, whole human potentiation and this little 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:22.530 molecular thing happening in our muscles. So 00:02:22.530 --> 00:02:25.710 maybe about five or six years ago, a group in 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:28.389 Canada decided to call it performance enhancement 00:02:28.389 --> 00:02:31.310 rather than potentiation, just to distinguish 00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:34.889 it. So what we call post activation. Performance 00:02:34.889 --> 00:02:38.689 enhancement or PAPE is really that sort of global 00:02:38.689 --> 00:02:40.669 improvement in performance you get if you've 00:02:40.669 --> 00:02:42.930 done something a bit tough before it. So most 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:45.689 of the time in weightlifting or in the gym, we're 00:02:45.689 --> 00:02:47.360 talking about... performance enhancement, that 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:49.639 P -A -P -E thing. Let's say you're a weightlifter. 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:51.699 Your job is to stand on a platform with a very 00:02:51.699 --> 00:02:54.699 heavy weight and somehow get it from the ground 00:02:54.699 --> 00:02:56.800 to above your head. That doesn't just require 00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:59.719 maximal muscle strength, okay? Because what you 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:02.800 need to do is induce momentum or velocity in 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.099 the bar. Because at some point you need to do 00:03:05.099 --> 00:03:08.340 essentially two or three phases of lifting. And 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:10.319 in order to, for example, to get underneath the 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:12.740 bar, you need the bar to keep going upwards like 00:03:12.740 --> 00:03:15.460 a projectile, like a ball being thrown. To give 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:18.110 it that speed to keep going up against gravity 00:03:18.110 --> 00:03:20.870 while you then duck underneath it to do the second 00:03:20.870 --> 00:03:23.550 or next phase of belief, we talk about needing 00:03:23.550 --> 00:03:27.250 muscle power more than pure strength. As a biomechanist, 00:03:27.289 --> 00:03:29.569 I'd say power is a really difficult, complicated, 00:03:29.750 --> 00:03:32.090 and often erroneous term. I would say we need 00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:34.389 to give kinetic energy to the bar. We need more 00:03:34.389 --> 00:03:36.629 energy in the bar. So the question is, how do 00:03:36.629 --> 00:03:38.550 you do that? And let's be really clear here. 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:41.110 You need a nervous system that is appropriately, 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:44.370 but as maximally as possible, activating your 00:03:44.370 --> 00:03:46.870 muscles. And just remember that in a really complicated 00:03:46.870 --> 00:03:49.250 movement, it's not just a case of maximally activate 00:03:49.250 --> 00:03:52.030 every muscle. You have to time the activations 00:03:52.030 --> 00:03:55.030 and scale those activations to generate very 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:57.810 specific directions of force. It is a hugely 00:03:57.810 --> 00:04:00.530 complicated task, which is of course why it takes 00:04:00.530 --> 00:04:02.330 years or decades to get really good at it. The 00:04:02.330 --> 00:04:04.229 next thing we need is then for the muscles to 00:04:04.229 --> 00:04:06.310 do their job. That means, yes, they need to produce 00:04:06.310 --> 00:04:08.210 a really high force, but they somehow need to 00:04:08.210 --> 00:04:10.969 shorten very rapidly. And by the way, while they're 00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:13.090 doing that, they're stretching and then allowing 00:04:13.090 --> 00:04:15.939 the recoil. of elastic elements like tendons 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:18.399 to get extra kinetic energy or power into the 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:20.360 system. So we need the nervous system to do its 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:22.699 job. We need the muscles to do its job. Now let's 00:04:22.699 --> 00:04:24.779 go back to how we get there besides the fact 00:04:24.779 --> 00:04:26.360 that you've now trained for years or decades 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:28.180 to get it right. And let's just talk about in 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:31.420 the lead up to that event, what PAP would say, 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:34.519 like if people said post classic post activation, 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:37.459 the real muscly thing, what seems to be happening 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:40.199 there is if you can activate the muscle really 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:42.839 quite hard, it needs to be a high frequency. 00:04:43.339 --> 00:04:45.379 of pulses coming from your nervous system what 00:04:45.379 --> 00:04:48.519 seems to happen then is the calcium that your 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:52.439 muscles then release triggers a series of processes 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:57.040 that bends the myosin arm closer to the actin 00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.319 site that it needs to grab so that it can pull 00:04:59.319 --> 00:05:01.420 your muscle so when myosin wants to pull your 00:05:01.420 --> 00:05:04.060 muscle it's kind of randomly looking around for 00:05:04.060 --> 00:05:05.980 it it doesn't happen just because it happens 00:05:05.980 --> 00:05:08.620 it's like a random thing like everything in biology 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.199 or physics is random and when you release calcium 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:14.139 the actin is ready to take the myosin, but the 00:05:14.139 --> 00:05:16.279 myosin doesn't just automatically attach. It 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:18.819 really helps if the myosin comes closer. And 00:05:18.819 --> 00:05:21.199 when you've activated the muscle once, it turns 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:24.240 out that those myosins stay closer. So when you 00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:26.300 activate it the second time, they're more likely 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:29.439 to bind and pull. So the current mechanism behind 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:32.639 this classic post -activation potentiation is 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:35.579 that the myosin is more likely to bind when we 00:05:35.579 --> 00:05:37.980 release calcium. So they call it calcium sensitivity. 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:40.500 We're more sensitive to the amount of calcium. 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:42.009 And if we take a single muscle, muscle fiber, 00:05:42.149 --> 00:05:44.269 we see that. You activate it and you can see 00:05:44.269 --> 00:05:46.730 all this happening. It's not just about the myosin 00:05:46.730 --> 00:05:48.910 itself. There could be water, there could be 00:05:48.910 --> 00:05:51.350 some temperature effects, but mostly that's the 00:05:51.350 --> 00:05:53.649 reason. Just a clarification. So when you talk 00:05:53.649 --> 00:05:56.250 about myosin and actin, what are you referring 00:05:56.250 --> 00:05:59.470 to is the sliding theory. So to contract the 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:01.930 muscle, these two have to come together and kind 00:06:01.930 --> 00:06:03.970 of slide on top of each other. That's exactly 00:06:03.970 --> 00:06:05.910 right. Thanks for clarifying that. So in your 00:06:05.910 --> 00:06:08.069 muscle, you've got muscle fibers. Inside the 00:06:08.069 --> 00:06:10.250 muscle, your fibers, you've got this thing called 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:13.389 myo... fibroids, these long chains of motors. 00:06:13.589 --> 00:06:15.850 Those motors are called sarcomeres and you've 00:06:15.850 --> 00:06:18.730 got literally trillions of sarcomeres in any 00:06:18.730 --> 00:06:21.569 muscle. But the rows of sarcomeres are all shortening 00:06:21.569 --> 00:06:23.649 at the same time. And the reason they shorten 00:06:23.649 --> 00:06:25.769 and therefore shorten the whole muscle is because 00:06:25.769 --> 00:06:28.509 within them, you've got these micro motors where 00:06:28.509 --> 00:06:31.470 a myosin protein or a filament is attaching to 00:06:31.470 --> 00:06:33.889 an actin protein and pulling on it. And this 00:06:33.889 --> 00:06:36.689 shortens each sarcomere. And when each sarcomere 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.389 shortens, those myofibrils and therefore the 00:06:39.389 --> 00:06:41.519 whole fiber. shortens and of course this is where 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:43.660 we get muscle work from and so what we're saying 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:46.600 here is that if you just activated those myosins 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:50.060 to pull on actin once then in the seconds or 00:06:50.060 --> 00:06:51.819 maybe a minute or two afterwards they're going 00:06:51.819 --> 00:06:53.699 to do it a little bit better it seems to be more 00:06:53.699 --> 00:06:56.259 effective in fast twitch muscle fibers than slow 00:06:56.259 --> 00:06:58.240 twitch muscle fibers it's almost like an evolutionary 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:01.079 thing where you don't just want a random single 00:07:01.079 --> 00:07:03.579 twitch from the brain or something to over activate 00:07:03.579 --> 00:07:06.180 you so if you've just activated once and and 00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:07.600 it looks like you're going to need your muscles 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:10.259 again it's like this little sensation thing comes 00:07:10.259 --> 00:07:12.480 in and allows the fibers to actually do their 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:14.420 work really, really well. Now, I just want to 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:16.699 be really clear here. If you activate the muscle 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:18.680 and get this mechanism working, this classic 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:21.519 post -activation potentiation, it works immediately. 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:23.819 So if you immediately do another contraction, 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:25.959 you'll see an improvement in performance, but 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:28.600 it has a half -life of around about 30 seconds. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:30.819 So in other words, we lose the ability really 00:07:30.819 --> 00:07:33.259 quickly. And by two or three minutes, it's completely 00:07:33.259 --> 00:07:35.699 gone. In other words, the classic PAP is happening 00:07:35.699 --> 00:07:37.860 early, but the potentiation that most people 00:07:37.860 --> 00:07:39.879 are seeing in the research studies is happening 00:07:39.879 --> 00:07:41.839 much later so it's almost certainly not due to 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:43.939 classic PAP and in some ways that makes sense 00:07:43.939 --> 00:07:45.920 let's go back to weightlifting I said you need 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:47.939 your brain to activate spinal cord to activate 00:07:47.939 --> 00:07:50.360 you need massive activation you need whole coordination 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:52.660 you need a huge number of muscles doing lots 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:54.879 of things and lots of things in your muscle temperature 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:57.699 water mass everything will affect how forceful 00:07:57.699 --> 00:07:59.779 they are maybe it makes sense that a little teeny 00:07:59.779 --> 00:08:01.699 mechanism that's happening in your fiber level 00:08:01.699 --> 00:08:04.319 is not as important as we first thought so when 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:06.939 it comes out to your entire weightlifting capacity 00:08:06.939 --> 00:08:10.509 it seems really unlikely that this classic PAP 00:08:10.509 --> 00:08:13.069 is actually doing much at all, especially by 00:08:13.069 --> 00:08:15.449 the time you walk out onto the platform, center 00:08:15.449 --> 00:08:17.629 yourself, image the lift and commence the lift. 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:19.230 You've already lost most of the effect anyway. 00:08:19.370 --> 00:08:22.470 My opinion is that this classic potentiation 00:08:22.470 --> 00:08:24.870 that happens down at that sort of fiber level 00:08:24.870 --> 00:08:28.009 is probably not really important to us from a 00:08:28.009 --> 00:08:29.970 muscle strength and power perspective. And I 00:08:29.970 --> 00:08:31.730 know a lot of people might disagree with me, 00:08:31.790 --> 00:08:34.169 but like I said, the peak of that effect happens 00:08:34.169 --> 00:08:36.350 in the first few seconds. And by 30 seconds, 00:08:36.409 --> 00:08:38.350 you've already lost. half of it yet you know 00:08:38.350 --> 00:08:40.529 we're often performing a long time after that 00:08:40.529 --> 00:08:42.730 and in the research studies the peaks that you 00:08:42.730 --> 00:08:44.830 see which we definitely need to talk about tend 00:08:44.830 --> 00:08:47.909 to take minutes to come so it's coming when this 00:08:47.909 --> 00:08:50.009 mechanism is completely gone so you mentioned 00:08:50.009 --> 00:08:54.049 that the water content in the muscle may play 00:08:54.049 --> 00:08:57.190 a role so i wanted to explore this part so of 00:08:57.190 --> 00:08:59.789 course the research already shows us that once 00:08:59.789 --> 00:09:02.269 you're dehydrated we seem to have reduced uh 00:09:02.269 --> 00:09:05.649 neural outflow so your brain and spinal cord 00:09:05.649 --> 00:09:08.240 don't won't seem to activate the muscles maximally 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:10.679 once you're dehydrated. So we're clearly sensing 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:13.559 dehydration at lots of levels of the body. It 00:09:13.559 --> 00:09:15.600 could be everything from changes in blood pressure 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:18.139 to changes in the pressures within the muscle 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:20.740 that affect some of the sensory information coming 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:23.639 back to us. And that seems to be affecting the 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:25.860 outflow to the muscles. So first of all, if you're 00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:27.980 cutting weight and you're weighing several days 00:09:27.980 --> 00:09:31.000 prior, you really need to rehydrate from a nervous 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:33.419 system point of view. But we've also known for, 00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:36.480 you know, since at least the 19... 60s that again 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:39.379 down at the muscle level certainly at the fiber 00:09:39.379 --> 00:09:41.799 level but it looks like even at the whole muscle 00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:44.500 level water content matters and it matters for 00:09:44.500 --> 00:09:47.299 two main reasons one is during the eccentric 00:09:47.299 --> 00:09:50.620 phase if you've got lots of fluid in the muscle 00:09:50.620 --> 00:09:53.799 the cells are what we call more turgid just like 00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:57.830 if a plant is dehydrated it wilts It gets soft. 00:09:58.009 --> 00:10:00.870 Your cells get soft and floppy. The same thing 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:02.610 happens in your muscle. That if you don't have 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:04.990 enough water sitting in the muscle, the cells 00:10:04.990 --> 00:10:07.110 themselves get a little bit more compliant, a 00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:09.889 little bit floppy. And what that means is when 00:10:09.889 --> 00:10:12.649 the muscle is being stretched under load, if 00:10:12.649 --> 00:10:15.350 you want to stretch a balloon, for example, it 00:10:15.350 --> 00:10:17.730 has to get narrower in its center because the 00:10:17.730 --> 00:10:19.710 volume stays the same, right? So if you pull 00:10:19.710 --> 00:10:21.470 it out this way, it has to go shorter this way. 00:10:21.529 --> 00:10:23.149 Same with your muscle. If you want to stretch 00:10:23.149 --> 00:10:25.850 your muscle outwards, it needs to shrink inwards. 00:10:26.409 --> 00:10:29.129 got lots of water in there it's harder to do 00:10:29.129 --> 00:10:31.110 that there's more pressure there's more resistance 00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:33.250 to that which actually makes it harder to stretch 00:10:33.250 --> 00:10:35.690 your muscles any of your listeners who've done 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:38.470 really high intensity exercise where we get massive 00:10:38.470 --> 00:10:40.389 water flow into the muscle will know they feel 00:10:40.389 --> 00:10:43.350 stiff anyone who's had doms you know delayed 00:10:43.350 --> 00:10:46.169 onset muscle soreness in the days after a session 00:10:46.169 --> 00:10:49.230 knows that the muscle gets stiff and a lot of 00:10:49.230 --> 00:10:51.429 this stiffness is the water mass that's sitting 00:10:51.429 --> 00:10:53.730 in there and it's being dragged in there by all 00:10:53.730 --> 00:10:56.389 these molecules like lactate and all these other 00:10:56.389 --> 00:10:59.090 ions that are drawing the water in. Now that 00:10:59.090 --> 00:11:01.870 increases eccentric strength because it makes 00:11:01.870 --> 00:11:04.210 it harder for the muscle to stretch. So in one 00:11:04.210 --> 00:11:06.330 way, just having water seems to be beneficial 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:09.690 for reducing stretch. But when it comes to shortening 00:11:09.690 --> 00:11:11.610 the muscle and generating power, we think it 00:11:11.610 --> 00:11:14.789 also has two main mechanisms. One is the fuller 00:11:14.789 --> 00:11:18.049 and stiffer the fiber is, when the fibers shorten, 00:11:18.210 --> 00:11:21.049 they then bulge and that forces the other ones 00:11:21.049 --> 00:11:25.279 away and causes rotation of our fibers. don't 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:28.259 just shorten end on like this the fibers within 00:11:28.259 --> 00:11:30.740 them shorten and get rotated and they get rotated 00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:32.860 because as they shorten they get bulged and that 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:35.600 forces the fibers to push outwards and rotate 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:37.960 that rotation is really good because instead 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:40.100 of just needing fiber shortening if they also 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:42.919 rotate notice the muscle shortens even further 00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:46.379 so it shifts your power output It doesn't improve 00:11:46.379 --> 00:11:49.659 peak power. It shifts your power output to higher 00:11:49.659 --> 00:11:52.740 speeds. So this fiber rotation is really important 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:55.419 for high -speed muscle activation. And one hypothesis 00:11:55.419 --> 00:11:58.200 at the moment is you need the water. to get that 00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:00.259 to happen. But you know what? Outside all that, 00:12:00.340 --> 00:12:02.480 right down at the cellular level, it matters 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.139 too. It's been very well demonstrated that again, 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:07.899 when the myosin attaches to actin, it pulls, 00:12:08.100 --> 00:12:10.840 it detaches. When it detaches, it's no longer 00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:12.840 applying a force. So you either need it to get 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:15.360 back quickly, or imagine if you could just prolong 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:17.820 that stroke a bit more. Then on average, the 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:19.980 myosins would be attached a little bit longer. 00:12:20.059 --> 00:12:23.700 And at any time, there would be more still pulling 00:12:23.700 --> 00:12:25.879 because they're pulling for longer. That means 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:28.299 if you've got more of them you've got more force. 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:30.759 And it's very well demonstrated that if you put 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:33.639 water into the cell, into the muscle finder, 00:12:33.659 --> 00:12:36.019 myosin stays attached a bit longer. And the reason 00:12:36.019 --> 00:12:39.019 is, is because proteins have an electrical charge. 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:40.559 You know, they've got a positive at one end and 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:42.320 a negative at the other end. They're charged. 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:44.919 And half the reason why they attach to each other 00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:47.460 is like opposite ends of a magnet. You have two 00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:49.440 different poles or two different charges and 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:51.519 they attract. And that's what helps myosin get 00:12:51.519 --> 00:12:53.639 onto actin. So when it gets to this end, if you've 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:56.570 got more attraction, it's harder for myosin to 00:12:56.570 --> 00:12:59.129 pull off so it stays attached longer. Now water, 00:12:59.250 --> 00:13:02.870 H2O, also has hydrogen, which is a positive, 00:13:03.009 --> 00:13:05.169 and two oxygens, which are negative. So it's 00:13:05.169 --> 00:13:07.389 also got a charge. It's got different poles. 00:13:07.590 --> 00:13:10.129 So you put a water molecule next to actin and 00:13:10.129 --> 00:13:12.809 myosin and it affects that attractive charge. 00:13:13.049 --> 00:13:14.750 And it turns out that if you put lots of water 00:13:14.750 --> 00:13:17.049 in there, it stops myosin pulling off. The myosin 00:13:17.049 --> 00:13:18.950 can't pull off because it's too attracted to 00:13:18.950 --> 00:13:21.149 the actin. So the water seems to improve muscle 00:13:21.149 --> 00:13:23.049 force. And this has been known for a long time. 00:13:23.149 --> 00:13:25.669 We think that maybe things like creatine, and 00:13:25.669 --> 00:13:28.049 warm up. When you warm up, you generate a bit 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:30.289 of lactate. It doesn't have to be much. You generate 00:13:30.289 --> 00:13:32.649 hydrogen ions. You generate all these other things. 00:13:32.730 --> 00:13:35.330 That draws water into the cell, makes it nice 00:13:35.330 --> 00:13:37.629 and swollen. And at the moment, we're doing experiments 00:13:37.629 --> 00:13:40.070 to see if we can look for associations between 00:13:40.070 --> 00:13:42.350 the water and the force. We haven't published 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:44.549 them yet, but we have found those associations. 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:46.809 So I hope to be able to publish those soon. So 00:13:46.809 --> 00:13:49.090 it does look like water mass is actually really 00:13:49.090 --> 00:13:52.549 important for force, all the way through to higher 00:13:52.549 --> 00:13:55.320 speeds of force. So yeah, make sure... you rehydrate 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:57.440 fully? It could be really important. Well, that's 00:13:57.440 --> 00:13:59.820 a brilliant explanation. Thank you. Maybe the 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:01.620 most important thing for your listeners is to 00:14:01.620 --> 00:14:03.379 start thinking about what's happening at the 00:14:03.379 --> 00:14:06.399 whole body level. Water is one of them, but temperature 00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:08.559 is a huge one, which we should talk about. And 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:10.580 of course, the neural activation part of it is 00:14:10.580 --> 00:14:12.580 also probably huge that we should talk about. 00:14:12.679 --> 00:14:14.340 What I want is for everyone to stop thinking 00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:16.740 about all these cool things that might be the 00:14:16.740 --> 00:14:19.840 0 .5 % and get back to the basics. Always think, 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:21.899 what are we trying to achieve here? Let's go 00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:24.600 back to the idea then that in your warmup. Let's 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:26.320 call it a warmup, even though it's not just about 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:29.000 temperature. The first thing that has to happen 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.399 here is that we need to practice maximally activating 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:34.480 the muscles. Even if I just do something like 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:37.639 a bicep curl and I do the fastest, hardest activation 00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:41.320 possible once. And I look at how fast the force 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:43.620 rises and I look at the peak force. Now, even 00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:46.659 if I wait a minute so that there's no chance 00:14:46.659 --> 00:14:48.840 of a temperature rise, because I did one quick 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:50.419 contraction and then I sat around for another 00:14:50.419 --> 00:14:52.580 minute. So there'd be almost no effect on temperature 00:14:52.580 --> 00:14:55.100 a minute later. If I now activate a second time 00:14:55.100 --> 00:14:57.320 and I do a wait a minute and do another one, 00:14:57.379 --> 00:14:59.980 the only thing I'm really doing here is practicing 00:14:59.980 --> 00:15:02.940 the high speed maximal activation of the muscle. 00:15:03.059 --> 00:15:05.159 And if I put little electrodes on there and I 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:07.539 record from the muscle, I can see an increase 00:15:07.539 --> 00:15:10.480 in both the rate and the height of the activation, 00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:13.639 the electrical work. If I use like an electrical 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:16.740 or a magnet to stimulate the very part of my 00:15:16.740 --> 00:15:19.539 brain that would cause this muscle to twitch, 00:15:19.580 --> 00:15:22.990 I can see a bigger twitch or a bigger. electrical 00:15:22.990 --> 00:15:25.769 activity in other words this whole pathway to 00:15:25.769 --> 00:15:28.730 the muscle has been upregulated or potentiated 00:15:28.730 --> 00:15:30.629 if you like now this what's really important 00:15:30.629 --> 00:15:34.590 is that you're practicing maximal rapid activation 00:15:34.590 --> 00:15:37.070 it's also important though that we're testing 00:15:37.070 --> 00:15:39.230 the same exercise we're training and this is 00:15:39.230 --> 00:15:41.389 really important because it's not just that muscle 00:15:41.389 --> 00:15:44.720 that gets this brief quick learning. It's all 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:47.659 the supporting muscles because even just doing 00:15:47.659 --> 00:15:50.399 this is super complicated because as soon as 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:53.419 I activate this muscle, a whole range of forces 00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:55.419 happen all through here that my brain has to 00:15:55.419 --> 00:15:58.059 know are about to happen. It has to pre -activate 00:15:58.059 --> 00:16:00.500 all this just to get this to work. In other words, 00:16:00.539 --> 00:16:04.379 if you practice a task with maximal effort, maximal 00:16:04.379 --> 00:16:07.460 rate of effort, you will learn that task and 00:16:07.460 --> 00:16:09.700 you will perform it better. And when we test 00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:12.159 five minutes later, 10 minutes later, we can 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:14.960 still see that activation. In fact, one of my 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:17.899 favorite studies was done back in 1998 and they 00:16:17.899 --> 00:16:20.139 deliberately stimulated the brain. So there was 00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:23.080 no voluntary opportunity here. And they recorded 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.539 from the thumb muscle. And when they stimulate, 00:16:25.700 --> 00:16:27.820 the thumb might twitch like this. And they put 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:30.440 little accelerometer here to see how fast the 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:32.980 muscle moves, but also what direction. Do you 00:16:32.980 --> 00:16:35.059 know what they did? They stimulate like heaps 00:16:35.059 --> 00:16:37.139 and heaps of times and they see the muscle doing 00:16:37.139 --> 00:16:39.539 this. What they then did was they asked them 00:16:39.539 --> 00:16:42.700 to activate or practice. in the other direction. 00:16:42.860 --> 00:16:45.159 So it's the thumb muscle, but it's the opposite 00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:48.039 muscle now works. They leave the stimulator right 00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:51.120 here. So when they re -stimulate it, it's exactly 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:54.000 the same place. It should give you exactly the 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.379 same outcome, but you know what? It didn't. Instead, 00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:58.899 the thumb went the wrong way. So literally you 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:01.480 stimulate the same part of the brain, but because 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:04.880 you've just practiced going this direction, you've 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:08.279 now increased the excitability, we call it, of 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:11.349 that pathway. It's a short -term bluster. minutes 00:17:11.349 --> 00:17:13.589 many minutes goes in the wrong direction now 00:17:13.589 --> 00:17:15.990 if we were in that study they recorded for the 00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:18.230 next half an hour and it took something like 00:17:18.230 --> 00:17:21.569 15 20 25 minutes for that stimulation to eventually 00:17:21.569 --> 00:17:24.849 cause a much more regular appropriate activation 00:17:24.849 --> 00:17:28.450 in other words the practice you do in the tens 00:17:28.450 --> 00:17:31.170 of minutes completely affects it now even if 00:17:31.170 --> 00:17:34.289 your brain was receiving the correct motor program 00:17:34.289 --> 00:17:37.009 from the pre -motor area sending it to the bit 00:17:37.009 --> 00:17:39.589 that has to activate the motor motor area even 00:17:39.589 --> 00:17:42.029 if it received the right info, what we're saying 00:17:42.029 --> 00:17:44.430 is you activate that part of the brain and it 00:17:44.430 --> 00:17:47.069 still gives you an inappropriate response. So 00:17:47.069 --> 00:17:48.930 somewhere in this part of the pathway, it's changing. 00:17:49.130 --> 00:17:52.369 So what we learn from these studies is you have 00:17:52.369 --> 00:17:55.130 to practice maximal activation, but you have 00:17:55.130 --> 00:17:57.609 to practice it perfectly coordinated with the 00:17:57.609 --> 00:17:59.950 skill. Now in weightlifting, you might break 00:17:59.950 --> 00:18:02.549 the weightlifting skill down into each phase 00:18:02.549 --> 00:18:05.329 of it first and then build it all up and do some 00:18:05.329 --> 00:18:08.029 full practice lifts. But the most important thing 00:18:08.029 --> 00:18:10.200 that you can do as a weightlifter is literally 00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:12.799 do the motor control, the motor coordination 00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:16.559 warmup, already lifting to absolute maximum and 00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:19.000 going to reasonably heavy weight. Might not be 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.779 the weight you use on the platform, but reasonably 00:18:21.779 --> 00:18:24.299 heavy. And if you do something else, you can 00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:26.759 seriously affect it. So Tony, would you have 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:30.180 some examples of how warmup could be constructed 00:18:30.180 --> 00:18:34.940 and how the skill practice could be used to then 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:37.859 enhance performance? Yeah, sure. I mean, within 00:18:37.859 --> 00:18:39.839 the limits of the... fact that unfortunately 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:42.440 we probably don't have enough research actually 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:44.619 looking at the whole warmer its construction 00:18:44.619 --> 00:18:48.170 and its outcomes right is that we know that Muscle 00:18:48.170 --> 00:18:50.069 temperature is really important. And I think 00:18:50.069 --> 00:18:51.450 we'll probably talk about that very briefly. 00:18:51.529 --> 00:18:52.890 Actually, let's just cover it now because it's 00:18:52.890 --> 00:18:55.029 so quick and easy. When you have an increase 00:18:55.029 --> 00:18:57.250 in muscle temperature, it comes from two things 00:18:57.250 --> 00:18:59.990 mainly. One is you get more blood flow and the 00:18:59.990 --> 00:19:02.309 blood sitting deep in your body is really warm. 00:19:02.430 --> 00:19:04.990 So when it flows out to your muscles, that blood 00:19:04.990 --> 00:19:06.789 is warmer than your muscles because your muscles 00:19:06.789 --> 00:19:08.369 are on the periphery. So they're losing heat 00:19:08.369 --> 00:19:10.829 all the time. So you get a blood flow and that 00:19:10.829 --> 00:19:12.789 warm blood warms your muscles. The second thing 00:19:12.789 --> 00:19:14.410 is your muscles are working. And when they're 00:19:14.410 --> 00:19:18.089 working, they're generating energy. because all 00:19:18.089 --> 00:19:20.630 of your cell processes are not very efficient 00:19:20.630 --> 00:19:22.789 and so every time they're happening they're releasing 00:19:22.789 --> 00:19:25.470 lots of heat and so everything warms up and the 00:19:25.470 --> 00:19:27.470 good thing is between the blood flow and just 00:19:27.470 --> 00:19:31.069 that metabolic heat is that that increases the 00:19:31.069 --> 00:19:33.930 rate at which some of your enzymes work and particularly 00:19:33.930 --> 00:19:38.549 an important enzyme an ATPase which cleaves ATP 00:19:38.549 --> 00:19:41.190 apart it gives you energy for muscle contraction 00:19:41.190 --> 00:19:44.750 it's really common that most not all but most 00:19:44.750 --> 00:19:48.250 of your enzymes work faster under slightly higher 00:19:48.250 --> 00:19:50.890 temperatures. And if those enzymes, which are 00:19:50.890 --> 00:19:53.230 basically little things that speed up chemical 00:19:53.230 --> 00:19:55.789 reactions, if those enzymes can speed up your 00:19:55.789 --> 00:19:57.990 chemical reactions, you can cross -bridge cycle 00:19:57.990 --> 00:20:00.390 faster. And so it makes sense that temperature 00:20:00.390 --> 00:20:02.509 improves performance and it does it mostly by 00:20:02.509 --> 00:20:05.529 increasing the speed at which you can cycle or 00:20:05.529 --> 00:20:07.450 therefore the speed at which your muscles shorten. 00:20:07.569 --> 00:20:10.630 So while the increase in water appears to be 00:20:10.630 --> 00:20:12.950 really a force -based mechanism, remember power 00:20:12.950 --> 00:20:15.430 is force times velocity, so that helps, the temperature 00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:17.500 appears to be more of a velocity -based mechanism. 00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:19.460 And this is really important to think about because 00:20:19.460 --> 00:20:21.480 in people doing really high -speed movements 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:24.099 or people who have lots of fast twitch fibers 00:20:24.099 --> 00:20:26.619 where they should be capable of high speed, that 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:28.700 increase in temperature should be more important. 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:31.180 And just increasing the muscle temperature by 00:20:31.180 --> 00:20:33.960 one degree, which doesn't take a lot of contractions, 00:20:33.980 --> 00:20:38.140 can improve power by about 5%. I mean, 5 % is 00:20:38.140 --> 00:20:40.960 massive, right? Do the math. If you could do, 00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:44.319 say, 10%, you'd run 100 meters like a whole second 00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:48.359 quicker. So 5 % is a massive gain in power, right? 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:51.619 So temperature is critical. We've already talked 00:20:51.619 --> 00:20:54.900 about motor control, so coordination and massive... 00:20:55.309 --> 00:20:57.910 top or peak activation, temperature and water. 00:20:58.049 --> 00:21:00.190 And they're the three things that we really believe 00:21:00.190 --> 00:21:02.710 matter the most. So where does this leave us 00:21:02.710 --> 00:21:05.329 for a warmup? Well, you can do a general warmup 00:21:05.329 --> 00:21:07.029 if you like. I mean, if you just want to go for 00:21:07.029 --> 00:21:09.450 an easy run or sit on an exercise bike or sit 00:21:09.450 --> 00:21:11.289 on a rower because it's whole body and going 00:21:11.289 --> 00:21:13.049 to actually warm up more of the things and you 00:21:13.049 --> 00:21:15.549 just do a five minute easy row or whatever, you 00:21:15.549 --> 00:21:17.289 can do that. That will elevate the temperature 00:21:17.289 --> 00:21:19.349 of the body, elevate the muscle temperature, 00:21:19.569 --> 00:21:22.190 increase blood flow. Perfect. But at some point 00:21:22.190 --> 00:21:24.819 you have to start doing the lifting. Because 00:21:24.819 --> 00:21:27.880 only when you do that can you get maximal, highly 00:21:27.880 --> 00:21:31.240 coordinated activation practice. Of course, an 00:21:31.240 --> 00:21:33.400 Olympic lift is really complicated. So you might 00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:35.619 start off with just doing the deadlift portion 00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:38.140 of it, some press parts of it. You know, you're 00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:39.880 walking around and you're just practicing all 00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:42.119 the different bits, making sure you feel like 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:43.859 you've got your appropriate range of motion. 00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:46.079 If you want to do some higher range of motion 00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:48.680 stuff to improve your mobility briefly or do 00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:50.920 some stretching, yes, you can. I know that's 00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.259 another podcast, but you can do some brief stretching. 00:21:53.839 --> 00:21:55.220 won't affect your weightlifting performance. 00:21:55.500 --> 00:21:57.380 But if it makes you feel like you're able to 00:21:57.380 --> 00:21:59.180 get in your positions better, then that will 00:21:59.180 --> 00:22:01.279 benefit performance. And then you've got to keep 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:04.559 on. pulling the complex task together and you've 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:07.079 got to keep on getting faster and faster until 00:22:07.079 --> 00:22:10.079 you're lifting a pretty good load at your absolute 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:13.039 fastest effort through the full lift because 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:15.680 that's perfect practice. By the way, and this 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:17.720 is where the research isn't so great, we know 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:20.119 that mental imagery is really, really useful. 00:22:20.299 --> 00:22:22.920 What we probably don't know is if you do the 00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.619 mental imagery in addition to the perfect practice, 00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:28.400 does it augment performance more? Most of us 00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:29.980 who train in the gym say yes. If you're doing 00:22:29.980 --> 00:22:32.559 a heavy bench press, The very first rep is always 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:34.500 better if you've just done some mental imagery. 00:22:34.660 --> 00:22:36.779 So we think mental imagery could be important. 00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:38.500 And that's why I'm sure some of your lifters 00:22:38.500 --> 00:22:40.500 go out onto the platform and the last thing they're 00:22:40.500 --> 00:22:42.819 doing is doing their internal imagery, right? 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:45.400 So that's what a warmup will do. It will make 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:47.319 you feel better. It will give you the appropriate 00:22:47.319 --> 00:22:49.799 ranges of motion. It will increase your muscle 00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:52.609 temperatures. a light sweat is a nice place to 00:22:52.609 --> 00:22:55.750 be. It will then give you practice at a highly 00:22:55.750 --> 00:22:58.410 complicated skill, which by the way, might require 00:22:58.410 --> 00:23:00.730 you to build it up from simple movements to the 00:23:00.730 --> 00:23:02.529 whole movement. And it will give you maximal 00:23:02.529 --> 00:23:05.130 rate of activation of your muscles, which is 00:23:05.130 --> 00:23:07.750 completely exceptionally important for weightlifting. 00:23:08.170 --> 00:23:11.130 That whole thing could take you half an hour, 00:23:11.210 --> 00:23:13.650 45 minutes, depending how much time you leave 00:23:13.650 --> 00:23:16.109 between your practice lifts. By the way, in a 00:23:16.109 --> 00:23:18.150 lot of research then, if you look at research 00:23:18.150 --> 00:23:20.589 looking at PAPE, you're lucky if the warmup lasts 00:23:20.589 --> 00:23:23.490 five to 10 minutes, even if they say a specific 00:23:23.490 --> 00:23:25.690 warmup was done. So it's really important to 00:23:25.690 --> 00:23:27.569 read the research and say, is this actually a 00:23:27.569 --> 00:23:29.329 warmup that I would do before a competition? 00:23:29.509 --> 00:23:32.190 And therefore, do I know whether this conditioning 00:23:32.190 --> 00:23:34.970 activity, this extra cool, sexy thing is actually 00:23:34.970 --> 00:23:37.170 going to work on my day? And if you're not sure, 00:23:37.450 --> 00:23:39.490 You can test it yourself. Be your own test subject 00:23:39.490 --> 00:23:41.549 and see whether it works for you because everyone's 00:23:41.549 --> 00:23:43.430 different, right? And things are going to work 00:23:43.430 --> 00:23:45.569 differently for everyone. So what you need to 00:23:45.569 --> 00:23:47.650 do is replicate your competition in training 00:23:47.650 --> 00:23:50.430 and actually see which type of warm -up works 00:23:50.430 --> 00:23:52.589 best for you and whether something funky and 00:23:52.589 --> 00:23:55.069 cool is beneficial. Sounds good. The other part 00:23:55.069 --> 00:23:58.049 in the research is that we talked a little bit 00:23:58.049 --> 00:24:02.470 off camera is that research studies have respondents 00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:04.650 and non -respondents, but not only that, people 00:24:04.650 --> 00:24:07.589 are responding to a different degree. So if we 00:24:07.589 --> 00:24:09.769 are running a study, we are usually reporting 00:24:09.769 --> 00:24:12.829 means for the group. So this is where, okay, 00:24:12.890 --> 00:24:16.210 overall, on average, this is what we are expecting 00:24:16.210 --> 00:24:20.430 to happen. But individual may be on this end 00:24:20.430 --> 00:24:23.750 or this end or anywhere in the middle or even 00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:26.430 can be an outlier. So be somewhere else for whatever 00:24:26.430 --> 00:24:29.670 reason. So it is always important to, okay, this 00:24:29.670 --> 00:24:32.109 is what we see in research, but this is how it 00:24:32.109 --> 00:24:34.650 will relate to you. And you only know that after 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:37.640 testing that approach. protocol or the thing 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:39.799 that was tested for yourself. Yeah, perfect. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:41.700 So that's really important because it's really 00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:44.500 nice to think that your listeners are actually 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:46.680 jumping on Google Scholar and trying to find 00:24:46.680 --> 00:24:48.619 the research and talking to people about them 00:24:48.619 --> 00:24:50.960 and looking for themselves. That's a really good 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:52.660 thing to do. So when you're doing that, there 00:24:52.660 --> 00:24:54.380 are a few things you need to watch out for. One 00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:56.539 of them you mentioned is that when we do research 00:24:56.539 --> 00:24:59.500 studies, we often tell you how on average everyone 00:24:59.500 --> 00:25:01.440 moved. We tell you something about the variability 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:04.500 of that, but we're not always looking at individuals. 00:25:05.099 --> 00:25:07.319 say, oh, on average, they did this. And yeah, 00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:09.220 there was a bit of variability there. Of course, 00:25:09.220 --> 00:25:11.680 what that really tells us is that everyone needs 00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:14.220 to actually look at that and go, it appears as 00:25:14.220 --> 00:25:17.039 though this might help. But until I test it myself 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:20.039 under the right conditions, I'm never going to 00:25:20.039 --> 00:25:22.339 actually know if it helps me because it could 00:25:22.339 --> 00:25:24.680 hinder you. And we see this a lot. We see that 00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:26.880 with certain strength training programs and certain 00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:28.900 endurance training programs, we have what we 00:25:28.900 --> 00:25:31.259 call non -responders. And some of them are not 00:25:31.259 --> 00:25:33.119 responding the way you would expect. And that's 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:34.980 really important for you to know. it right for 00:25:34.980 --> 00:25:37.480 you but there's another problem here in some 00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:40.470 research studies Of course, researchers are aware 00:25:40.470 --> 00:25:42.309 of this problem and they'll say, hey, look, there 00:25:42.309 --> 00:25:45.150 is a variability. I'm going to show you that 00:25:45.150 --> 00:25:47.410 there were some people who responded positively 00:25:47.410 --> 00:25:50.009 and these people were below the average. They 00:25:50.009 --> 00:25:52.609 didn't respond positively. But that's also a 00:25:52.609 --> 00:25:55.829 big problem in research because every test has 00:25:55.829 --> 00:25:58.349 an unreliability. It's not just the test here 00:25:58.349 --> 00:25:59.950 that is a little bit unreliable. It was also 00:25:59.950 --> 00:26:01.789 the first test, the pre -test that was a bit 00:26:01.789 --> 00:26:04.390 unreliable. So now the change that you're looking 00:26:04.390 --> 00:26:07.829 for is doubly unreliable. And by the way, on 00:26:07.829 --> 00:26:10.869 the day. you are also unreliable the subject 00:26:10.869 --> 00:26:13.690 themselves is unreliable because they might have 00:26:13.690 --> 00:26:16.069 lost motivation at the end of the study or they 00:26:16.069 --> 00:26:18.250 might have not been as motivated at the start 00:26:18.250 --> 00:26:20.269 of the study or they were chatting to the researcher 00:26:20.269 --> 00:26:22.430 about something in the pre -testing but at post 00:26:22.430 --> 00:26:24.690 -testing they were fully focused and so humans 00:26:24.690 --> 00:26:28.069 themselves are unreliable and all that unreliability 00:26:28.069 --> 00:26:29.890 is in there so you can't just say look these 00:26:29.890 --> 00:26:31.930 people are non -responders because they didn't 00:26:31.930 --> 00:26:34.250 go up the only way to know if they were non -responders 00:26:34.250 --> 00:26:37.089 or if these people were responders is to test 00:26:37.089 --> 00:26:40.279 them more multiple times, at least three, probably 00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:43.779 at least four. And if they get the same response 00:26:43.779 --> 00:26:47.160 four times out of four, that's probably their 00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:49.940 actual true response. So we got to, yes, think 00:26:49.940 --> 00:26:51.720 about the individual, but if you read a paper 00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:53.240 that just said there were responders and non 00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:55.440 -responders, you can't necessarily believe that 00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:58.619 that's the case. And even if you test it on yourself, 00:26:59.019 --> 00:27:01.480 you probably should test it at least twice. You'll 00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:03.119 know whether you were fully motivated, fully 00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:05.279 warmed up, same time of day, blah, blah, blah. 00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:08.160 At least do it twice. if not three times to find 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:11.500 out whether it is repeatably and reliably good 00:27:11.500 --> 00:27:14.759 or bad for you. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. 00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:17.259 One more aspect I wanted to ask you about is 00:27:17.259 --> 00:27:21.640 timeframes. So what timeframe would we expect 00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:25.599 for temperature, for water content and for skill 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:28.660 practice? How in minutes? So, you know, if you're 00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:31.359 trying to make the perfect warmup, how you should 00:27:31.359 --> 00:27:34.440 be thinking about how long the temperature will 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:38.279 be lasting for? And how long the water content 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:41.180 will be lasting for or how? This is a really 00:27:41.180 --> 00:27:43.579 good question. Do you know, I'm not aware of 00:27:43.579 --> 00:27:46.160 a single study that has properly done this, where 00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:49.039 we say here is the full proper warmup. It might 00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:51.380 be over half an hour of exactly what Olympic 00:27:51.380 --> 00:27:53.359 guys are doing, girls are doing before they go 00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:55.140 out on the platform at the Olympic Games. Now 00:27:55.140 --> 00:27:58.140 let's test and see how long certain things are 00:27:58.140 --> 00:28:00.200 lasting. You'd have to get them in several times 00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:02.140 because you need a few different tests and they'll 00:28:02.140 --> 00:28:03.819 all affect each other, right? So it's not an 00:28:03.819 --> 00:28:05.609 easy study. You need good athletes. willing to 00:28:05.609 --> 00:28:07.349 give up the time you need to have the ability 00:28:07.349 --> 00:28:09.349 to do the tests and you probably need to get 00:28:09.349 --> 00:28:11.750 people in multiple times to do different tests 00:28:11.750 --> 00:28:14.089 on different days to build up the full picture 00:28:14.089 --> 00:28:16.670 i'm not aware of that being done what i can tell 00:28:16.670 --> 00:28:19.049 you in our lab is that when we look at changes 00:28:19.049 --> 00:28:21.710 in muscle temperature changes in water mass we're 00:28:21.710 --> 00:28:24.529 doing it after just a few contractions just a 00:28:24.529 --> 00:28:26.809 few contractions are enough to increase temperature 00:28:26.809 --> 00:28:29.210 by a degree a degree and a half that's a lot 00:28:29.210 --> 00:28:32.210 it's enough to detectably change water we can 00:28:32.210 --> 00:28:34.930 see the muscle thickening we look at how a Electricity 00:28:34.930 --> 00:28:36.970 passes through your muscles and we see it change. 00:28:37.109 --> 00:28:38.890 We know that therefore there's a water change. 00:28:39.130 --> 00:28:42.109 And it looks like it's lasting eight to 10 minutes 00:28:42.109 --> 00:28:44.309 at least. So it means that if you finish your 00:28:44.309 --> 00:28:46.569 warmup and it takes a bit of time to get to the 00:28:46.569 --> 00:28:48.750 platform to do your lift, you're probably okay. 00:28:48.930 --> 00:28:51.789 But here's the thing. If you do a bigger amount 00:28:51.789 --> 00:28:54.930 of effort, so you do a harder warmup than just 00:28:54.930 --> 00:28:57.049 the few contractions we're doing in our experiments. 00:28:57.109 --> 00:28:59.509 If you're building up temperature over a slightly 00:28:59.509 --> 00:29:02.450 longer period of time, we do think that these 00:29:02.450 --> 00:29:05.180 effects are lasting even. longer. So 15 or 20 00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:09.660 minutes would not be unreasonable. So it looks 00:29:09.660 --> 00:29:11.700 like if you do your warmup out the back, by the 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:13.200 time you come out the front, you've got most 00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:14.859 of it, but that doesn't mean you've got all of 00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:17.500 it, right? So the question is, should I be doing 00:29:17.500 --> 00:29:20.000 something in the 30 seconds or one minute before 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:22.359 I... actually stand on the platform the answer 00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:25.440 is probably exactly what that is hard to tell 00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:28.160 probably it's something that rapidly activates 00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:31.039 your nervous system and your water and your temperature 00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:34.240 like a few vertical jumps but we don't want it 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:36.980 to be so specific that it can interfere so one 00:29:36.980 --> 00:29:38.880 thing you might do is just a couple of quick 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:40.700 vertical jumps to get the temperature and the 00:29:40.700 --> 00:29:42.680 water back up but of course when you first get 00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:44.059 it out there the next thing you want to do is 00:29:44.059 --> 00:29:46.539 the mental imagery to make sure that your motor 00:29:46.539 --> 00:29:49.059 pattern is is has just been gone through in your 00:29:49.059 --> 00:29:51.490 brain now Now, I have to stress, we have never 00:29:51.490 --> 00:29:53.569 done the research and I haven't seen a study 00:29:53.569 --> 00:29:56.529 that has done this idea of a few jumps and then 00:29:56.529 --> 00:29:59.089 mental imagery and checked how that then makes 00:29:59.089 --> 00:30:01.230 you behave. Other things people are doing is 00:30:01.230 --> 00:30:03.650 trying to maintain passive temperature and a 00:30:03.650 --> 00:30:06.230 bit of water flow by doing the warmup and then 00:30:06.230 --> 00:30:09.210 putting hot stuff on them or putting extra clothing 00:30:09.210 --> 00:30:11.990 on that you only take off just as you're about 00:30:11.990 --> 00:30:14.849 to walk out. So the key is to find ways to maintain 00:30:14.849 --> 00:30:18.490 muscle temperature whilst not doing something 00:30:18.490 --> 00:30:20.329 that might... interfere with your motor patterns 00:30:20.329 --> 00:30:23.990 so passive heating could be really good after 00:30:23.990 --> 00:30:26.170 you finish your full warm -up just before you 00:30:26.170 --> 00:30:28.490 walk out onto the stage that's very useful thank 00:30:28.490 --> 00:30:30.190 you sorry i don't have all the perfect answers 00:30:30.190 --> 00:30:32.410 but that's that's science isn't it yeah i think 00:30:32.410 --> 00:30:35.869 it's it it gives us something to try so thank 00:30:35.869 --> 00:30:38.910 you so i will give you an opportunity to bring 00:30:38.910 --> 00:30:42.089 it all together so what would be your take -home 00:30:42.089 --> 00:30:45.450 message for coaches who try to prime the athletes 00:30:45.450 --> 00:30:47.890 or try to give them the best chance to perform 00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:50.740 specifically in power and strength sports, so 00:30:50.740 --> 00:30:53.279 one repetition maximum, what would be your take 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:55.920 -home message? Okay. Well, the take -home is 00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:58.180 that most of it, of course, is in proper training, 00:30:58.339 --> 00:31:00.819 nutrition, sleep, and stress management before 00:31:00.819 --> 00:31:03.039 you even get there. All the basics, right? The 00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:06.059 basics are the key. Without talking about priming, 00:31:06.140 --> 00:31:08.420 just the immediate sort of warm -up within the 00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:11.599 hour before competition or so, just go back to 00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:14.380 the basics of what a full, comprehensive, perfect 00:31:14.380 --> 00:31:16.700 warm -up should have to the best of our current 00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:18.700 understanding. And that is muscle temperature, 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:22.400 probably water, maximal activation, perfect coordination. 00:31:22.819 --> 00:31:25.859 And of course, the psychology of being in that 00:31:25.859 --> 00:31:28.099 perfect state of psychology where you're not 00:31:28.099 --> 00:31:30.240 too stressed and not too understressed, which 00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:32.680 we haven't talked about. Once you do that and 00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:35.519 get that about right, at the moment that the 00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:38.519 possibility is that there are some little tricks 00:31:38.519 --> 00:31:41.000 and weird conditioning activities we might do 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.099 that can enhance performance more. Well, I think 00:31:43.099 --> 00:31:45.559 it's a good news because we, you know, you always 00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.480 look for... tiny things but really if you get 00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:50.779 the basics right if you warm up to a certain 00:31:50.779 --> 00:31:54.299 temperature and you hydrate it properly you and 00:31:54.299 --> 00:31:57.759 you practice skill with intention of being fast 00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:00.920 and powerful and explosive at skill like Olympic 00:32:00.920 --> 00:32:03.599 weightlifting snatch or pin and jerk where where 00:32:03.599 --> 00:32:07.920 these are the very complex but also fast movements 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:11.519 so if you do that you're mostly there so I think 00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:14.119 it's a good news exactly and practice that practice 00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:17.170 that process over and over again. And once you 00:32:17.170 --> 00:32:19.569 like the process, that will also help you with 00:32:19.569 --> 00:32:22.170 your psychology, right? You won't get too nervous 00:32:22.170 --> 00:32:23.910 because you've been through the process a million 00:32:23.910 --> 00:32:25.589 times. You're just repeating it. But you'll be 00:32:25.589 --> 00:32:28.049 motivated because motivating is part of your 00:32:28.049 --> 00:32:30.269 process. And as your lifters know, when they're 00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:32.650 highly motivated but appropriate, that's when 00:32:32.650 --> 00:32:34.549 they do their best because you need a massive 00:32:34.549 --> 00:32:36.829 activation of the muscles and a lot of muscles. 00:32:36.950 --> 00:32:39.210 It's not just the knee extension, right? It really 00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:43.130 matters. I interviewed Tom Smiley on imagery 00:32:43.130 --> 00:32:45.829 specifically for weightlifting. how to do it 00:32:45.829 --> 00:32:49.150 from i want to do it to how to actually implement 00:32:49.150 --> 00:32:52.529 it so i think i may pair your interview with 00:32:52.529 --> 00:32:55.890 his so that people can get this this full combo 00:32:55.890 --> 00:32:59.549 physiology plus the the psychological part i 00:32:59.549 --> 00:33:01.250 think yeah no i get the whole package perfect 00:33:01.250 --> 00:33:04.059 sounds good Awesome. So I have two short questions 00:33:04.059 --> 00:33:06.259 to finish. The first one is, what is your favorite 00:33:06.259 --> 00:33:09.319 exercise, you personally? In the gym, that's 00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:11.359 a really good question. I have to say bench press 00:33:11.359 --> 00:33:13.039 because it's just the one thing where it has 00:33:13.039 --> 00:33:14.859 to always come down to a certain point, always 00:33:14.859 --> 00:33:16.940 up to a certain point. You can't fake it. It 00:33:16.940 --> 00:33:19.000 is what it is. Unfortunately, shoulders are starting 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:20.859 to get a bit sore these days. Out of the gym, 00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:23.259 I'm a sprint runner and I love nothing more than 00:33:23.259 --> 00:33:26.779 the feeling of flowing during a high speed run. 00:33:26.940 --> 00:33:30.099 It feels amazing. It feels like I'm flying and 00:33:30.099 --> 00:33:32.299 so I can't better than a... nice sprint run. 00:33:32.400 --> 00:33:34.960 Awesome. And the last question is where people 00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:37.319 can find you if they want to follow your work, 00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:39.759 learn more or ask a question? Well, of course, 00:33:39.759 --> 00:33:42.259 you can type in Blazowicz into Google Scholar 00:33:42.259 --> 00:33:43.940 and find all the research because there aren't 00:33:43.940 --> 00:33:46.740 too many Blazowiczs. My Twitter or ex -handle 00:33:46.740 --> 00:33:50.000 is Tony Blazowicz. I think it's one word, at 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.299 wherever. And that'd be the same for Instagram, 00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:54.839 although I don't use Instagram a lot. So LinkedIn 00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:56.759 should be all the same thing. If you search for 00:33:56.759 --> 00:33:58.500 Tony Blazowicz, you should be able to find everything. 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:00.500 Awesome, Tony. Thank you so much for the day. 00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:03.200 a pleasure my pleasure good to chat to you good 00:34:03.200 --> 00:34:04.859 luck with everything cheers thank you