"believe" in VRT

[douglis]

There is nothing metaphysical about VRT.You don't need extraordinary mental abilities to do it.
I will try to explain.I'm sure everybody have no problem with VRT bicep curls.That's because the triceps are bigger muscle than biceps and can easily provide the braking force.
But what happens with VRT pullups where you're opposing lats(bigger)with delts(smaller)?Generally the negative movement is 30% stronger than the positive so one could think the delts will do the job.The problem is that with convetional training the emphasis is in the positive part and the negative is always neglected.So nobody has ever trained his muscles to contract eccentrically and you may find it difficult to provide braking force,at least for the big muscles.
The good news are that the muscles get stronger in the negative contraction much faster than the positive and in 1 or 2 months I think everybody would be able to pump any muscle in the body.
This is why you have to "believe" in VRT.

[A1C Evans]

Hey Douglas, good post and what you are saying makes good sense. What have been your results with DVR and how long have you done it?

Jared

[douglis]

Thanks Jared,

I practice VRT the last 1.5 year and I gained 4kgr(9 pounds I think)of lean muscle although after 12 years of weight lifting I couldn't gain a pound no matter what i did.
I responded to your thread at Shen's place too.

[VRT Man]

When I made the DVD, douglis, I tried to put the entire concept into the simplest scientific formula for one to understand.

Don't be concerned about the opposing muscle group, the flexors vs. the extensors. Often called by people who do this as the 'braking muscles.' Unbeknownst to most, whether one fully understands this or not, the flexors and the extensors are strong enough to balance each other out, even if you do not think that is so. If not, we would all be "muscle bound," in other words, one muscle group would be so overwhelmingly stronger than the opposing muscle group, that our arms would be constantly bent, we would be hulking over, our legs would have a bent gait, in other words, we'd look like a Neanderthal.

Muscle bound was a term invented at the end of the 19th century regarding one who built up just one muscle group, but did nothing to build up the opposite. Picture doing hundreds of bicep curls, but no tricep exercises at all. The bicep would so overpower the tricep that the arms would always be slightly bent.

Our entire musculature is completely balanced throughout our body, so VRT pull-ups could be maximized even if you feel the braking action would not be strong enough by the deltoids. Visualization maximizes the contraction.

Glad to hear you gained weight. Over a span of many years, I put on close to 40 pounds of muscular weight.

--Greg Mangan

[douglis]

Greg,I think you're right.
I kind of overanalyzed the whole thing.
But I thought that if I tried to give a scientific explanation of VRT I would persuade the sceptics to give it a fair try.

[A1C Evans]

Thanks Jared,

I practice VRT the last 1.5 year and I gained 4kgr(9 pounds I think)of lean muscle although after 12 years of weight lifting I couldn't gain a pound no matter what i did.
I responded to your thread at Shen's place too.

Cool, thanks Douglis.

[Greg Newton]

Good insights Douglis. Also, a very good explanation Greg.

[THESUPERBEAST]

would you say the agonist and atagonist muscle structure recieve a equal amount of stimuli, ie when performing a curl the triceps being the brakes and biceps the engine, the tris can recieve just as much benefiet even though your focused on the biceps?

[douglis]

would you say the agonist and atagonist muscle structure recieve a equal amount of stimuli, ie when performing a curl the triceps being the brakes and biceps the engine, the tris can recieve just as much benefiet even though your focused on the biceps?

Yes,but i believe that this happens only when the agonist(concentric contraction) is the larger muscle.
In your biceps/triceps example when you perform triceps push downs (triceps are larger) your biceps are benefited equally although they're contracting only eccentrically.

[Royce]

I suspect that a lot of new people are, once again, becoming confused about all of this.

But let's keep trying to make this matter clear.

Toward that end, let’s focus on the peculiarities of VRT/DVR exercise. Please don’t start thinking about a barbell or dumbbell, since I’m going to touch for a moment on the special aspects of what goes on with a VRT/DVR.


If you decide to do a curl with DVR/VRT resistance, the biceps power the curling action—that is the concentric or positive movement. So where does the resistance come from? It primarily comes from the triceps.


As we have established, the triceps are working in opposition—that is, providing the braking action.

That means that during the curling action the triceps are being exercised eccentrically. The act of braking with them exercises them. The resistance supplied by the triceps is not imaginary, it is quite real.

And keep in mind that muscles are always stronger when called upon to do a negative—that is, eccentric movement—than they are when called upon to perform a positive or concentric movement.