Talk:Strength training

Merging weight training here

Refer Talk:Weight training#Merging.

Isokinetic Exercise

Searching for Isokinetic exercise is not listed in your information. Appx 52 years ago we developed a new type exerciser that we called the Mini Gym. A couple years later Dr James Perina at Univ of Iowa designed a much larger exerciser, he called Cybex and named the exercise ISOKINETIC. Both our exercisers controlled the speed of exercise,and accommodated to the user instead of the user accommodating to the resistance as with weights. Now there were 3 types of resistive exercise, Isometrics, isotonics and isokinetics. ISOKINETICS IS POSITIVE ONLY EXERCISE AND DEVELOPS ATHLETIC POWER. I tell my story on our Home page Powerspeed-training.com (formally called Mini Gym Co.) In 1972 our small isokinetic Mini Gym was used by Skylab Astronauts in Space flights. Our most famous exerciser, the Isokinetic Leaper changed athletic training in 1975 when we introduced Speed Training with Positive only exercise (concentric) and no (eccentric) lowering of weights. Athletes could do 50 repetitions in less than one one minute. The Fast Speed Training develops athletes white quick twitch muscle fibers for higher jumping, more speed and quicker reflexes. We have had 5 patents issued in our 50 years. Coaches for many years used weight training to get athletes stronger and bigger. Isokinetic adds another advantage of higher jumping, more speed and reflexes. There are hundreds of articles written about isokinetic exercise on web sites and thousands of training centers, big and small (even in homes or garages) improving young athletes. Also, there are hundreds of manufacturing companies making some type of isokinetic exerciser. Isokinetics used in measuring muscle injury and strength gains. Also, rehab leg limbs, and recently training young athletes to improve their game.

MEDRS scope

MEDRS only applies to biomedical information. Per WP:BMI this is: Attributes of a disease or condition, Attributes of a treatment or drug, Medical decisions, Health effects, Population data and epidemiology.

Which of these does muscle strength gain during weight training fall under? I guess either "attributes of a treatment" or "health effects". Considering health effects, my argument that a few percent difference in muscle mass does not significantly affect health. Certainly, long-term weight training improves health, so I guess MEDRS applies to those parts of the article, but pretty much any workout routine will have similar effects, the effect of reps here is barely measurable to begin with. Considering treatment, the argument is that strength training does not require any specialized skills or equipment (per history section it was done in prehistoric tribes with rocks), so is about as much of a "treatment" as drinking water (namely, not a medical treatment). Confirming this, resistance training is mainly discussed in sports journals, not medical journals (except for the population studies of health effects). So, I think there's pretty much no reason to apply medrs in this case.

Now as far as general reliable source guidelines, it is true that it's a preprint, but the last author Michael Zourdos has a pretty long CV, so I'd say it's acceptable as a subject-matter expert opinion per WP:SPS (and presumably, it's going to be published in the next few months anyway, so this is really about when to add the article) Mathnerd314159 (talk) 18:47, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I would say that muscle mass is a "health effect". Furthermore, I don't see why this 2023 preprint is superior to the 2022 source. (t · c) buidhe 18:50, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

It's in the 2023 source: "No meta-analysis to date [besides ours] has examined proximity to failure as a continuous variable on muscle hypertrophy and strength gain." So where the 2022 source said there was inconclusive stats, the 2023 source did the statistics differently and got statistically significant results. The 2023 source also has a lot more studies (55 vs 15 for the 2022 source). Mathnerd314159 (talk) 22:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Too technical

This article is becoming far too technical in terms of the language used. Also there are too many research articles being used. Whilst the old page may have needed a revamp, it was to its credit more inclusive.RickyBennison (talk) 00:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the prose should be kept accurate yet understandable to a broad audience (WP:MED guidance is helpful here). As for sources, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "research articles". Ideally, we would not be citing an individual study to say "study found that..." instead review articles should be cited. (t · c) buidhe 01:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

The terms concentric/eccentric in the tempo discussion are just terrible (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899915/), but I don't know what the proper terminology is so I just left them. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 01:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Is there a better source for them being "terrible" than a letter to the editor, which is generally not reliable except for the opinions of the authors? I'm genuinely interested as I've seen this terminology in a lot of sports research. Additionally, if a source uses one term it can be challenging to substitute it for another with a different meaning yet ensure we are correctly representing the finding. (t · c) buidhe 01:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, I was looking for a guide for which exercise movements correspond to concentric/eccentric movements, so I could get the codes right, and that letter complaining about the lack of consistent usage was the first result. I still don't really know what's right; this random site [1] says concentric is muscle contraction and eccentric is muscle release, and they use bicep curls as the example, but in one of the cited studies [2] that's basically bicep curls, it seems elbow flexion is eccentric and elbow extension is concentric, which is the reverse. That's basically the ambiguity the letter complains about. Looking at the source [3] it seems the order of the numbers varies significantly and they just picked the one order for purposes of their review. I'm pretty sure they just chose the order to match the order of the exercise phases during a repetition, so if there is some clear, popular terminology for the breakdown of a repetition into phases then I'd say that terminology is probably better. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 02:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Hmm.... I am hardly an expert on this terminology but I thought that curling your elbow during a bicep curl is concentric because you are moving your muscle against weight. If you were suspended upside down holding a weight in your arm doing the same movement, it would be eccentric (and straightening your arm—concentric) because resistance is pulling in the opposite direction. (t · c) buidhe 02:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Protection?

There seems to be a high amount of external link spamming on this page. I count 3 such edits in the past week - there was a similar spree of edits around 15 June, also this edit 8 February, I'm sure the vandalism goes back further. Honestly it is not too bad and manual reverting is fine for now, but maybe some level of protection would be good, like pending changes protection? Mathnerd314159 (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I have PC reviewer permissions but I don't think the level of spam is enough to make protection necessary. (t · c) buidhe 23:38, 23 November 2023 (UTC)