http://www.nfl.com/videos/new-york-jets/09000d5d81063dbc/Jets-facility-tour Link to the video on NFL.com for those of you who do not have NFL network, or may have missed it. That place is sexy...
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-total-access/09000d5d810642f0/Liftin-with-the-Jets In this video they show the Jets bench pressing with heavy chains attached to the bar. When the bar lowers during the movement some of the chains hit the floor and thus lighten the load. At the top of the movement all the chains are off the ground and the load is the heaviest. Can anyone who actually knows tell me why this is a good idea? I always thought at the bottom you were mostly using your pecs and at the top your tris, don't see why you would need to lighten the load at the bottom of the movement.
Well, I'm studying to be a strength and conditioning and will be interning with a pro team this year....what this does is helps improve the players bench press by increasing their strength at the bottom. If you ever noticed that when benching you always seem to get stuck at the lower portion of your bench. What this does is allow you to pass that "threshold" while it increases in weight thus allowing you to work at increasing your strength in this lower portion. What a strength coach would also do is have resistance bands strapped to the bar and dumbbells on the floor. What this does is increase the explosive movements of the bench press by making it harder to push the bar plus weight up and the resistance increases. A lot of teams focus on this during the offseason, where as during season players would focus on just maintaining their strength.
Also isn't the movement when the bar is low down harder on the various joints you are using? This way when the weight is more likely to hurt you it's lower while when the movement is "safer" it gets higher... When Sal Aloisi explains that you have more strength at the end of the lift I think he means just that... the way the muscles work at the beginning of the push is less "efficient" then at the end and more energy gets lost in places like shoulder, elbow and clavicula... in fact the harder part when you lift weight is the first push to get it off your chest.
That is correct. There is a lot of stress on the shoulders, wrists, and elbows in the lower position. That is another reason why the lowering the resistance in those areas will reduce the very stress on those joints and strengthen the "weak" muscles. As for the energy that is lost, is not exactly true. Based on the positions that you have your hand set on the bar (Close Grip, Wide Grip, Regular Grip) changes the target area's that are hit. Based on those grips different amount of "energy" is used based on the Target area. The bigger the area the more energy that is used.
hahaha. I wish that worked. We as coaches still do heavy weight squats and bench, but if you noticed that stiffened people up and don't allow them to move as freely as football players do. The way we train them is to be quick, explosive and strong. What is so amazing is that with limited "heavy"weight that is used seeing how strong these players still are. It's not saying there is we don't use heavy weight...we just don't focus on it. There are 4 phases to lifting....Hypertrophy (Making the muscles "bigger") Strength (Neuron recruiting) competition (strength and speed) and maintain (keeping the strength during season)
If you look on the comment section attached to the video some guy left a link to a tour of the Seahawks new complex. Its nice but I think the AHJTC is nicer
The complex cost a pretty penny but from what I read n heard it is def on of the better facilities in the game...
