Muscle Shortening and Lengthening resistance training?

Hi,

I have been told by a physio that the exercises he has given my for my quads are muscle lengthening exercises to help my bung knee.

I am wondering whether there might be other exercises in my routine which are muscle shortening exercises that might work against what I am trying to achieve with these muscle lengthening exercises?

I do a lot of leg raises with my legs straight to strengthen my abs and I'm aware this will also work the quads to a lesser extent. Is this likely to be a problem?

I also have exercises to help my back which I am guessing are muscle shortening exercises because the aim is that the muscle in my back will grow stronger and help improve my posture. Is that right?

How do you tell the difference between a muscle lengthening and shortening exercise?

Are there particular muscle groups which benefit more from one or the other and some which need an even mix?

Should I know which exercises are lengthening and shortening while designing my resistance training program and tailor my program to suit?

Sharla, I take it you mean lying on your back lifting your legs straight. Not a good exercise if you have a bad back. Hanging leg raises are better. Although they work your quads most of the contractions around the knee are isometric (non-moving) so are ok,in general, for injured knees.

God you ask a lot of questions lol. You need to get an anatomy book or find a site and understand the difference between agonist, antagonist and synergist. Also, concentric, eccentric and isometric muscle contractions. It would take too long to explain fully. I'm sure in the first instance google could help.

Has your physio given you knee extensions two legs up, one leg down?

I do hanging leg raises so I'm glad they're OK. :)

I think I will google all those key words you gave me. I must be reading really basic weight training books to have missed all these concepts!

Not quite sure what you mean by the leg extensions exercises you asked about. I only have two legs and he did not volunteer any of his :)

He has told me to raise the leg with bad knee with knee raised slightly on a support while wearing an ankle weight.

He's also got me stepping down off a step controlling the movement with by bad leg and pushing up with the good one to reset. I'm doing 3 sets of 20 for both exercises.

The first exercise is mostly an isometric quad exercise the second (slow step off), is an eccentric quad exercise.

lol the leg extension exercise I asked about is an eccentric quad one. I'll let you work it out. You don't need three legs to do it two's plenty. :) Hint: two legs concentric one leg eccentric.

As a rule of thumb anything isometric or with a small range of motion is gonna possibly shorten your muscles ;)

Make sure you exaggerate the eccentric part of the rep... if you do a pull up for example don't just drop down once you reach the top... explode up (the concentric part) and then slowly lower down on the eccentric part... this means that gravity isn't doing the work... you are putting the breaks on, slowly unconracting whilst lengthening

Thanks Dm and Adam - Sometimes I think I am to blame for all those blonde jokes - but at least I have something to think on for a while :)

I'm blond...



























Dark blond... :P