Project Neck Rolls On!

Project Neck is off and running!
Project Neck, now being conducted at Elon University in North Carolina.  Test subjects are working hard.
The Project Neck Lab consists of two state-of the- art pieces of strength training equipment being provided by Pendulum of Rogers Athletic. We have a compact squat rack and several hundreds of pounds of weight and a olympic bar.

Project Neck differs from any other concussive forces study in the fact that this is the only study to ever research the head and neck together. The only study to induce hypertrophy of the capital muscle of the head and neck. The only study to examine  neck cylinder size and how that size difference lowers concussive forces.
Project Neck’s goal is to build a better dissipator  of kinetic energy by anatomical and morphological changes of the musculature of the head and neck through resistance training.
Project Neck is a simple study. We want to lower concussive and subconcussive forces.
We believe Project Neck to be a noble cause.  Project Neck is the only research study looking at what can be done  prior to the concussive episode.  If Project Neck’s research helps to lower dangerous forces to the brain through an established protocol we will feel our time to be well spent.  A protocol would allow an athlete to prepare for the rigors of his or her sport.  Concussions will always be a risk of playing competitive sports and the only cure for concussions is to stop playing sports.

The mission of every sport coach, strength coach or parent should be to protect the athlete first. Project Neck’s research results hope to give coaches and parents the tools to prepare their athletes for competition.

Project Neck Expands to Elon University

Ralph Cornwell, Jr. PhD. Candidate from Virginia Tech announced today of the expansion of his research study looking at lowering concussive and subconcussive forces with anatomical changes to the  neck, trapezius and upper back , accomplished through resistance training.

Cornwell’s research appropriately named Project Neck,  is charged with creating a protocol that an athlete can use to lower concussive and subconcussive forces. Cornwell is using state of the art Pendulum equipment from Rogers Athletic.                                                                                                                                                                                      
Project Neck expanded it’s research from Virginia Tech to Elon University, located in North Carolina. Cornwell is working in conjunction with Elon professors Dr. Eric Hall and Dr. Paul Miller of the Neuroscience Department at Elon University.




Dr. Eric Hall       Dr. Paul Miller
Project Neck is the only study looking at preventative sports medicine. Addressing the concussive and subconcussive forces before the athlete concusses. A great amount of research is  ongoing at several universities in the United States involving concussion treatment and cause and effect. Project Neck, to the best of my knowledge, is the only proactive research study examining  the effects of anatomical and morphological changes in the human body and how these changes lower those forces.

The 8 week research study will use a protocol that involves hypertrophy of the muscles of the head and neck. The protocol also addresses the trapezius and the muscles of the upper back. Cornwell is also looking for circumference changes in the upper and lower regions of the neck. Baseline measurements taken at the beginning of the research will be compared to measurements  at the completion of the study.  Strength increases in the head and neck region will also be recorded each training session. The adaptations to the head and neck will increase the stiffness level of that area making for a more resilient athlete.
Lead Research Assistant Matt Kavalek takes baseline measurements
Cornwell’s hope is to create a basic protocol that  coaches of athletes or even  parents could use to help combat what The Center of Disease Control and Prevention calls a National Concussion Epidemic. Cornwell explains, “the only way to stop concussions in athletes is to stop playing their particular sport. If we can not stop concussions then we must prepare our athletes,youth to professional, for the rigors of their sport.” The process is really a combination of the best helmets, mouth pieces and coaching technique. The variable that I believe we are overlooking is the head and neck. An athlete can still sustain a concussion even while wearing a helmet.

The stronger athlete will be better prepared for contact or collision. Subcocussive forces are also a health problem that must be addressed. The low level bumps and dings an athlete receives in any given season can be a cause for concern later in life. Research has shown that subcocussive forces can cause long term brain injuries well after the athlete stops playing competitive sports. Concussions can be caused by the accumulation of these small hits too. When we watch sporting events on television it would make sense that the extremely hard collisions  we view would be the culprit of the concussion crisis. This not the case, as further research is conducted, scientists are finding the subconcussive forces to be just as damaging as the violent collisions. The problem with subconcussive forces is this; you don’t always notice them as an athlete playing a sport or as a coach observing a practice or game.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the National Institute of Health agree that America has a National Concussion Epidemic. These two goverment agencies are only called upon when there is a health crisis or problem with our food supply on a national level. If there were a Flu Epidemic, scientists would work towards a vaccine and begin inoculating the population with a cure. The Concussion Epidemic has been dealt with in a different manner. Researcher observe the cause of concussions and study how to best treat a concussion after the person has injured his or her brain.

Cornwell’s research takes a different approach towards the concussion epidemic. He believes we should inoculate our youth playing sports and their college and professional counterparts. Cornwell explains, ” I do not believe we are curing the concussion problem in America with any protocol designed to give the athlete the ability to lower  concussive forces. What I do believe is this, if we do nothing we are not giving our athletes any means of  resistance to concussive or subconcussive forces. If  my study helps to lower concussive forces  by 1 percent, it is a step in the right direction. If we raise the level by which subconcussive  forces can not harm the brain, this is also a step in the right direction.”

Project Neck’s protocol is time efficient, purposeful and presumed effective. The protocol can be performed in under 20 minutes twice a week. This is not a large amount of time out of an athletes day when we are concerned with brain injury.  I want this simple study to be the genius of larger research studies looking at protecting the athlete first and foremost. Researchers, athletic trainers and coaches will tell you we can do nothing to protect our athletes. If my research proves nothing at all but spurs on further research, then what harm was done? That’s what science is all about, the search for the truth.
I would like to thanks Dr. Hall and Dr. Miller for their support. I would also like to thank Elon University for allowing me to use their facilities and their generous hospitality.

Leg Press Those Linemen?

Leg Press Those Linemen?

Leg Press Those Linemen With few exceptions muscles exert smaller tension at shorter lengths.
The rectus femoris muscles and wrist extensors are in deference to the above rule in some populations.
The rectus femoris is one of the four powerful quadricep muscles of the upper thigh. The rectus can flex the thigh at the hip and extend the leg at the knee.
In a seated position since the hip is flexed and the muscle is at a shortened length the action of extending a leg is primarily driven by the other three muscles of the quadriceps, the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and vastus intermedius and less by the rectus femoris.
Biomechanically, you would think that the strength of the shortened rectus in knee extension would be weaker for everyone. Not true.
There are the aforementioned exceptions, thus the relationship between muscular strength and the tension a muscle can produce is very complex, especially across groups of individuals.Comparing cyclists with runners, you find the cyclist tend to be strong at a short compared to long rectus femoris length.
It has been argued that since cyclists have a shorter range of hip motion when cycling, compared to the range of motion of runners, that producing more tension at a shorter length is due to training. Other scientist argue that a strong rectus femoris in a shortened position is the result of genetics or of both genetics and training.
Whether the answer is training, inheritance or a combination of both, for the coach and athlete it raises an interesting conundrum about playing sports that require you to keep your knees bent.
When playing offensive line in football the position of choice is bending at the hip and knee. The lineman are also taught to slide their feet to keep an effective posture. They must be strong with their rectus femoris in a shortened position.
Knowing this, a leg press should be the tool of choice to agument strength.  Something for coaches and athletes to think about as they design their workout to Get Strong.



Leg Press Those Linemen With few exceptions muscles exert smaller tension at shorter lengths.
The rectus femoris muscles and wrist extensors are in deference to the above rule in some populations.
The rectus femoris is one of the four powerful quadricep muscles of the upper thigh. The rectus can flex the thigh at the hip and extend the leg at the knee.
In a seated position since the hip is flexed and the muscle is at a shortened length the action of extending a leg is primarily driven by the other three muscles of the quadriceps, the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and vastus intermedius and less by the rectus femoris.
Biomechanically, you would think that the strength of the shortened rectus in knee extension would be weaker for everyone. Not true.
There are the aforementioned exceptions, thus the relationship between muscular strength and the tension a muscle can produce is very complex, especially across groups of individuals.Comparing cyclists with runners, you find the cyclist tend to be strong at a short compared to long rectus femoris length.
It has been argued that since cyclists have a shorter range of hip motion when cycling, compared to the range of motion of runners, that producing more tension at a shorter length is due to training. Other scientist argue that a strong rectus femoris in a shortened position is the result of genetics or of both genetics and training.
Whether the answer is training, inheritance or a combination of both, for the coach and athlete it raises an interesting conundrum about playing sports that require you to keep your knees bent.
When playing offensive line in football the position of choice is bending at the hip and knee. The lineman are also taught to slide their feet to keep an effective posture. They must be strong with their rectus femoris in a shortened position.
Knowing this, a leg press should be the tool of choice to agument strength.  Something for coaches and athletes to think about as they design their workout to Get Strong.

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i State Strength And Conditioning Clinic

Get Strong

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i State Strength And Conditioning Clinic

 

Mississippi State Strength and Conditioning Clinic              
Set For February 25-26, 2011                                             



The Mississippi State University Strength and Conditioning Staff officially invites you and your staff to join us at the 2011 Mississippi State University Strength & Conditioning Clinic.
The clinic will be Friday, February 25th, 2011, from 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. and Saturday, February 26th, 2011, from 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., with lunch being provided.

Matt Balis, Chad Smith and James Townsend of the Mississippi State Strength and Conditioning Staff will kickoff the 2011 Clinic by speaking Friday evening. Saturday guest speakers for the clinic will include the following:

Jeff Connors, Director of Strength and Conditioning, East Carolina University

Michael Doescher, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Valdosta State University

Mike Gittleson, Former Director of Strength and Conditioning, University of Michigan

Lewis Caralla, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, Georgia Tech

Bryan Miller, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Oregon State University
Chip Smith, Founder and President, Competitive Edge Sports 
 If we can be of any assistance, please feel free to call or e-mail James Townsend at 662-325-8582, or Matt Balis at 662-325-8627.

We look forward to seeing you!

Pendulum In The M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i State Weight Room

Train The Head And Neck

Train The Head Neck & Traps

 

Train The Head Neck And Traps                                              
1). Nod 10 Degrees

2). Tilt 25 Degrees

3). Neck Flexion


4). Right Side Of Neck

5). Left Side Of Neck

6). Neck Extension

7). One Arm High Shrug

8). Two Arm Shrug


9). Underhand Row With Scapular Retraction


10). Seated One Arm Overhead Press

Tags: neck training, neck

Comments

High or low reps that is the question?

High or low reps that is the question?

With the advent of Life Sciences, Exercise Science is beginning to take a dramatic turn.

Scientists now have the capability to take training studies much further and compare the number of molecules developed from a training regime, tracking their respective pathways that elicit particular muscular responses.

They look at fancy stuff like P70s6k, GSK-3beta, Foxo1 and AKT signalling and the mTOR molecular pathway.

This takes the testing inaccuracy and bias out of the results. It says this is what happened when we counted or tracked the molecules.

The cool thing is you can find out what is going on even if the strength training protocol is not equivocally designed.

Studying the molecules has and will change what we think and what we think we know about exercise. The real science of exercise is just beginning.

In a recent study out of Australia at Deakin University, the researchers were looking at the pathways to hypertrophy and atrophy of skeletal muscle in humans.

They were looking at the AKT signaling. AKT is at the center of the chart on the left.

In order to compare and study the molecular responses to training they wanted disparity between the strength training groups.

When you do a study you want the results to show up so you can compare the two modalities in question..

To achieve this they decided to repeat the protocols on high and low repetitions as described in the current scientific literature on strength training. This way there would be no doubt about the results and make tracking of the molecular pathways easier.

The findings would be good stuff for a strength coach. They would know for certain if you do the following protocol, this is exactly what will happen at the cellular level.

This is much like the Kreb Cycle that the health professional learned as part of physiology classes.

They learned if you run aerobically a glucose molecule in the presence of oxygen enters the Krebs cycle and will give you 36 ATP and 2 ATP more from glycolysis. With this info the health professional can accurately tell you what is occurring when you run and design the appropriate distance or sprinting routine.

The Deakin University scientists thought they understood strength development and had one strength training group train with low repetitions and the other with high repetitions. The low repetition group did 3-5 reps for 4 sets, while the high rep group did 20-28 reps for 2 sets. The low rep group took 3 minutes rest between sets and the high rep group only had 1 minute rest between sets.

The exercises used in each group were the leg press, squat and leg extension.

Based on the previous studies they were replicating the authors were sure that there protocols would give them disparity in results. The low repetition group would develop much more strength than the high repetition group. They would then report all the molecular changes based upon the protocols.

What they found was both groups had significant increase in hypertrophy, muscular strength and muscular endurance.

Which was exactly what they were not looking for.

Their study refuted just about everything that had been written regarding repetitions in strength training so far.

They did establish the role of AKT downstream signaling pathways in human skeletal muscle.

It also cleared up something that many strength coaches already empirically knew.....high repetition strength training gives you surprisingly tremendous results.

The key to developing strength is being systematic and progressive. Repetitions don't mean much to molecules other than providing mechanical tension. The cells sense the force and this tension changes cellular behavior.

High rep stuff is a great way to..... GET STRONG.

Tags: squat, Strength and Conditioning