Injuries often occur and are unable to be trained around because people don’t understand how physics affects their bodies. We’re going to change that.
I warned you; MASS Method is not a spoon-fed program intended for you to zone out and do burpees until the timer dings. It’s a thinking man’s (person’s) method. But I’m no rocket scientist, don’t worry, you can use crayons for the notes, I won’t judge.
Force is what builds us. It’s also what breaks us. Force is a tool, like fire, we have to control it. But how? Well first we have to ask ourselves, what affects force? Load. Or weight, or mass if you’re one of those smarty pants. But what else?
Force equals mass x??! Acceleration!!! Just think speed though.
That’s why fast eccentrics make athletes strong, weight and speed. But when that athlete hits his mid 30’s, that mass and speed dynamic (literally) duo, ain’t superheroes no more. They villains.
Does this mean we gotta step off the gains train? Nope. We use both, just not together. Like two good first graders that just can’t sit next to each other (miss you, Chris Sedarth).
But wait, there’s more. What affects the force on a joint or muscle fiber in addition to weight and speed?
Do me a favor: grab a gallon of milk, or oat milk if you’re one of those, and sit down at the table with it. Place it right in front of you. Now lift it up. You the strongest oat milk drinker in the neighborhood. Now, scoot it away from you until you can barely reach it. Now try to lift it up. What’s wrong? It’s just oat milk. The milk didn’t get any heavier. You weren’t moving it any faster. But it was waaaay harder, right? Why? Levers. L.E.V.E.R.S (I said that in my head like a cheerleader, full disclosure). There are classes of levers but the main factor is the type of lever. Is it internal, or external?
To figure this out we have to identify the fulcrum; which is usually a joint, if the crucial variable is internal. How far is the hip (where the weight is loaded) away from the knee, where the tendons anchor themselves to create… LEVERAGE!!! The farther away, the longer the lever, the more difficult the movement.
Now, external levers (they can and will both come into play here in a minute). How far is the weight from its own fulcrum? If the weight has no fulcrum, guess what, you are the weight’s fulcrum, which just extends the internal lever arm.
But if the weight has an external fulcrum, the closer to that fulcrum it is, the easier it will be to move (using your levers). Confused yet?
Creating a leverage disadvantage can be a risk, or a benefit. If that long lever puts the desired stress on a muscle you’re trying to stimulate while taking stress off a joint you’re trying to protect, it’s good!
If leverage isn’t considered, and the lever gets the longest, when the momentum (speed) of the weight is the greatest, and that force is absorbed by said joint, then it’s bad. Very, very bad.