Cables or Machines: Muscle Activity, Angle & ROM of Arms, Abs, Chest & Shoulders on Chest & Overhead P. & Curls

Cables or Machines: Muscle Activity, Angle & ROM of Arms, Abs, Chest & Shoulders on Chest & Overhead P. & Curls

abs arms bench press biceps build muscle cable training cables chest chest press curls emg machine training machines overhead press range of motion ROM shoulders triceps triceps brachii

This is the cable curl as it was performed in the study at hand (Signorile. 2016)

As Joseph F. Signorile et al. point out in their latest paper, "cable resistance training machines are showing resurgent popularity and allow greater number of degrees of freedom than typical selectorized equipment" (Signorile. 2016). Ok, the "freedom" maybe not as absolute as it is with our beloved free weights, but cables come sign. closer than the average rigid Cybex machine. It is thus only logical that the scientists assume that "given that specific kinetic chains are used during distinct activities of daily living (ADL), cable machines may provide more effective interventions for some ADL" and eventually certain athletic endeavors (Signorile. 2016).

To identify these activities and corresponding exercise equipment, the scientists from the University of Miami came up with a study that examined differences in activity levels (rmsEMG) of six major muscles (Pectoralis major, PM; Anterior deltoid, AD; Biceps brachii, BB; Rectus abdominis, RA; External obliques, EO; and Triceps brachii; TB) and kinematics of multiple joints between a cable and standard selectorized machines (sounds special, but means the average rigid, plate-loaded resistance training equipment you will find in every gym). The exercises that were performed were the biceps curl, the chest press and the overhead press, all performed at 1.5s per contractile stage.

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For their study, the scientists recruited healthy, but only recreationally active 15 participants (9 men, 6 women; mean age ±SD, 24.33 ± 4.88 y) on a voluntary basis through personal contacts from an opportunity sample students in a university research program. The 15 subjects were then randomly assigned to do 5 reps of the previously listed exercises at their pre-determined 8-RM (less reps than maxto maintain optimal form) on either ...

• cable-based towers (Cybex Bravo Pro, multi-functional tower) or 
• rigid, plate-loaded machines (selectorized) from Cybex International.

To ensure optimal comparability, subjects in both groups did the same exercises, i.e. the bicep curl, chest press, and overhead press ... albeit with different motion sequences due to the restraints of the machines. 

Figure 1: Relative EMG acitivity (expressed as increase / decrease with using plates vs. cable-loaded machines) for  pectoralis major (PM), the anterior deltoid (AD), the biceps brachii (BB), the rectus abdominis (RA), the external obliques (EO) and the triceps brachii (TB) during chest press, overhead press and biceps exercises (Signorile. 2016).

The EMG values the scientists measured with electrodes that were attached to the pectoralis major (PM), the anterior deltoid (AD), the biceps brachii (BB), the rectus abdominis (RA), the external obliques (EO) and the triceps brachii (TB) speak for themselves:

• significant benefits favoring cable training were seen for all values beneath the x-axes of Figure 1 that are marked with the p < 0.05 asterisk (*), namely the pecs and the anterior deltaoid (=front delts) for curl exercises, the biceps, rectus abdominis (abs) and the external obliques for the chest press exercises with cables and the external obliques for the overhead press with cables
• significant benefits favoring plate-loaded machines, on the other hand, were observed only for the biceps on the curl machine (vs. cable curls) and the triceps that did half of the job during the chest press on the corresponding machine machine 

If we go by the number of significant benefits, cables do thus appear to be the better choice in many, but not all cases.

SuppVersity Suggested Read for those of you who are interested in learning more: "Angle, Grip Width, Free Weight or Ma-chine, Failure & More - What Really Works for Building A Bigger Bench & Pecs" - Click here to read this article from Monday, February 9, 2015, now!

Wait!? Aren't free weights always better? The number of studies conducting respective comparisons is limited. A study by Silvester and Bryce, however, may be seen as exemplary of the existing evidence and it shows quite conclusively that "exercises performed with variable resis-tance machines and free-weights [are] equally effective at developing strength" (Silvester. 1981)". Eventually, I would yet suggest to follow an advise you can find in a 2002 paper by Stone et al. who say that "the majority of resistance exercises making up a training programme should include free weight exercises with emphasis on mechanical specificity (i.e. large muscle mass exercises, appropriate velocity, contraction type etc.)[, while] machines should be used as [a sports- and goal-specific] adjunct to free weight training" (Stone. 2002).

Based on the results of study at hand, this recommendation could be extended with another half-sentence that reads: '... in that, cable machines are the legitimate link between the totally free regular weights and the very guided movements on regular, plate-loaded machines which should both be part of your (generally free-weight based) training regimen.'

Not all cases? Yes, if we go by the ranges of motion the scientists measured for all of the exercises as well, the ...

• greater starting and ending angles were seen for the elbow and shoulder joints during selectorized biceps curl speak in favor enforcing a certain motion sequence and range of motion by the means of of the plate-loaded machines, while ...
• the higher hip and knee starting and ending angles for cable machines during chest and overhead presses (p<.0001), as well as the overall greater range of motion (ROM) the subjects covered with the cable machines (p<.0001), on the other hand would argue in favor of increasing the degrees of freedom with cable machines.

With the study at hand being an acute EMS study, the bad news, however, is the fact that the ultimate litmus test, i.e. the effect on lean mass and strength gains differences that occur with chronic cable vs. machine training (and additional free weights), will have to be determined in another study. Thus, the probably most significant and eventually only relevant conclusion of the study at hand reads: 

"The major finding of this study was that the activities of selected muscles during comparative exercises varied by machine use as did beginning and ending angles and ROM for specific joints. In examining muscle activity levels, it should be noted that the differences recorded between machines were seen primarily in accessory, rather than the muscles commonly targeted during each exercise" (Signorile. 2016).

On the other hand, it is questionable whether it even makes sense to ask a classic gym-question like 'what is better cables or plate-based machines' even makes sense without specifying the purpose. I believe the answer is 'no!' and thus follow-up studies with sports-specific outcomes will have to show which athletes benefit most from using cables instead of rigid machines and, eventually, how they compare to the good old free weights, we all love so much. 

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Bottom line: Unfortunately, the focus of the study at hand was not on 'gains'. Accordingly, the scientists own conclusion discusses the possible transfer of training into activities of daily living (ADL) and here, "the higher activation levels of the core muscles during the chest press and overhead press exercises during cable versus selectorized machine use indicate that cable machines may be more effective when targeting sport and ADL activities that depend heavily on serape-dominated movements (transitions employing rotational movements that transfer force from the lower to upper body through the core)" (Signorile. 2016). In other words: Cables may help you sweep or transfer an object from one counter to another, or with groundstrokes in tennis or driving a golf ball. In contrast, more linear movements like the biceps curl or training of the front delts appear to benefit from limiting the degree of freedom and thus isolating the body segments on plate-loaded machines | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Signorile, Joseph F., et al. "Differences In Muscle Activation And Kinematics Between Cable-Based And Selectorized Weight Training." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research (2016).
• Silvester, L. Jay, and G. Rex Bryce. "The Effect of Variable Resistance and Free-Weight Training Programs on Strength and Vertical Jump." Strength & Conditioning Journal 3.6 (1981): 30-33.
• Stone, M., S. Plisk, and D. Collins. "Training principles: evaluation of modes and methods of resistance training--a coaching perspective." Sports biomechanics/International Society of Biomechanics in Sports 1.1 (2002): 79-103.

Bench Press - The Truth About the Effects of Bench Angle on Pec Activity Varies Depending on the Phase of the Lift

Bench Press - The Truth About the Effects of Bench Angle on Pec Activity Varies Depending on the Phase of the Lift

bench press build muscle chest emg incline press muscle activity pectoralis major

The bench press, in one form or another, is part of almost everyone's workout, but what's the best way to do it?

You may have seen Brad Schoenfeld's post about the just accepted study of his that confirms the well-known link between muscle activity and poundage (higher weight = higher activity | see EMG Series). Well, another recent study provides additional intricate insights into the link between muscle activity and the way you perform the bench press.

Just like Schoenfeld et al.'s study, the study compared the muscular activation during bench presses - albeit in this case that of the pectoralis major, anterior deltoid and triceps brachii during a freeweight barbell bench press performed at different angles: 0°, 30°, 45° & -15° angles, to be specific.

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As the authors from the Department of Kinesiology, Cardiopulmonary and Metabolic Research Laboratory at the University of Toledo point out, this is not as "boring" as you may think it is,, as previous investigations may have systematically examined muscle activation during various bench press conditions only throughout the complete lift. Needless to say that "[d]uring any resistance exercise a complete ROM is important", but Jakob D. Lauver et al. are right to point out that there may be potentially relevant differences in the level of muscle activation over the course of the full range of motion (ROM). The latter could be significant enough to...

"[...] have the potential to attenuate any difference in muscle activation observed during the complete lift between bench angle conditions as differences in activation may have been evident throughout different time points of contractions" (Lauver. 2016). 

Accordingly, the primary purpose of the present investigation was, as Lauver et al write "to compare the changes in muscle activation at various time points across contraction phases (concentric, eccentric) during free-weight barbell bench press at varying bench angles (–15°, 0°, 30°, 45°) while maintaining the same absolute resistance load" (Lauver. 2016). The scientists hoped that the results of their study would lead to a better understanding of the effect of bench angle on muscle activation during bench press exercise and "aid in selection of variations in bench press exercise to develop upper extremity strength and musculature" (Lauver. 2016).

So, 80% = maximum activity - Why did the scientists use 65% 1RM? If Schoenfeld et al. found that you need 80% of the 1RM it may initially appear to be a methodological shortcoming to use only 65% of the 1RM. On the other hand, the fact that high loads, alone, maximize the muscle activity may nullify the significance of angle- or phase dependent differences... I cannot tell you, however, whether that's what the scientists had in mind when they decided to go for "only" 65% of the 1RM or whether they simply wanted to avoid fatigue having an effect on subsequent sets.

For their study, Lauver et al. recruited 14 healthy resistance trained men (age 21.4 ± 0.4 years) who performed one set of six repetitions for each bench press conditions at 65% one repetition maximum. As in previous studies, Lauver et al. used surface electromyography (sEMG) to quantify the muscular contraction. In contrast to previous studies, however, they analyzed the corresponding data during four parts of the lift individually - not just for the whole lift.

Figure 1: Upper and lower (U- / L-) pectoralis major activity during eccentric (UA / LA) and concentric (UB / LB) quarts of the bench press at different angles (-15°, 0°, 30° and 45° | Lauver. 2016).

This is important, because their data showed no difference during any of the bench conditions, when the scientists examining the complete contraction and/or only the concentric part (pushing the bar up) of the contraction. A different picture emerged, however, when Lauver et al. analyzed the four phases of the eccentric and concentric phase individually:

• Differences were found for 26–50% contraction for both the 30° [122.5 ± 10.1% maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC)] and for 45° (124 ± 9.1% MVIC) bench condition, resulting in greater sEMG compared to horizontal (98.2 ± 5.4% MVIC) and –15 (96.1 ± 5.5% MVIC). 
• The sEMG of lower pectoralis was greater during –15° (100.4 ± 5.7% MVIC), 30° (86.6 ± 4.8% MVIC) and horizontal (100.1 ± 5.2% MVIC) bench conditions compared to the 45° (71.9 ± 4.5% MVIC) for the whole concentric contraction. 

Overall, the study results obviously still confirm what you've read previously at the SuppVersity: "[T]he use of a horizontal bench to achieve muscular activation of both the upper and lower heads of the pectoralis" (Lauver. 2016).

This doesn't mean that adding an incline press to your regimen would be useless. As Lauver et al. point out, there's still use for the incline bench press - specifically at 30°!, because it "resulted in greater muscular activation during certain time points", so that the overall results of the study suggest "that it is important to consider how muscular activation is affected at various time points when selecting bench press exercises" (Lauver. 2016).

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Bottom line: The implications of the study are not 100% straight forward. But overall it appears as if there were two take home messages: (1) If you're doing just one exercise, you should stick to the flat bench (or vary cyclically). (2) If there's room for another bench press you should favor the 30° over the 45° degree bench press, because it achieves the same upper pectoralis activation as the 45° incline bench press, but a great lower pectoralis activation.

What is a bit surprising, but may be due to the differences in methodology compared to the previously cited study in the SuppVersity EMG Series is that there were no measurable advantages of the decline bench press, which may have benefited from the subjects' ability to lift more weight in previous studies. If that's the same for you, I personally wouldn't discount the decline press yet - you will, after all, probably not lift with 65% of your 1RM, right? | Comment!

References:

• Lauver, Jakob D., Trent E. Cayot, and Barry W. Scheuermann. "Influence of bench angle on upper extremity muscular activation during bench press exercise." European journal of sport science (2015): 1-8.
• Schoenfeld, Brad J; Contreras, Bret, Vigotsky, Andrew D.; et al. "Upper body muscle activation during low- versus high-load resistance exercise in the bench press." Not yet published; private communication on Facebook (2016).

Coffee Beats Caffeine in the Gym: More Reps + Higher Total Volume on Squats Due to Ingredients Other Than Caffeine

Coffee Beats Caffeine in the Gym: More Reps + Higher Total Volume on Squats Due to Ingredients Other Than Caffeine

bench press caffeine chest coffee decaf decaffeinated decaffeinated coffee leg traning performance squats

You don't necessarily have to bring fresh beans to the gym. A simple Nescafé instant coffee will serve the purpose, study shows. And it's going to work better than equal doses of straight caffeine.

As a SuppVersity reader you will know that coffee is much more than a brown liquid that contains caffeine. Many of its proven health effects I have discussed here and in shorter news items on Facebook are after all related to the combination of anti-oxidant and stimulant agents in coffee - a brew that is so much more than just the sum of it parts.

Against that background it is only logical that Darren L. Richardson and Neil D. Clarke from the Department of Applied Sciences and  at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences of the Coventry University in the UK wanted to expand on the previously reported results by Trexler et al. (2015 | previously mentioned at the SuppVersity).

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Trexler et al. found that coffee improved leg press 1-RM performance to a greater extent than caffeine, while both coffee and caffeine attenuated the reduction in total work performed compared with placebo. Accordingly, Richardson and Clarke started their research, which was a randomised, latin-square, crossover, placebo-controlled trial, in which each subject attended the strength and conditioning suite on six occasions, with the hypothesis that the ingestion of coffee would exhibit at least some advantages over a equally dosed caffeine "placebo".

Figure 1: Graphical illustration of the experimental protocol on all five test occasions (Richardson. 2016).

To test this hypothesis, the researchers recruited nine resistance trained males [(Mean±SD age: 24±2 years, weight: 84±8 kg, height: 180±8 cm, 1-RM for the squat (135±28 kg) and bench press (102±20 kg)]. Each subject attended the strength and conditioning suite on six occasions, the first being a familiarisation session to establish one repetition maximum (1-RM) for the squat and bench press, before they completed five sessions of the same the experimental resistance training protocols.

"Trials were performed within half an hour on separate days to ensure an accurate comparison of strength and to limit strength fluctuations due to the effects of circadian variation (Duncan. 2011). Trials were separated by at least two days in order to allow recovery and to ensure complete caffeine washout. As caffeine has a highly variable half-life in healthy individuals of between 1.5-9 hours (Syed. 2005) subjects were instructed to avoid caffeine ingestion for a minimum of 12 hours and strenuous exercise for 24 hours prior to each trial to avoid fatigue (Beaven. 2013).

The actual exercise protocol consisted of squats and bench presses at 60% 1-RM until failure.  Each subject performed the exercise protocol following the ingestion of...

• 0.15 g/kg caffeinated coffee (COF; 3.4g per 100g coffee = 5.1g/kg body weight), 
• 0.15 g/kg decaffeinated coffee (DEC; 5mg caffeine per kg coffee = almost zero), 
• 0.15 g/kg decaffeinated coffee plus 5 mg/kg anhydrous caffeine (D+C), 
• 5 mg/kg anhydrous caffeine (CAF), or 
• a placebo (PLA; 5 mg·kg-1 maltodextrin from MyProtein, Manchester, UK).

Decaf? Well, the reason the scientists did use both, straight caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee with caffeine should be obvious: Unlike the comparison of Nescafé original (3.4g of caffeine per 100g) vs. its decaffeinated version coffee, the comparison of DEC with D+C ensured identical polyphenol concentrations in the decaf-base.

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That's something which cannot be guaranteed for the caffeinated vs. decaffeinated versions of the same brand of coffee.

"[In all] trials [coffee poweder and caffeine] were dissolved in 600 ml of hot water (68.9±2.5ºC) and served in mugs. The anhydrous caffeine and placebo trials were provided in capsule form (two opaque gelatine capsules) and ingested with 600 ml of water (16.4±3.8ºC). At the start of each trial, subjects had a maximum of 15 minutes to fully consume either the treatment beverage or capsules and water and were then required to rest for the remainder of the hour, after this time the warm up began. [...]  A 24-hour dietary recall was completed by each subject during the familiarisation session, and was photocopied and handed back to the subjects in order for the same diet to be followed prior to subsequent trials" (Richardson. 2016).

Let me briefly do the math for you: With the dosages and body weights mentioned before, subjects in all caffeine groups ended up receiving roughly the same amount of caffeine (when there was caffeine in the beverage), namely: COF: 433±40 mg, DEC: 2±0 mg, D=C: 425±39 mg, CAF: 425±39 mg.

Figure 2: Changes in total weight lifted in response to the 5 treatments (Richardson. 2016).

Against that background it is all the more interesting that the coffee and decaf + caffeine group had a significant edge during squats (see Figure 2, right). "Isn't it strange, then that we don't see the same benefit on the bench?", you may be asking yourself, now... No, it isn't! Neither Beck, et al. (2008) nor Hendrix et al. (2010, bench press was part of a circuit training her) found benefits of caffeine supplementation on bench press performance in trained individuals, in similarly designed studies.

Total flavonoid and nonflavonoid contents of all coffee and instant cappuccino brews, prepared only with water. Results are expressed as mg GAE/L ± SD (Niseteo. 2012).

How healthy is decaffeinated coffee? The chemicals that were originally used to remove the caffeine from the beans are no longer a problem. Furthermore, studies show that decaffeinated coffee contains on average (there are differences between brands, obviously) about as many anti-oxidants as its regular cousin (Niseteo. 2012). Decaf has also been shown to have dose-dependent beneficial effects of decaffeinated coffee on endothelial function in healthy subjects (Buscemi. 2009) and similar effects on T2DM risk markers in experimental (Wedick. 2011) and epidemiological studies (Huxley. 2009).

Yet, even though decaffeinated coffee is much better than its reputation, buying it only to reintroduce caffeine for performance purposes doesn't really make sense if it's not done in a scientific study to differentiate the effects of caffeine and other coffee ingredients.

Duncan, et al. (2011) who conducted a very similar study 3 years later, however, found performance increments for the upper body, too (~10% increased total volume in the caffeine trial). Whether this difference to the previously mentioned studies by Beck et al. and Hendrix, et al. can be explained by the fact that Duncan et al. required their likewise trained subjects to be "only moderate caffeine users (ingesting approximately 200 mg·d-1, range 169-250 mg·d-1)" (Duncan. 2011), remains to be seen. While this is in fact ~100mg less than the average intake of the subjects in the study at hand, i.e. Richardson & Clarke (2016), other studies appear to suggest that the habitual caffeine intake has less influence on the performance effects than you would think.

Figure 3: Individual effect on weight lifted during both trials (left) and mean felt arousal (right | Richardson. 2016).

An alternative, but similarly speculative explanation for the differences may be that the effects of caffeine on upper body and eventually less taxing exercises is not as relevant as it is for squats. Thus the overall effect could be more pronounced during leg exercises and the benefits for bench presses and co too small to reach statistical significance in view of the fact that all studies appear to suggest that there are hyper- (like the guy on top of Figure 3, left) and almost-non-responder which mess with the statistical significance of the data.

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Whatever the reason, performance increase is performance increase! "Coffee and decaffeinated coffee plus caffeine have", as Richardson & Clarke point out "the ability to improve performance during a resistance exercise protocol, although possibly not over multiple bouts" (Richardson. 2016). What they forget to mention, though are the important differences between the effects of coffee or re-caffeinated decaf, on the one, and caffeine, alone, on the other hand. If we 'correct' that, we have to conclude that Richardson and Clark have been able to show that the real deal, i.e. coffee with all its original or reintroduced ingredients, and not its distilled main ingredient, caffeine, in pill or powder form should be a resistance trainee's stimulant of choice | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Beaven, C. Martyn, et al. "Effects of caffeine and carbohydrate mouth rinses on repeated sprint performance." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 38.6 (2013): 633-637.
• Beck, Travis W., et al. "The acute effects of a caffeine-containing supplement on bench press strength and time to running exhaustion." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22.5 (2008): 1654-1658.
• Buscemi, S. I. L. V. I. O., et al. "Dose-dependent effects of decaffeinated coffee on endothelial function in healthy subjects." European journal of clinical nutrition 63.10 (2009): 1200-1205.
• Duncan, Michael J., and Samuel W. Oxford. "The effect of caffeine ingestion on mood state and bench press performance to failure." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 25.1 (2011): 178-185.
• Hendrix, C. Russell, et al. "Acute effects of a caffeine-containing supplement on bench press and leg extension strength and time to exhaustion during cycle ergometry." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 24.3 (2010): 859-865.
• Huxley, Rachel, et al. "Coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea consumption in relation to incident type 2 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review with meta-analysis." Archives of internal medicine 169.22 (2009): 2053-2063.
• Niseteo, Tena, et al. "Bioactive composition and antioxidant potential of different commonly consumed coffee brews affected by their preparation technique and milk addition." Food chemistry 134.4 (2012): 1870-1877.
• Syed, Shariq A., et al. "Multiple dose pharmacokinetics of caffeine administered in chewing gum to normal healthy volunteers." Biopharmaceutics & drug disposition 26.9 (2005): 403-409.
• Trexler, Eric T. Effects of creatine, coffee, and caffeine anhydrous on strength and sprint performance. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, 2015.
• Wedick, Nicole M., et al. "Effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee on biological risk factors for type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial." Nutrition journal 10.1 (2011): 1.