Effect of different pushing speeds on bench press.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect on muscular strength after a 3-week training with the bench-press at a fixed pushing of 80-100% maximal speed (FPS) and self-selected pushing speed (SPS). 20 resistance-trained subjects were divided at random in 2 groups differing only regarding the pushing speed: in the FPS group (n=10) it was equal to 80-100% of the maximal speed while in the SPS group (n=10) the pushing speed was self-selected. Both groups were trained twice a week for 3 weeks with a load equal to 85% of 1RM and monitored with the encoder. Before and after the training we measured pushing speed and maximum load. Significant differences between and within the 2 groups were pointed out using a 2-way ANOVA for repeated measures. After 3 weeks a significant improvement was shown especially in the FPS group: the maximum load improved by 10.20% and the maximal speed by 2.22%, while in the SPS group the effect was <1%. This study shows that a high velocity training is required to increase the muscle strength further in subjects with a long training experience and this is possible by measuring the individual performance speed for each load.
Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome, Italy. sportcinetic@yahoo.it
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D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D006801:Humans; D007537:Isometric Contraction / Q000502:physiology; D007558:Italy; D053580:Muscle Strength; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013909:Thorax; D013997:Time Factors; D014891:Weight Lifting / Q000502:physiology*