Introduction

Methods

Results and Discussion

Conclusions

Notes

MECHANICAL AND ELECTROMYOGRAPHICAL TESTING OF THE AFTERBURNER® STRENGTH TRAINING SYSTEM

Introduction:

Any mechanism that is designed to produce an increase in muscular strength or size must provide an overload to that muscle. There are numerous ways to achieve this overload but most rely on providing some form of resistance to the motion caused by the activation of the muscle. Traditional weight lifting uses the force of gravity to provide resistance to the muscle which is attempting to lift a weight and the overload is accomplished by either lifting a heavy weight for a few repetitions or by lifting a lighter weight for several repetitions and/or sets of repetitions.

Most practitioners use a weight that is heavy enough to prevent more than 8-12 repetitions and three sets to provide the best results in terms of increased strength and size. By definition, this weight is less than the maximum force that the muscle is capable of generating which means true overload is not experienced by the muscle until the last few repetitions when the muscle has become fatigued. The Afterburner® has been designed to provide greater overload than traditional weight lifting by using a mechanism that decreases the weight with successive repetitions in a set. The expected advantage of this mechanism is that the initial weight can be larger than the traditional method and each repetition can be an overload for the muscle as it fatigues during the set.

This should allow the muscle to be maximally activated for each repetition and allow for a shorter duration session because fewer sets should be required for the same results. The amount of muscular activation is measured by placing electrodes on the skin above the involved muscles using a process known as electromyography. The purpose of this study will be to quantify the differences in force and level of muscular activity of each repetition between weight lifting with the Afterburner® mechanism activated and with each repetition when the mechanism is not activated. It should be noted that the response of the muscle to resistance training in terms of increased strength and size requires several weeks of sessions performed every other day. Such a long-term study is beyond the scope of this proposal but I will try to speculate to the best of my ability what the benefits might be given the data from this single set study.