Strange shaking in some movements.

[Guest Esa Lackström 173096]

Hey, new guy here!

Now that the introductions are done, i'm having a strange problem on movements like Hollow Body, L-sit progressions and similars. My upper body starts to shake when i for example try to lift my legs on L-sit, lying leg raises, or straighten them at hollow body. It does not feel tiring at all, i can hold the position just fine, i can breathe normally, talk while being in it. It's just that my core shakes uncontrollably.

What could be the cause of this? 

[Eva Pelegrin]

Hello Esa and welcome! 

Shaking often indicates newness or weakness (sorry). The shaking is a sign that you’re challenging your CNS and your muscles to perform in a manner that you’re not used to (yet). It’s very common, especially with movements that involve our core and it will manifest when we reach our “capabilities” threshold(s), both with strength and mobility work/loads. 

Shaking distinguishes those who are willing to push themselves to new territories. Embrace the shaking and try to enjoy it. Nothing to worry about, unless it’s coming from other reasons: could be improper nutrition or hydration, lactic acid release.

[David Birchall]

Hi Esa, welcome to the forum.  

For maximal level weight lifts or maximal level exertion via leverage a la Foundation, receptors in muscles and their tendons cause a reflex relaxation in that muscle when stretched beyond a certain point, in order to prevent injury.

This also results in the shaking when lifting heavy weights or GST, as the muscle receives conflicting contractile/relaxation impulses from the central nervous system and the stretch receptors in the muscle respectively.

Training results in both adaption to greater strain by the muscles themselves, and also the nervous system adapting to compensate for the increased, repetitive use, so the contractile CNS signals become stronger and more easily overcome the stretch receptor signals.

I like to think of myself like a robot that is being built incrementally.  I see the exercises as pathways from my brain to my muscles.  The more times you lay down the foundational patterns by repetition, you are developing a stronger and stronger, more efficient connection between your mind and your muscles.

 The most efficient pathways in your nervous system are the ones you train the most frequently.  Foundation is the best program you will find to develop pathways that can be built upon to safely progress through more advanced strength work later on. 

 If a new exercise (potentially performed by muscles never used in this way) is performed, the signal from the nervous system is less efficient and less clear and shaking can become apparent.

 

 

[David Birchall]

Further info (for those who are interested):

There are skeletal muscles, smooth muscles and cardiac muscles.  Skeletal muscles are the ones we're interested and the ones you think of when you say muscle.

They are the muscles that you have control of and in terms of GST, this means the muscles you're using to perform your sets.  They exert force by contraction and relaxing at 10-30Hz: they do not just contract and stay contracted.  If you yawn you can sometimes hear a rumbling sound.  This is your jaw muscle working... you can also prove this by clenching your fist by your ear.  You should be able to hear the contraction and relaxation: its a rumbling sound made up of loads and loads of contractions and relaxations and is a bit like a drum roll.

At low exertion they contract fast enough to produce the illusion of constant force.  At higher levels of exertion, the contractions are stronger and therefore more noticeable.  Think of a drum roll: it sounds like one sound but if you slow it down (perhaps as the drummer gets tired) you will see that it is made up of lots of smaller beats.  When you do these long static holds, this is exactly what is happening: you are slowing down the speed of contraction because you're fatigued.

Your brain modulates how strong your contraction is for say doing tuck PL vs full PL.  Of course there are a greater number of muscles in the latter exercise such as more lats, legs, lower back, but it goes further than this in terms of the recruitment of the muscle fibers within say the front delts: within each muscle your brain will start by using a certain number of muscle fibers.  For the tuck PL, you recruit a certain amount and for full PL you recruit more (substantially more ).  These muscle fibers come in packages and your brain starts by recruiting just the small packages.  For higher levels of exertion it goes for bigger ones.  

If you imagine having one finger under a weight, you have a lot less control over that weight than if you had your whole hand underneath the same weight.  There are five parts for you to leverage the weight versus just one.  This is the principle behind why for high levels of exertion when we start to recruit bigger packages of muscle fibers, we have less control over whatever we are doing: the larger packets means less total packets than if we were to use smaller packets and use more of them... if you understand me.  They also vary in strength and stronger fibers need stronger signals from the motor neuron to activate them: all that meditation and getting revved up you hear people doing before training fires up the CNS to achieve this,

A handstand is balance through strength and the packet analogy explains the reason why one must develop strength in the HS position before control can be exerted and balance can be achieved.

So shaking simply means you're not strong enough  

 

[Leonhard Krahé]

56 minutes ago, David Birchall said:

So shaking simply means you're not strong enough  

...yet!

Very nice post though.

Would shaking in a first (but not afterward until say the end of the last one or two sets) set mean that warmup was inadequate to get full activation?

[David Birchall]

 

On 8 May 2016 at 10:11 AM, Leonhard Krahé said:

...yet!

Very nice post though.

Would shaking in a first (but not afterward until say the end of the last one or two sets) set mean that warmup was inadequate to get full activation?

You've made me think - I haven't experienced that yet but I would assume so.  For me I don't really shake if I haven't warmed up but I do have substantially less practical strength i.e. after warming up I can do a straddle planche for a couple of seconds but I can't straight off the bat.  Same with flexibility too.  

[Leonhard Krahé]

4 hours ago, David Birchall said:

You've made me think - I haven't experienced that yet but I would assume so.

I mention this because at the beginning of my first and second set of FL/PE1, I noticeably shake but usually, I go straight into the set after general warmup/limbering - maybe I have to find an appropriate regression and warm up with that?

[David Birchall]

As mad as it might sounds have you considered that it's psychological?  I spent a very very long time on FL/PE1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6.  Longer than I really needed to because my perceived level of exertion was really high and I just hated grinding out those last seconds, consequently I would shake all the way through really because all I was focusing on was the uncomfortable feeling.

For the long static endurance stuff I found that turning music on full blast and thinking of something I actually wanted to do helped because I was no longer focusing on how much I found it boring and uncomfortable.  I kept getting stuck on the jump from 4x48 to 4x60 over and over again for months on PE1.  I ended up visualising doing an actual front lever while doing it pretending to myself I was training for a super long 5x60 front lever which seemed more exciting.  This and listening to my breathing.

Also I ended up skipping to PE5 then going back once I built up to 4x36s on PE5.  This was due to something I read by Josh Naterman: strength-endurance is far easier to accumulate if you already have an excess of strength in the exercise, e.g.: getting to 20reps on 100kg Bench is easier to get to if you can bench 130kg for 3 reps than if your 3 rep max bench is currently 100kg and you're trying to build up the high numbers from there.  This isn't an official way to do things and I imagine its probably frowned upon due to the rational behind building a "foundation" first: ( its even called Foundation ) but I found it much easier and faster to build up maximal core strength first because going from 12s to 36s was easier than going from 48 to 60 if you understand me?

[Leonhard Krahé]

5 hours ago, David Birchall said:

As mad as it might sounds have you considered that it's psychological?

Actually, I haven't (but it doesn't sound mad).

I often kind of dread the long holds - often I wonder to myself if I'll make it through (I'm on 5x52 right now and going to attempt 5x56 next week) and at the end of my last set I'm sometimes shaking from the exertion. But I really think that the shaking at the beginning comes from not warming up the core adequately - I'll try that next workout and see if there is any improvement.

I thought of applying the approach you describe to the pushups but haven't really tried it yet.

[Eva Pelegrin]

When I cannot take it anymore while building long holds, I tell myself "5 more sec." I pick the number of sec that are needed to complete the set and convince my self that I can do this. My mantra is "this is nothing, this is nothing."

it really is mental. There're always a few seconds left and you have to extract them from yourself. I only stop and break my set if I sense that I start losing pressure in my lower back, in which case I pause 5-10 sec and go at it again to finish the set with a few extra seconds of penalty, lol.

[Bas Van Haren]

Zach Armijo

I agree lol i count really slow, and mostly torture my training partners haha 1....2.......3.........4................5..

[David Birchall]

One thing as well with the static holds - I stay pretty low carb most of the time because I feel better this way. What I did find was that the day after a refeed there was considerably less dread and actually I (almost) wanted to do the long statics - felt really strong from the glycogen super compensation.  I'm not 100% sure but I am quite certain that they do burn a lot of glycogen being well past mainly ATP fuelled endeavours.  If I were to do them again (and I will do when I go back through every exercise videoing myself) I would make sure I ditched the low carbs until onto the 5x5s - plus creatine & lots of water.

[Antony Stanley-Clarke]

It's funny about the psychology of counting or not counting the holds. I had my partner tell me when my time was up, which i found a complete nightmare not knowing whether i had an eternity left or not. I now use a metronome and mentally count the seconds. That way i'm always in the 'know' especially when i have to dig deep for those final few seconds.

[Tanya Hill]

The metronome is a great idea and insures you are getting the correct time. I love how Gymnastics Strength Training not only trains the physical but also the mental. 

[Everett Carroll]

I notice our students fidget far less when a metronome is their timer.

[Guest Esa Lackström 173096]

Quality info! Have to digest these ones, sorry for the long absence by the way! 

[Tanya Hill]

We are here to help anytime Esa.