Accommodating Resistance: Why?
The use of Accommodating Resistance has grown in popularity in the last few years, with plenty of programmers and coaches investing time in figuring out how to best implement it at their own gym or into their own program. Accommodating Resistance can often be found being used in conjunction with a Conjugate style of training, where the trainee is always rotating through using different types of barbells, lifting from different heights and angles, positions, depths, and of course--adding bands and chains. Those last two tools are what a coach is referring to when they talk about "accommodating resistance." While there are a plethora of different forms and styles of training a person could follow to get stronger, the use of Accommodating Resistance stands apart due to its ability to train multiple parts of lifting at once. Some very basic reasons to use Accommodating Resistance... —- Trains a lifter to absorb force, which is needed to become more powerful. —- When tension increases through the range of motion (ROM), a lifter is forced to accelerate through the repetition. This can help a lifter break through the sticking points of a lift. Hint: when you become more explosive, you get stronger. —- When you increase weight, your movement and the overall speed of the bar will decrease. You can develop speed-strength through the use of Accommodating Resistance, instead of attempting to add more weight to the bar, which will eventually lead to a slower lift. (Force Velocity Curve) —- Additional resistance without compromising bar speed helps Rate of Force Development. —- Links up with a lifters Strength Curve. Tension will be higher where you are strongest (top) and lower where you are weakest (bottom). Along with all of the above, one of the best reasons a person could use Accommodating Resistance in their training is its ability to keep fatigue low while driving high levels of adaptation and progress. When you add bands and chains, the amount of total "load" you're moving will essentially change through the duration of the lift. When you use straight bar weight, the total load remains the same. By implementing bands and chains, you are able to train optimally while also keeping the total wear and tear on the Central Nervous System to a minimum, meaning we can recover more efficiently and keep progress moving forward. At S3 Athletics, accommodating resistance helps us achieve our goal of keeping folks moving well and feeling good. We want you to come in, train hard, and be able to reap the rewards of that training when you leave; not spend all your time feeling beatdown. Remember, for the general population: if what you do inside the gym doesn't improve your quality of life outside the gym, there's something wrong with your training. Stay Strong!
Coach Bean
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