ISOMETRICS Firing more Muscle Cells, CREATING STRENGTH!
Neurological recruitment and Hebb’s rule
Several factors contribute to strength development, but the most significant
of these is neurological recruitment. Let’s say, for the sake of example, that a
muscle has 100 muscle cells. Each of these is connected to the nervous system by a neuromuscular junction, a mini neurological “switch” which turns that cell on or off. This is our strength “hardware”. Individual muscle cells have no “dial” on them—just a binary on-and-off switch. They either fire completely, or not at all. (Biologists call this the all-or-none law.) As a result, how much force a muscle can develop depends on how many of the muscle cells get switched on. How effectively our nervous system can turn on those muscle cells represents our strength “software”.
The force a muscle can generate depends largely on
neurological recruitment.2
Most untrained individuals have terribly inefficient software. They have the same number of muscle cells as strength athletes, but their nervous systems are not as good at recruiting those cells. So, whereas a strongman or a kung fu master might be able to recruit 80% of his cells, the untrained Joe will only be able to manage, perhaps 30%. (This answers the age-old question as to why some individuals can be small, but far more powerful than much larger men. The small man can have next- gen software, while the larger guy is still working with Windows 2.0.)
Fortunately, anyone can improve the efficiency of their neurological recruitment. You can upgrade your strength software. This can be achieved by forcing as many of your muscle cells to fire as possible—maximal recruitment—and doing this repeatedly. Doing so causes the neural pathways which make the muscle cells switch on to become more efficient communicators, according to a neurological principle known as Hebb’s rule (later paraphrased by the neuroscientist Siegrid Löwel as: cells which fire together, wire together).
In layman’s terms: repeated maximal muscle contractions are what make us stronger—and the more force your muscles repeatedly generate, the stronger you’ll get.
Most untrained individuals have terribly inefficient software. They have the same number of muscle cells as strength athletes, but their nervous systems are not as good at recruiting those cells. So, whereas a strongman or a kung fu master might be able to recruit 80% of his cells, the untrained Joe will only be able to manage, perhaps 30%. (This answers the age-old question as to why some individuals can be small, but far more powerful than much larger men. The small man can have next- gen software, while the larger guy is still working with Windows 2.0.)
Fortunately, anyone can improve the efficiency of their neurological recruitment. You can upgrade your strength software. This can be achieved by forcing as many of your muscle cells to fire as possible—maximal recruitment—and doing this repeatedly. Doing so causes the neural pathways which make the muscle cells switch on to become more efficient communicators, according to a neurological principle known as Hebb’s rule (later paraphrased by the neuroscientist Siegrid Löwel as: cells which fire together, wire together).
In layman’s terms: repeated maximal muscle contractions are what make us stronger—and the more force your muscles repeatedly generate, the stronger you’ll get.
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