DON'T RESIST THE PRESCRIPTION...
In a previous post I explained why we use the term "suspected healthy" rather than healthy. As a reminder, we address people as suspected healthy if we do not have medical evidence or other reasons to suggest that the person be check and maybe diagnosed by their physician. If a person is diagnosed with a disease, syndrome, clinical condition, or fits the professional definition of a special population, they are no longer suspected healthy, and we apply more specific ways of exercising them, taking into consideration the special circumstances that apply.
Furthermore, let's be reminded that exercise prescription should always follow health assessment, fitness assessment (exercise testing), and result interpretation. In other words, it is the fourth and final step in the entire process. And may the fourth be with you. We address the improvement of the person's cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), muscular fitness (resistance training; RT; mostly weight lifting), balance, flexibility, body composition, coordination (mostly athletes), proprioception, agility (mostly athletes), and more.
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Let's begin discussing exercise prescription (FITTVP) for resistance training (RT; Weight lifting; muscular fitness) in people that are suspected healthy. In this case we are focusing on improving a person’s skeletal muscles to produce force via different skeletal muscle contraction dynamics, where most of the energy is produced without oxygen as part of the process. Anaerobic fitness commonly includes activities shorter than 120 seconds, that relay heavily on physiological capacities of the skeletal muscles, disposal of carbon di oxide from the cells, and the neutralizing of acids (chemical buffering).
It should not be a surprise by now that the muscle fiber make up, meaning the percentage of each muscle fiber type with the skeletal muscles is determined by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. It is estimated that 50-60% of variability in the proportion of type II fibers (anaerobic skeletal muscle fibers) and with heritability estimates ranging 30–85% for muscle strength. In addition, the natural tendency of human muscles is to present a 50:50 split between anaerobic and aerobic skeletal muscle fibers. Accordingly, athletes may gain a genetic advantage if their muscle fiber make up is genetically different from the general population.
We divide muscular (anaerobic) fitness into three more specific muscular (anaerobic) fitness components that can be developed during training/exercise. We distinct between muscular power, muscular strength, and muscular endurance. Muscular power is applicable to short duration anaerobic activities, traditionally 1-30 seconds of weight lifting or their equivalents in other forms of resistance training (that do not include weights).
This muscular fitness component is based more on developing as much muscle force as possible in a limited amount of time. maximal muscular power is the ability of a skeletal muscle or group of skeletal muscles to develop as much force in the shortest time period. Although it is called "maximal power", since the time allocated to the task is minimal (by definition), the muscles do not actually develop their true maximal force.
Muscular strength is the ability of skeletal muscles to develop force, while theoretically independent of time limitations (as if endless time is at your disposal). It is obvious that time does not stop, thus, the idea of muscular power being dependent on time or limited by time to task completion, vs muscular strength not being dependent on time to task completion, is on a relative scale. For example, instructing a person to lift 50 pounds of weights within 5 seconds indicates working on muscular power, since there is a clear time to task completion limit. On the other hand, instructing a person to lift 50 pounds of weights indicates working on muscular strength, since there is no clear time to task completion limit, and the person could take "as much time as they want" to get it done.
Muscular endurance is applicable to activities that last 31-120 seconds of weight lifting or their equivalents in other forms of resistance training (that do not include weights). This muscular fitness component is based on developing moderate or lesser skeletal muscle force over "prolonged time periods". The idea of a "prolonged" workout in anaerobic terms, is on a relative scale compared to a range of 1-120 seconds.
Let's be reminded that each component has corresponding repetition maximum (RM) levels (see separate post about the repetition maximum scale for resistance training intensity). 1RM (one RM) is defined as maximal resistance training intensity corresponding with maximal muscular power production or maximal muscular strength production; 2-8RM is defined as high resistance training intensity corresponding with high muscular power production or high muscular strength production; 9-19RM is defined as moderate resistance training intensity corresponding with moderate muscular power production or moderate muscular strength production; and 20RM or more is defined as low resistance training intensity corresponding with muscular endurance. Some professionals will considered 12RM or greater as working on muscular endurance, while other could even consider 9RM or more as working on muscular endurance, defining any muscular workout that is not high and/or maximal as endurance.
The more the muscular workout is closer to the 1RM level and muscular power, the more "explosive" the movement should become. The higher the RM level, the more the muscular workout fits repetitive daily functions. The more the movement exercised is one that is used multiple times a day (i.e. repetitive movements), the more we develop muscular endurance to assure basic functionality of the person.
The following tables are suggested FITTVPs for the development of muscular power, muscular strength, and muscular endurance.
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In addition to the muscular fitness component developed we must take into consideration the type of muscle contraction used to develop the muscle force (i.e. concentric, eccentric, isometric, isokinetic, or isotonic; see separate post on the topic). Furthermore, we consider incorporating single vs multi-joint exercises, single movement vs multi-movement, split system vs whole body workout, is a positive-negative system incorporated or not, muscle work-recovery ratio, concentric to eccentric muscle work ratio, total workout volume needed, sought-out energy expenditure, and full vs partial range of motion.
Stay tuned as a future post will include knowledge on the aspects for further consideration mentioned in the previous paragraph.
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