Paper sheds light on conditioning/deconditioning

In a quest to break my plateau, I’ve been searching the web for insight and found this article.

The article deals with tendons and ligaments and their responses to exercise, immobilization, and remobilization. This is relevant to us because

1) we want to stretch our ligaments and tunica;
2) gains often slow because our tissues are thought to become “overconditioned;” and
3) many have proposed taking “deconditioning breaks” to allow tissues to weaken before PE is resumed.

Be sure to take a good look at Fig. 5. The figure shows how a ligament’s strength decreases with time after immobilization, and then recovers once exercise is resumed.

Strength appears to decrease to nearly 1/5 its initial value after only 3 months of immobilization. However, full strength is restored after only 2 months of remobilization.

This suggests that deconditioning periods of a couple of months should significantly reduce tissue strength, and that there is a fairly narrow window of time during which the tissues remain weakened after PE is resumed.

Here are some good nuggets from the article:

An interesting paper to say the least. They certainly do hit around what we’re trying to do. They are mainly concerned with ligament and tendon reactions to normal applied and removed strain, but we are trying to permanently change the static length of a ligament. In their approach they are looking at the ability of a leg or tendon to respond back to or increase it’s ability to handle increased strain, neither of which we’re after unfortunately.

If subsequent to immobilization there is a window of opportunity to make a permanent change to a ligaments remembered length then we could hypothesize that incremental reconditioning periods can lead to weaknesses that allow length gains then perhaps we could chart a routine that shows benefits. This study may in fact substantiate what has been reported by many members that rest periods do indeed lead to gains. However all the article seems to deliver is that after immobilization prior strain resistance returns to norms. If may however give credence to light hanging as a means to gains by trying to maintain the deconditioned status that we normally live with. After all prior to PE none of us strained our ligament’s and therefore newbie’s are made extremely happy at initial gains. I believe that the pioneers of our discipline i.e. Bib, luvdadus, etc, etc, have already ventured beyond the article’s point and established that indeed we need strains beyond what we individually find to be normal are needed to accomplish gains in lig length.

Forgive, I ramble. My 2cents!

Thats the thing isn’t it? I think with the ligs deconditioning breaks are useful but not necessary. I theorize one could simply keep raising the weight indefinitely and continue seeing results. A lig deconditioning break simply lets lower weights to be used. Feel the same way about tunica stretching.

BUT I do think that deconditioning has IMMENSE potential value for expanding the other tissues of interest like the cavern….. well I don’t know how to spell it! LOL But I do know that jelqs, constrictor exercises, etc all cause these cells to expand and tear. I think 6-8 weeks of hard work in this area followed by 9-14 days of downtime could be really good. In fact, I’m planning on it and I’ll let everyone know how it goes. :)

(BTW- This is my first week PEing so it’ll be a while. Don’t scoff, I have many years of strength training knowledge which I’m putting to use in my PE work. My first 5 days= 5/8” BPSFL gain!)

Quick follow up- While I don’t think deconditiong breaksa re necessary for the ligs I DO think they can be overtrained and if that occurs rest is best. Too much unhealed damage and I bet those ligs will scar/harden right up killing any future chance of lengthening.

Interesting. Thanks for posting this, ModestoMan. :up:

Monty,

YOu’re right that the paper only deals with strength, not with length. But length is not completely unrelated. The weaker a ligament, the less force is needed to plastically deform it and thus the more length can be gained without an unreasonably large force.

Did you find the part about cross-linkages breaking and collagen direction randomizing with immobilization? Curiously, collagen is not reduced, only lateral bonds between collagen molecules. Those cross-links are what give people “ligs of steel.”

Dreamaloud,

Once I started hanging over 15# I really learned that you cannot just keep adding weight. Anything above this weight give me a lot of bruising and swelling. Maybe it’s just a matter of conditioning. My point is you’re much better off gaining at lower weight than requiring higher weight.

How does stiffness relate to the ability of tissue to plastically deform? I’ve only glanced at this, but the stiffness aspect stood out. If the stiffening response reduces the “stretchability” of tissues, wouldn’t this interfere with our efforts to cause plastic deformation?

Very interesting. As far as I understand it, the field of tendon stretching still does not know the most effective way of increasing elasticity, length, strength, or other. There are other threads here relating to theories of tendon stretching.

I am just curious modesto, have you ever studied continuum mechanics? Like stress strain tensors and what not?

:up: :up: :up:

See “ligs of steel” I think are well conditioned lig’s that when over loaded lockup like a seatbelt in your car when it’s jerked on. If we could determine when a lig was deconditioned and then only give it enough strain to not exceed natural holding structure then when gains stopped we could just decondition again.

But you see now the debate starts again as to whether it is better to continue PE or decondition? Then which gives you the MOST gains in the overall time picture.

Frankly I’ve had good success with a combination of heavy hanging and then light weights in between sessions. I haven’t increased weight or plateaued in over 9 months. Christmas has messed up my progress though. To much eggnog I guess.

Thats the approach I’m looking at as well. When you say “between sessions” do you mean between sets or actually all day?

Modesto- Maybe I wasn’t clear…just because you could theoritically keep increasing the weight re: the ligs doesn’t mean the other variables would keep up…for example the fluid retention you spoke of.

This paper in the references also looks interesting.
Wren TAL, Beaupré GS, Carter DR. A model for loading-dependent growth, development, and adaptation of tendons and ligaments. J Biomech 1998;31:107-14.

Also
Wren TAL, Carter DR. A microstructural model for the tensile constitutive and failure behavior of soft skeletal connective tissues. J Biomech Eng 1998;120:55 61.
and
Harris AK, Stopak D, Wild P. Fibroblast traction as a mechanism for collagen morphogenesis. Nature 1981;290:249-51.

All day. Between sets would be a little tedious. I can only hang sporadically. I might get 3 to 4 sessions weekly so the ADS helps with continuity. My ligs never have a chance to bunch up and toughen.

I have some articles in zip files that I attached. I tried making them in one big zip file but was prohibited.

I also have 2 more articles that were too big to upload. One of the mods would have to do it (I think)

Okay, I figure you probably can’t get to those articles, so here are the first 4. The fifth one was too big again.