Superior Training-Specific Adaptations With an 8-Week Yoak Push-up Training Program

Abstract

Lima, C, Li, Y, Low, JL, Herat, N, and Behm, DG. Superior training-specific adaptations with an 8-week yoak push-up training program. J Strength Cond Res 32(9): 2409-2418, 2018-There are few progressive metastability training programs in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in strength, endurance, muscle activation, and neuromuscular efficiency after an 8-week progressive, push-up training program under stable and unstable conditions. Nineteen male and female recreationally trained participants performed twice per week, an 8-week push-up training program, using either a relatively unstable suspension system (Yoak) or under stable conditions. Participants were tested in 2 separate sessions before and after training for chest press maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) forces, and unstable and stable push-up endurance. Participants were tested during all testing measures for anterior deltoid, biceps brachii (BB), triceps brachii (TB), and serratus anterior (SA) electromyography (EMG) activity. The training progression consisted of altering the suspension configurations, push-up height, and increasing the number of sets (1-3 sets). The stable group performed 153.3 and 33.8% less repetitions than the Yoak group when performing push-ups on the Yoak device or stable floor, respectively (p = 0.03). Training-induced MVIC forces were 9.2% (p = 0.03) greater for the Yoak vs. the stable group. Regarding neuromuscular efficiency, the Yoak group decreased (30.4%; p = 0.01) and stable group increased (97.8%; p = 0.02) antagonist BB EMG activity from pre- to post-training. Both groups decreased the TB fatigue index from pre- to post-training. Nevertheless, Yoak group demonstrated 12.5% (p = 0.09) and 8.9% (p = 0.02) lower fatigue indexes with TB and SA, respectively, than the stable group. These findings suggest that Yoak training demonstrates superior improvements over stable training for push-up endurance, neuromuscular efficiency, MVIC, and fatigue index.

Suspended Push-up Training Augments Size of not only Upper Limb but also Abdominal Muscles

“…1), with an increase of 92 % at the final compared to the first training session. This is well in line with Lima et al [8] who found REPmax to increase by 82 % after 8 weeks of suspended pushup training performed to failure (1-3 sets/session, 2 sessions/ week). The increase in REPmax would be due to an improvement in muscle endurance and/or coordination, but mainly the former because the participants were well familiarized with the task before starting the training and REPmax kept increasing throughout the training period (▶ Fig.…”

“…It is also reported that throwing velocity in female athletes (handballers and softballers) was significantly increased after a combination of 5-9 types of sling exercise training [9,10] but not after their traditional resistance training analogs [9] or regular (sport-specific) training [10]. A recent study by Lima et al [8] examined the effect of suspended push-up training performed alone (without other sling exercises) on muscle function, showing superior improvements over stable push-up training for muscle (push-…”

“…While the above findings are all important, what is lacking to date is the key information regarding the putative effect of instability resistance exercise; does it actually train the trunk, or in particular, abdominal muscles? Although some studies cited above reported gains in chest press strength [8] or 1-RM bench press [7] after sling exercise training, which may be partly attributable to enhanced function of trunk including abdominal muscles, no convincing evidence exists supporting this theory. Examining changes in size of abdominal muscles can shed light on whether these muscles are actually trained by instability resistance training, which would be of great interest to many training/rehabilitation practitioners and researchers.…”

“…Sling exercise is one of the most frequently implemented and studied instability resistance exercises [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], and has been shown to be effective in improving muscle function [5,7,8,10]. For example, Dannelly et al [7] demonstrated that a combination of 10 types of sling exercise training (e. g. suspended push-up) in untrained females was equally as effective as traditional resistance training for increasing strength [e. g. one-repetition maximum (1RM) bench press].…”

“…To this end, we designed 8-week suspended push-up training. This exercise was chosen because it was performed in all of the previous studies that conducted sling exercise training cited above [5,7,8,10], and can be considered as the representative sling exercise. Additionally, we assessed muscle activit y levels of abdominal muscles via electromyogram (EMG) during the exercise to provide information regarding exercise intensity for these muscles (Experiment 2).…”