translation and plateaus

All the information contained herein in this blog is advice. Don't follow any of it or do.


Translation in my opinion is a successful strength gain using the same muscle groups and same range of motion while utilizing different exercise forms. In other words if you wanted a strength gain in your back squat your complementary exercise to it would be a pause back squat. A pause back squat is the same form as the regular back squat except at the bottom end of it where your glutes are nearly touching the ground instead of using a reflexive bounce to pop back up, you would pause for two seconds and then power your way back up to the top.
Notice how the complementary pause back squat is almost identical to the regular back squat. In both exercises the range of motion is identical. The placement of the resistance, that is the barbell, is the same, behind the head and on the shoulders. The only variation is the pause that you do when you bottom out.
The pause is used because unlike the regular back squat where momentum and reflexive rebound are used to carry you back up, the pause back squat uses mostly glute and quadricep contractions. I say mostly because even though there is a pause, a small amount of reflexive rebound energy is still stored in the legs but considerably less had you used a bounce to carry yourself back to the top.

To understand the concept of reflexive bounce, think of your legs and arms as rubber bands. What happens when you pull a rubber band and let go? It snaps back. The ligaments and tendons that attach bones and muscles together are basically rubber bands. We can move our limbs to different positions but our limbs will always snap back to our original position. Try this as an experiment. Stand straight. Take in a breath of air. Now squat down as fast as you can glutes almost touching the floor while still holding the breath of air in your lungs.  Now spring back up to a standing position  and let go the breath of air. The effort required to do this should almost be minimal because the ligaments and tendons in your glutes and legs are acting as rubber bands. They store the energy that you exerted when you rapidly squatted down. Now just as a rubber band snaps back, your body will snap back to a standing straight position with ease. This is what I mean by reflexive bounce.
Try this as a second experiment. Stand straight.  Breathe normally. Squat down glutes almost touching the floor.  Pause for two seconds. Now try to power your self back to a standing position just using your legs. The effort required to do this should be significantly greater than the previous experiment. The reason for this is because you didn't hold your breath and paused when you bottomed out. The energy you exerted when you squatted down dissipated from your legs and glutes.

We can deduce  another generalization about translation. For any movement that is intended to gain strength using complementary exercises, two things have to occur. The placement of the resistance must be the same and the range of motion must be identical across both exercise forms.  This is why guys who can leg press 1200 lbs can only squat 600 lbs. or less. The variation across both the exercises violates our generalization about translation. The range of motion in both exercises is dissimilar. The squat uses lower back, upper back and abdominal core strength to power the weight back to the top. The upper and lower back and core are cancelled out while doing leg presses. Therefore no strength gain will be made in the back squat. Interestingly enough, the strength gain will be made only in the leg press.
From this we can deduce a  third generalization about translation.
When complementary exercises are done, the less difficult exercise will almost always see consistent strength gains. For example , when I was working through a difficult plateau in my bench press I decided to use partial bench presses thinking I would bust through the plateau. Guess what happened. I remained at my bench press plateau but made strength gains in my partial bench press. Why did this happen? The partial was less difficult than the full bench press. The angle at which my elbows bent to bring the barbell to my chest while doing full bench presses was sharper than the partial bench press elbow angle. In other words the full bench press was more difficult.
This leads us to a fourth generalization about translation. In order to have a strength gain in your targeted exercise, the more difficult complementary exercise must  have its variation occur in the range of motion. For example, to bust through a  difficult  deadlift  plateau, I performed my complimentary more difficult dead lift standing on top of two 45 lb plates stacked side by side. This put my lower back at a more severe sharper angle compared to a regular dead lift standing on the floor. The plateau was busted my next workout.
The variation across complementary exercises must be in the range of motion. That is, the angle of the limbs used as primary movers must be placed at a sharper more severe angle compared to your targeted exercise. The other way is to put a momentary pause in your range of motion  to cancel out any reflexive rebound motion. Preferably the pause should occur after the weight is lowered down and before the weight is powered back up.
Of course instituting these variations is difficult for some exercises. How would you add a complementary exercise to a standing bicep barbell curl?  The barbell's range of motion is limited because your waist is in the way. I don't know. Maybe if you were to use dumb bells it would allow the weights to move past the vertical plane of your midsection causing the elbow joint to be in a straighter more hyperextended position thus making it more difficult to perform the exercise.
Why is translation necessary?