Dr Mel Siff’s Insights into Strength Training with a Dysfunctional Arm
Author: Dr Mel Siff Blog // Category: Dr Siff on Injuries/Disease, Dr Siff on Resistance Training, Main Content.
Someone contacted me privately about methods of training if one has any
injury, weakness or dysfunction of one arm.
These were some of my suggestions – if you have a power rack, you can use
reverse band methods to limit the weight on the bar and control its line of
action while you do bench, inclined press, deadlifts, limited range pulls and
so on. The bands (or bungee cord) are attached to the top of the power rack
and the barbell or dumbbell is suspended from the bands – the amount of
assistance offered depends on the thickness of the bands or cords.
There is no harm in a spotter helping you either to guide you in holding and
moving a dumbbell in a specific exercise pattern – that sort of assisted
lifting (which is a more advanced method of “forced rep” training) is quite
commonly used by physiotherapists. Manual resistance, which constitutes the
basic form of resistance in PNF therapy, may also be used – typical patterns
are illustrated in Ch 7.2 of “Supertraining”. In fact, you can have someone o
ffer manual resistance using wooden sticks and ropes to enable you to execute
most of the exercises that one does in a well-equipped weights gym.
Don’t forget the value of training in water or using light bands for the
injured side. My paraplegic wife’s method of choreographed high speed seated
exercise (she relies on acceleration rather than load to produce force in the
muscles) can also be very useful. Electrical stimulation can also play a
valuable role in training the muscles of your injured side – this is one of
its very legitimate applications.
I am sure there are others who would like to add some more suggestions – over
to you!
Dr Mel Siff
Denver, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/
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Tags: Acceleration, Barbell, Bench, Dr Mel Siff, Dumbbell, Electrical Stimulation, Exercises, Light Bands, Manual Resistance, Mel Siff, Muscles, Ropes, Spotter, Strength Training, Super Training, Supertraining, Weights, Wooden Sticks