The Grasping Of Earle Liederman's "Vigorous Reps" Concept For Muscle Growth
“He has but a limited time in which to exercise and so had to concentrate. He made his squatting more vigorous by the simple expedient of jumping directly upward… He claimed that 30 such jumps gave one as much work as ten times as many ordinary squats, and produced much bigger muscles. Certainly he has developed splendid thighs in that way.” (p 99 Liederman Secrets of Strength)
I stumbled on Earle Liederman via The Legendary Strength website more recently upon my departure from military life and becoming a civilian. In one of his chapters titled, “Quality of Muscle The Basis of Strength'' he discusses the best quality of muscle growth being a perfect blend of size and strength. How this quality is developed he believes is through what is called “Vigorous” reps.
Vigorous reps in this chapter meant that a rep was performed in a manner that was performed with a great deal of contractile force not too much to be considered a one rep max but substantial and quickly fatiguing to the muscles. The higher end of the contractile force he describes as, “Violent” and uses the difference between a long jumper and trick jumper as an example. He also states that an exercise that at first could be violent later on would become vigorous meaning that there should be a progressive element to one’s training.
Executing some sissy squats. Great for the quads once one’s connective tissues have been strengthened over time.
If you’re a lifter or practice progressive calisthenics you’ve experienced this principle. Essentially it's staying within the 8 to 12 rep range. However the way above that was used to employ it I found particularly interesting. I’ve tried the jump squats from time to time and getting above 25 reps can be exhausting. Given that it’s explosive in nature one would be using their fast twitch muscle fibers which are bigger in size compared to slow twitch. But if you wish to experiment with this more on your own, be my guest. The only drawback I can see is if the person's connective tissues around their knee is not adequate/strong. At the end of the day what one should be going for is an intense set that is time efficient where your muscles are contracting powerfully and your ability to produce force is depleted in a short enough amount of time. This can be done with the jumping as done above, a difficult enough variation of a bodyweight exercises, slower repetitions coupled with a movement of appropriate difficulty, or overcoming isometrics.
“It has been shown that vigorous movements, repeated only a few times, tend to increase both the size and strength of a muscle much more rapidly than will a violent movement repeated once; or a mild movement repeated one hundred times.” (p 142 Liedeman Secrets of Strength)
Thank you for making it to the end and if you have any questions let me know.
