Grease The Groove Synapse Development

[MMyers]

Okay, so I'm sure everybody has heard of Pavel Tsatsouline's Grease The Groove method. For those of you that don't know, it's doing an exercise, Pull-Ups for example, and doing about half of what you could do. This can be done over the course of a day, or in ladders. Ladders basically are: 1 Pull-Up, rest, 2 Pull-Ups, rest, etc...

So, if regular push-ups build synapses, what about weighted push-ups? Say, about 45 lbs. If a muscle contracts at a medium intensity doing a push-up, wouldn't higher intensity, but not going to failure, promote even stronger synapse development that would fire even quicker and faster during regular push-ups?

This seems like a simple-minded question. However, bare in mind that passing a ball 10 yards and passing that same ball 100 yards are entirely different scenarios, with different muscle responses.

I'm just wondering how it would transfer, if it does at all other than having a bit of extra strength. Any thoughts?

[CapN_Tommy_Sunshine]

I don't know if it would apply, as I just read a lot of his work recently myself. I have begun to implement some of his techniques into my routines. I am curious to know the answer to this, as well. Based on how I interpreted it, I think it should work, as long as you keep your reps/sets low, and don't go close to failure.

[MMyers]

How about I do an experiment with this. I'll add the 20 pounds every time I do push-ups and I'll retest bodyweight and post the results in a month from tomorrow.

My max right before failure was 17 last time I tried.

[Guest tparker]

Honestly, I never liked the idea of any sort of weight while doing push ups. It can easily mess with your back, and also takes some of the supporting muscles away. To gain added strength, start changing hand positions, and moving foot position from being on floor, to off the floor, slowly and upwards until you hit vertical pushups. Less risk than adding weight to your back (even in backpack form)

The other final bit is once you get good at pushups, start adding in explosive ones, where you push yourself off the ground. The farther you can get, the better. This also gets fast twitching fibers involved.

[MMyers]

I don't know, I've always liked it. And I'm not strong enough to test it with weighted pull-ups, so i just want to see what happens.

[MMyers]

I bought a 20 lb vest, so that's what I'm gonna use.