#Powerblock ez curl bar full

Force demands determine this, assuming the muscle in question is a prime mover in the action.

However, this small difference in contraction (more supination at the top) probably has no practical bearing on the degree of recruitment of the biceps' component muscle fibers. Mark undoubtedly knows this, but seems to be using a Jones-esque argument.Īs such, yes, an EZ curl bar lacks some degree of supination, and yes, this would normally be accomplished by the biceps brachii. This is not the case, maximum recruitment tends to happen in the midrange of a muscle's length and is based solely on force demands. A lot of people apparently still believe this, including many examples in this very thread.

#Powerblock ez curl bar full

This is not how recruitment actually works.Īrthur Jones was under the impression that maximum recruitment of a muscle's motor units was only truly possible in the position of full contraction, and designed his Nautilus machines (along with other concepts like variable resistance) with this idea in mind. 'the biceps can't reach peak contraction at the top of a curl,' and this is supposed to mean that the muscle fibers making up the biceps are somehow not being fully recruited, and thus stimulated to adapt/grow. You'll notice most of the replies in this read conflate 'contraction' with 'recruitment.' I.e. I love the flexibility that PowerBlock offers, and there are expansion kits you can buy to go beyond 90 pounds kind of price-y, but the alternative is a wall of dumbbells like you see at commercial gyms.The idea that an EZ curl bar is somehow inferior to the straight bar for biceps curls seems very questionable to me, and as far as I can tell originates with Mike Mentzer, who in turn probably got it from Arthur Jones. Looked kinda silly, but hey, it's my basement and no one is looking anyway. I don't use them much at this stage - I'm still working through NLP and strictly barbell - but when I did use them, I just started taking my barbell micro-load weights and tying them on to the PB dumbbell with a short length of rope for reducing the incremental jumps. A 5 pound jump on each arm might be a bit more than you want to challenge. OK, so not a problem down at this low weight but you can imagine when you're up there doing a pair of 70 pound PBs for dumbbell chest presses and it's really heavy and you'd like to move up - but ya gotta go to 75 for the next increment.

To go to the next level, I can remove both internal bars and put on the next size plate for a total of 15 pounds. For example, the handle alone weighs 5 pounds I can add one internal bar (2.5) to make a 7.5 pound handle, or both internal bars to make it a 10 pound handle. One oddity of the PowerBlock configuration is that you can add by 2.5 pound increments, BUT only every other level. That was a while ago they may have fixed things since then.) (I have heard of customer reviews that the Bowflex/Nautilus version has experienced some mechanical issues along those lines. I've had really very good results and no mechanical problems (like having the pins fall out and weights hit my feet) using them. One I purchased from an athletic goods store is adjustable from 5 pounds to 50 pounds the other I bought from a guy selling his stuff on e-bay, and they are adjustable from 5 to 90 pounds. Has anyone had a good experience with adjustable dumbbells (ex PowerBlock, Bowflex etc.)?I'm also a basement-gym lifter, and I have 2 sets of PowerBlock dumbbells. A full set of dumbbells is fairly expensive and would take up a lot of space. Can I get a decent bar for < $100 or do I need to spend more like I did on an olympic bar?ĭumbbells seems to be more complicated as there are many options. The EZ Curl bar seems to be pretty straight away. As a basement lifter still doing NLP, I haven't needed this equipment up to this point but wanted to ask for recommendations from those more experience than I am.

Looking ahead at some intermediate training programs, I see that many (like Andy Baker's Powerlifting Program) require an EZ Curl bar for tricep extensions and some dumbbells for incline press and rows.