Sports scientists at Pennsylvania State University conducted an experiment that determined that:
A pronated grip recruited significantly more fibres in the lats than an underhand grip. Width of the grip seemed to make little difference. This study builds upon earlier research that found that bringing the bar to your chest rather than your neck activated far more muscle fibres in both the lats and the biceps.


When doing leg press, a 2005 study looked at the effects of 3 different seat angles on the lower back muscles, as well as the quads.
The researchers found that the angle that put the least amount of stress on the lower back while maximizing quad activation was 90deg.
The image for the study was a leg press machine, but they called it the leg extension machine ?

Ontop of that study, there is a nice one about foot position. And it determined that medial rotation produced the greatest muscle activation for the VL and VM, whereas lateral rotation produced the greatest activation in the RF.
Again, image was leg press machine, but they called it leg extension machine. These wouldnt make sense on leg ext. it would have to be leg press imo. And I personally dont know about medial rotation of the feet during leg press, because it could cause the knees to turn in ..



Hand spacing for Biceps .. Keep your grip close on curls, about 10 inches distance, and you'll get a more complete overall biceps hit. Close-grip puts a total hit on the medial and lateral heads of the biceps. The brachialis muscles even get complete stimulation.
MRI analyses shows, however, that if you do the exercise with a wide grip, the medial head takes the brunt of the stress and the lateral & brachialis lag behind.

Yep, you're correct. SLDL more lower back, RDL more hamstring. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/romanian-deadlift-stiff-legged-deadlift.html/

"Sets of 5-8 are generally the best way to go for most lifters and the RDL/SLDL is usually used as a secondary leg exercise following squats or deadlifts. "

Also, for people that dont lockout during squats; the final 15 degrees of knee extension is where the vastus medialis is at peak activation so avoid knee lockout can potentially cause muscular imbalances due to vastus medialis weakness which may then lead to patella tracking issues and patellafemoral pain syndrome.


and if you're doing deadlifts and killing your back, but still want to hit it more ways, it's a great idea to use machines and cables! Taking the stress off the lower back particularly.

Bradley Martyn also recommends rowing to your belly button rather than your upper stomach because it puts less strain on your lower back.

Im curious, what does hnf think of for rows..

supinated vs pronated grip

pendlay vs BO rows

90deg. vs 45deg. BO rows

single-arm db rows vs bb rows


and other row variations: seal, seated cable, t-bar etc..

i do 3 different grips on the seated cables 3 sets of each. and i do BO 1 hand DB rows.. and incline rows on the machine.. 3 diff grips on lat pull down. and ill usually superset some fo that with pullups.

How were these measures of activation obtained?

EMG

For abs i use "power wheel" put a barbell to ground get on your knees and start rolling with pushing the barbell in front of you until your extended whole body and roll back

For triceps i like to mix leaned back french press and skull crushers with low to medium weight, its all about the form

Hammys stiff legged deads are the best ones

Biceps, different curls being it target curls or just seated/standing curls

Glutes i like to use single leg lunges

Lats i prefer deadlifts and pull ups, sometimes variations of a pullin exercises like lats pulldown

Forearms the best is deadlifts with both palms facing outwards of you

i like to mix these exercises together with the compund movements, for example on back day i start doing the first sets with both palms facing out of me (forearms get a big hit) and with the last sets with heavy weights one palm facing me and the other facing away

Surface emg is notoriously hard to interpret and you can't extract recruitment levels from it alone. Surface emg has been given a tarnished reputation by people using (read: abusing) it and interpreting it improperly. Rectified surface emg amplitudes can increase without any additional recruitment of motor units because of things like rate coding and synchrony of MU. Take it with a grain of salt when a study takes increased amplitude of surface EMG and claims it means an increase in fiber recruitment

hmm it's possible it was intramuscular. But I doubt it. I have heard that before but forgot.

Would be interesting to read some similar studies with intramuscular emg testing



I wonder if the same evidence will come up.