knoback wrote:NancyHands wrote:Absolutely true. It's a very important aspect of weight training in football as a means to prevent injury. Not only do muscles and tendons increase their load bearing capacity, but bones respond this way too and not just the load bearing ones. My old trainer used to say that there was no better way to make your forearms bigger than doing squats. Generally speaking the larger the muscle or bone being worked the more systemic the effect will be. Smaller muscles and bone will have little to no effect on a whole. Still, the last I read about this there were some conflicting opinions.
It is important that significant weight be applied, for instance, circuit training with light weights will have a minimum impact on bone density, but running or prolonged exposure to high impact sports (like football) will have a significant effect on bone density and strength.
Orthopedists have been using resistance training to assist the elderly with bone mass issues for some time as well.
Evidence please. I'd love to be wrong about this, but I have not seen anything in the literature to suggest a significant systemic effect. As a jack of all trades, master of none it is quite possible I've just missed it. But the proposed mechanism for forearm fracture reduction in the elderly with lower extremity exercise is improvement in muscle strength and balance precisely because there isn't a global improvement in bone density that would account for it. Your forearms are getting bigger because they are working to hold the bar across your shoulders, not because your quads are getting bigger and bringing them along for the ride.
When I speak it's as if jewels of knowledge are falling from the sky. You need but gather them to attain total enlightenment. There is your evidence…
I will find some for you. There are huge hormonal effects from lifting weights, particularly when working large muscle groups. This causes other muscles outside of those worked to be effected, so even if you were using a leg press machine without any grip necessary it would effect your forearms. That said, true squats are better as you are working far more large muscles - back, obloquies and many other core groups as well as your forearms. Your forearms would grow to some degree under great systemic pressure, but from a practical standpoint it’s more accurate to say they will respond much better to resistance training when larger muscles are under heavy resistance load. Again, it’s important that the load be heavy and not anaerobic.
For the record I’m 6’4” and used to weigh 285 with about 10% body fat.
I now weigh 215 at about 20% body fat.