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LBSS,

Now you're creating a strawmen. I never said blacks were better dancers and I never said dumb people were better dancers. I said people thought to be highly intelligent that think a lot generally aren't good dancers (or good athletes).  Make a list of the worlds 100 greatest thinkers and its relatively unlikely they were ever tearing it up on the dance floor at any age, with or without practice. Regardless of skin color.  The evolution of the human brain particularly with regards to front brain development does help to explain why, if you link that with movement skills.

On another note you would do well to read "Global Bell Curve" by Richard Lynn.

There have been multiple studies showing that young males of west african descent (generally what is referred to in the US as "black")  in the US tend to have lower body fat, perform slightly better on sprint and strength tests than their white counterparts etc...

And have better motor skill development at any given age. 

Quote from: Kellyb on May 12, 2011, 01:10:32 pm

Quote from: Raptor on May 11, 2011, 04:10:25 pm

That's a good point... makes them "think less". Maybe more right side of the brain into it.

The more you think about movement, the worse it usually gets.

That's what I'm getting at. Dropping thought and just going with the flow doesn't always come natural to people who are used to actively engaging their concious brain in everything.  Alcohol can help temper down an overactive frontal cortex which tends to make movement singular and mechanical. The hindbrain (instinctual brain) is where you want to be for bodily movement . A few years back LBS's hero Lyle Mcdonald would even drink Vodka before he skated with the goal of taming his overactive frontal brain so he could become less mechanical on the ice.  

that's funny about lyle, didn't know that. only came to nutswinging on the tail end of his speed skating days so i missed most of what he wrote about his own training. closest thing i could find in a quick look around his forum was a joking suggestion to add "russian"-style events to speed skating meets, where you'd take a shot of vodka between every lap. would love to see where he actually talked about drinking while training, that would be funny.

you're still wrong, though. overactive frontal cortex* does not equal "intelligence"**. and anyway, you didn't contradict what i said. lowered inhibition and reduced overthinking are close to the same thing in my experience, especially when it comes to dancing. what does any of this have to do with "intelligence"?

back to your original question, though, and even taking "intelligence" at face value, where on earth did you get the idea that more-intelligent people tend to be worse dancers than less-intelligent people? that doesn't make sense and is not at all true in my experience.

petey0109, since when are "people that go with the flow" less "intelligent" than "overthinkers" or "overthinkers" necessarily more "intelligent" than everyone else?

also, since when did the bar for "good dancer" get set at "not being really jerky"? i can move in time to music, even sober. my movements get looser when i'm drunk, i think, but that doesn't make me a good dancer. in fact, trying to do any kind of coordinated dance gets HARDER when i'm drunk. i do care less that i'm not good at it, though. so there's that.

*relative to what? what's a normal level of cortical activity? what's subnormal and supernormal? why do those states exist? do they exist to a greater degree or more frequently in some people than others? why? how many people fall into each category? what effect do those differences have on movement? honest questions for which i'd be very curious to see answers.

**"intelligence" doesn't exist as a singular trait that you can isolate and measure, so is completely meaningless for any kind of comparative purpose. what do you mean by it?

You're really overthinking things here. People that demonstrate increased frontal lobe functioning think about the consequences of their actions and are apt to plan shit out. They're generally going to be observed to be more intelligent than their hindbrain dominant coutnerparts because they're more than likely have taken their education serious done their homeword, studied for tests, etc. That's different than IQ but apparently everyone here except for you  knew what I meant. If you can't see that the prototypical nerd is not inherently great at stuff like dancing you really need to get out more. Considering you're the same guy who asked what a black person is I shouldn't be surprised.  

Let me ask you something else Kelly:

Would you expect an inhibited person (the one that doesn't dance well when people are around) to dance better alone at home for example, with only himself as a "spectator"? I would

Hell if I know. Not something I've thought about that much, but yeah you're probably right.

Quote from: Kellyb on May 10, 2011, 12:47:43 pm

A better question IMO is why are a disproportionate number of highly intelligent people are inherently terrible dancers.    

why is that. i have never been a good dancer, and would becoming one help my bball game.

If we wanted to go about it what would we do

I doubt if becoming a good dancer would help your game. The events are correlative, not causative.

Because highly intelligent people stay at home in front of the computer or books and read and don't "go out" to dance. Dancing is a matter of body control but it still matters how much time you put into it.

If I'm a nerd I don't go out there to make myself a mockery in front of people "learning to dance". Dancing is for monkeys. Wait, what am I trying to say?

Ok let me put it another way. Why is it that alcohol undboubtedly helps some people dance,  - then think about what that has to do with the mind.

The strength/reactive jumper classification is kinda flawed in an absolute sense.  Its more about where your strength is at and how you're built. You probably have strong ankle stiffness and your built in a way and favor a posture that doesnt' overstress your ankles when you jump off one leg.  The squat will also often improve your 1 leg jump linearly so what you experience there isn't uncommon.  Extreme quad dominance does favor bilateral jumping though.

That's some good advice there Lance.

Re: the choppy steps a lot of times that can also be just a psychological thing it might make you feel like you're going faster taking quicker steps out of the hole but if you put the watch on it you'll probably find that's not the case.  The sled can help you get the proper mechanics it's good to do contrast or complex 10 yard sprints one with sled and one without or substitute sled with uphill bodyweight sprint one uphill one flat.

Hip height make sure your lead leg is at about 45 degree angle also experiment with different stance widths a slightly wider stance can sometimes help your start just make sure it carries over into the rest of your 40.

All in all though the 3 pt. start is a specific skill that takes practice - it will often suck until one day it just clicks for you. How does your standing 2 pt. start compare to your 3 pt? 

Think of what really happens:  The eccentric describes the external observation of the movement taking place but when muscles contract they shorten. Thus the muscular contractions are still concentric in nature. An eccentric contraction describes an eccentric motion (negative) where the muscle fires concentrically enough to prevent free fall. In other words, if you're doing an eccentric squat you use enough positive tension (concentric firing) to control the weight on the way down.

A better name for eccentric strength IMO would be eccentric control, since control is all that is really happening.

when a muscle is lengthened and contracts under tension a stretch is likely to result, which explains why eccentrics are more damaging. When a weight can't be controlled and an involuntary stretch under tension results the result can be catastrophic. This is a problem with focused eccentrics as the proper definition of "control" is often open to interpretation. 

You can lower more weight than you can raise so training with focused eccentrics is really just an attempt at supramaximal loading. A weight that can be maximally lifted concentrically will likely be too light to even challenge maximal eccentric control (depending on how you define it), which explains why concentric only training doesn't always impact eccentric strength.....it depends on the movement but in general it's not heavy enough.

However, in my experience, with very few exceptions the use of stuff like pure eccentrics is little more than an attempt by theoreticians at doing something cutting edge.  The likelihood of the results being any better than any other garden variety programing is nil, and the risk of injury is greater.   Plus, the ability to control a weight changes dramatically depending on what point of the movement you're talking about.  Most blowtards will overestimate what they can do and when they hit the transition point of a movement (CJC) they'll lose control of the weight and will end up tearing something - or at the very least be sore for days. If you're gonna do eccentrics a better way to do them is find the maximal amount of weight you can lower and hold completely motionless for 3 to 5 seconds at the toughest part of the movement. Right at or just below parallel in the squat and right below the midpoint in the bench.  Use that weight as your maximum. Your mileage may vary but that can be an effective training method and it can/does work well for deadlifts

On the topic of strenght before plyo, PAP, or complex training, your mileage may vary. There has been an obsession in the research community the last few years for all things post activation potentiation and complex. Every loading parameter and exercise you could think of has been utilized, all with varying degrees of effectiveness.  The general conclusion poring over most of the research is out of any particular group of people only about 50% of people will respond favorably to MOST exercises and parameters set up in this fashion. There are a few parameters tested where only 15 or 20% of pepole will respond, but they tend to do so VERY well.  But anyway, the most common strength parameter that worked for MOST people was an ~85% squat for 3-5 reps, rest 3 minutes then do VJ.  A loaded dynamic warmup followed by some loaded jumps (10% bodyweight) worked extremely well. Jump squats, cleans, etc. were also variably effective. There is no universal magic bullet though.  Best thing to do is experiment and see what happens.

Personally I hate complex training with strength lifts although I do like it for some strength speed lifts..jumps squat complexed with regular jump or hang snatch complexed with a plyo. For strenght lifts the only time I'd use it is in a corrective sense where you're trying to get a particular muscle firing better. I think this is one area where shorter Isos may have some utility as they can temporarily increase neural drive to a working muscle without doing much else as far as accumulation of metabolic waste. For example, do a set of Iso glute and hip flexor contractions before sprints.