muscle strength vs. muscle control

[bloke]

Are these different?

If different, how related are they?

[bloke]

https://pressbooks-dev.oer.hawaii.edu/a ... le-fibers/

This doesn’t answer your question directly, rather it implies that the answer is actually more complex than you might have expected.

[hrender]

I've always assumed so. A watchmaker or surgeon may not be the strongest person in the world, but they have exceptional muscle control.

[bloke]

I've never known the specifics and certainly not that specific, but those are the sorts of things that I've suspected.

Thanks!

[binlove]

Are these different?

If different, how related are they?

I used to do powerlifting and trained under a former world champion. (To be clear, I was strong *for me*, but not strong in the context of actual strong people.)

In that world, I can say definitively that muscle strength and control are different expressions of muscle function. Raw output (strength) does not always translate into more weight moved without corresponding control - putting the joints into the right positions and moving them through space in a way that applies that strength maximally. And beyond that, the ability to maintain stability while expressing strength is incredibly difficult.

Top lifters put a tremendous amount of focus into learning proper technique, which basically amounts to muscle control. This allows them to apply their strength to generate maximum force, while hopefully reducing the possibility of injury.

The lesson: constantly applying maximum force while training is not the way to build top strength or maximum force output.

I can’t think of any reason these concepts wouldn’t translate to less forceful endeavors like playing the tuba. In fact, many of the concepts and approaches carry over. Training under my coach reminded me of nothing so much as taking lessons with legendary musicians. The attention to nuance, detail, and fundamentals is exactly the same.


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[Pauvog1]

I've always heard lead trumpet players (particularly those who made it after age 45 into their 60's and beyond) talk about efficiency. I think learning maximize one's given strength leads to greater longevity, and more opportunity to utilize experience and musical (or insert area) knowledge. I think this (effectively doing more with precision/accuracy/less effort) works in many other disciplines too (even in areas that are less physical than others).

I can only provide sight from personal observation (music, business, farming (not me but a lot of family), construction, maintenance, etc).

[bloke]

I was wondering about several types of things; here are only a couple of them:

- embouchure control compared to embouchure strength

- digital (fingers) speed and precision vs. finger strength (the person who can play super-clean fast passages vs. the person who says "I prefer strong valve springs"...and they rarely seem to be the same people).

- the thing that many people (who work with their hands) tell me about young muscled-up people they hire to train to do their skilled work:
They can lift a bunch of weight (particularly when they lift the same-shaped heavy objects in the same ways that they do in the gym), and - often - their hands/wrists aren't strong enough to (as one set of examples) break loose stuck bolts (etc.) whereas their bosses (who do SOME work, but also do a bunch of paperwork and telephone work) can easily break loose stuck bolts.

- practicing several hours/day: calloused "tough" skin...strong mouth muscles...etc...
improved sound/control/speed (beyond the "efficient" 1 to 1-1/2 hour/day practicer)...??
Should a practice session regularly last much longer than a typical recital or concert? (particularly considering that most practice sessions involve more playing and more continuous playing that a typical recital or concert, yes?)

bloke "Please note that 'wonderin' and 'arguin' are NOT synonyms."

[JESimmons]

I think you're talking about which muscles are strong and flexible - the large muscles that move lots of weight or the small ones that control balance. Mark Rippetoe in his book Starting Strength gets into a bit of this discussing weight lifting. He advocates using free weights rather than machines because the free weights cause the lifter to build the small muscles as well as the big ones.

I've thought there must be a correlation with musical instruments. Perhaps its the need to build strength with long tones, flexibility with lip slurs, and endurance with occasional long practice sessions. There was a bass trombone player and teacher named Phil Teele who taught one should play long tones beginning with the double trigger low notes, play 20 long tones on each note descending into the pedals to the limits of range, then repeat the exercise four more times. That's about two and a half hours. I'd compare it to training for a marathon.

[bloke]

Speed and strength, regarding muscles, is usually the same thing. Those are the Type IIa or “fast twitch” muscles. I’ve come around to thinking that people wanting stiff springs just don’t like to keep their valves clean. In particular, front action horns don’t need a lot of force to return the piston to its default position. The tactile feedback of the stiffer springs might fool someone into thinking they are faster and therefore lead to better performance in technical passages, but I don’t think physical data is there to support the psychology.

Regarding young gym users and transferral of strength, there is almost always a skill component to display of strength. When I was a young teen, I stumbled upon the idea of tearing phone books in half by hand. It required a good bit of hand strength but a bit of skill and trickery as well. Same with some other tasks, like pickle jar lids. Wrenching isn’t too far from that. Leaning against the wrench to “feel” the torque required and then unleashing a small but powerful motion after a brief period of slack is a skill. This can be learned from small engine repair at the age of 8, as understood by the author.

The most interesting and important notion in this last post from @bloke is how long should one practice. Knowing what I know now, “just enough” is an accurate answer. For most tuba people, an hour or two per session, reflecting the length of a typical performance, is likely plenty. There are other things to consider as well.

One is that after a high intensity event like a lengthy/demanding concert, the next day or so should be horn free if possible. Muscle fatigue needs a recovery phase.

Another is that optimal practice (training) should likely be split across the day. This allows for the musculature to replenish nutrients needed to maintain and grow.

A final one is that the milieu of hormones that support muscle tissue growth and replacement is not a targeted system. The hormonal system pretty much just squirts hormones everywhere. What this means to the average tuba user is that they would benefit from a holistic approach to building skeletal muscle. There should be some level of cardiovascular exercise done with regular frequency as well as resistance/weight training. The combination of cardio and weights typically keeps the hormone levels in the body primed for healthy growth which will, in turn, keep even those little face muscles happy.

There’s been a lot of research and advances in understanding how muscles work and grow in the last decade or two. It’s probably time to start applying that to these odd tasks like music making.

Coming back to the comparison between people and strength, especially with anecdotal evidence, there is a lot of variation between people. There’s also evidence that when a person is exposed to stimuli matters as well. In the context of the gym-goer situation, I think a lot of those people did not do labor as a younger person. Most youth do not fix bicycles, prune trees, carry wood, etc. like prior generations. There’s some evidence that exposure to stimuli prior to puberty can impact what puberty does to a person. So while there is some skill of strength display bias, there’s likely some other variables at play like genetics and history of needing hand/forearm strength.

[MikeS]

I think of muscle control as the neural (mental) part of the equation. There is definitely a correlation with strength, though. Proper control will build strength much more efficiently.

There was a study done some years back at Ohio University where the participants had one arm put in a cast for three weeks. Half the participants were given a series of visualization exercises. They imagined exercising the arm in the cast for about an hour a day. The other half did nothing. At the end of the study both groups lost strength in the cast arm, but the group that visualized exercising lost only half as much.

It’s like Mr. Jacobs talking about the horn in your head. He said that if you are playing the horn in your head well, the horn in your hands will take care of itself. I believe that if you always practice and play with definite ideas about sound quality, attacks, and phrasing you will more efficiently and quickly build the embouchure strength that allows you to achieve those results consistently. I might even venture that, when you are away from the horn, you would be better served imagining yourself playing than mindlessly buzzing on a mouthpiece.

[bloke]

I cannot play "really well" without simultaneously IMAGINING playing "really well".

meh...WITHOUT also IMAGINING playing "really well", I can play "OK".