Maintaining Control While Fatigued

Image courtesy of carscissorlifts.net

These days, thanks to RTS, I am much more about being able to control the resistance and the motion than I ever have been.  Essentially, what I am looking for from clients is the ability to own the motion at every point in the range in which they are moving.  This means if I were to tell them to stop or to reverse the motion at any point in time, they would be able to without risking injury or altering how the path of motion.  This also means that they have the ability to make every rep look exactly the same.

Image courtesy of lifeactivation.co.uk

Side Note:  This is part of the reason why I have begun using more and more machines with my clients.  I am able to put them in the specific joint positions and force scenarios that I want them to encounter so as to bias towards manipulating the force production requirements of certain tissues and maintaining certain sequences of joint contact surfaces throughout the motion.  This is very difficult to replicate with free weights or other devices that offer less passive support.

Back to the control.  When looking at one aspect of control as the ability to make each rep look exactly like the one before it, I cannot help but question if it makes sense in a controlled scenario to have someone continue to move through as large of a range as they can if they are starting to shake at the top and/or bottom of the rep.  This is most noticeable when the tissue is fatigued and you are trying to push through that fatigue to crank out a few more reps.

Image courtesy of charlottesoper.wordpress.com

What I have started to do with my clients is, when this shaking starts to occur, limit the range so they are reversing direction right before they start to shake*.  This shaking is involuntary, meaning they are clearly unable to control it, so how would this be different from moving a resistance so fast that each rep looks like a different exercise?  Right now, in my eyes, it's not*.

How do you know what tissue and which joint contact surfaces you are biasing if you are unable to control the motion?

How do you attempt to maintain control of the motion and resistance when you or your clients train, especially while fatigued?

Your body.  Your training.

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*These ideas were first presented to me during the mastery-level RTS courses.  I am trying to share how I currently apply these ideas to my clients.