Does slow, no-relaxation squatting change how you pedal?

Tanimoto and colleagues worried that the slow, constantly tense lifting style they had developed (LST) is unlike natural sport movement and might carry over badly to dynamic tasks. They tested this with pedalling as the model movement.

Twenty-four healthy young men who did not cycle habitually and had no resistance-training history were randomly assigned to vertical squats in LST style (about 60% 1RM, 3 s lifting and 3 s lowering, no relaxing phase), heavy normal-speed squats (85% 1RM, 1 s up, 1 s down, 1 s relaxed), or a sedentary control group, 8 each.

The training groups did three sets twice a week for 13 weeks. Before and after, the authors measured the coefficient of variation (CV) of rectified vastus lateralis EMG and of pedalling force during a cycling task. Only the LST group changed: EMG CV fell 21% and force CV fell 18% (p < 0.05). Heavy and control groups did not change.

The authors read this as quadriceps activity and pedal force becoming more tonic, which "may have an unfavorable effect" on cycling and other dynamic movements.

How this relates to the Russian static-dynamic method: the closest tested form: ~60% 1RM squats, 3 s up / 3 s down, no relaxation between reps, three sets, twice a week. Set length, rest, range and failure are not in the abstract. It is the only study of this method that touches a cycling movement, and its result is a change in movement pattern, not in endurance or in muscle oxidative capacity.