Lots of misconceptions here.
Stickman92 wrote:
I should go a bit more specific. Forearms are mainly for your wrist, hands, fingers. If your forearm is stronger, then that will have an indirect impact on your speed potentially, but mainly your stamina (which is how long you can maintain speed). Another important thing i forgot to mention is the muscles inside your hand.
Only true for players who utilise a wrist up technique, or rather players who do not rest their forearms on a surface. Players who play with their forearms rested utilise their finger extensors and only those muscles for one hand trilling motions. They do utilise their forearms or wrists, but that's only for jacking or any jack-based motion. Players who utilise a wrist up technique will use their forearms and other muscles for better power output (for one hand trilling motions and jacking motions), but forearm endurance is a notable concern.
abraker wrote:
attang is pretty much the fastest you can get. 8k 100ms vibro for 100k pp anyone? It gets really retarded really fast.
Not related to the conversation, but players like Conservation, SpaceGorilla and arpia97 can sustain jacking speeds that's far faster than 10 notes per second per column. You can realistically expect some of the fastest vibro players to do 225bpm octojacks (120 NPS) for 16+ chords after proper 8K conditoning.
Stickman92 wrote:
having trained muscles would improve an effect on reading and finger independence
No. You are confusing muscle memory with muscular endurance and power. Your definition of trained muscles is extremely ill-defined; saying that muscles are "trained to the limit" doesn't mean anything; muscles can be worked on in multiple ways. Hypertrophy (big muscles) is only one way. Strength/power building is another. Muscular endurance is another. In all three definitions, these do not contribute to reading in any way. Reading comes from muscle memory; the process of noticing a pattern and executing it accordingly in a small fraction of a second. This requires less of muscle conditioning and more of being able to process the pattern consistently (through multiple exposures) and hitting them with a certain level of precision as consistently as possible.
The video you linked is a video of exactly that. It shows nothing related to muscle conditioning by any means. It's him being able to process the patterning in some manner, and hitting notes in certain manners depending on which technique he believes has the highest probability of conserving his health. While this sounds particularly impressive, muscle memory that specific stems from playing a chart multitudes of times (because players do not memorise notes on the fly, people only know specific patterning and how to manipulate them through either careful analysis of the pattern or playing it a lot), and not representative of high-level play by any means.
I don't know anything about finger independence so I won't say anything about that here.
Stickman92 wrote:
yeah, thats good point, i like ur definition of finger independence, explained what i was thinking better.
https://starfishtherapies.wordpress.com ... or-skills/ this explainss the process of learning patterns pretty well. Once ur autonomous with a pattern, having trained muscles would be effective for stamina. So for almost all the mania players we still in the associative stage for playing (understand pattern,still learning it and requires thought still).
This only applies for the best vsrg ET's. I believe they would be autonomous for most of the patterns they play, so having trained muscles to improve their stamina would be helpful, or atleast let them learn the difficult patterns.
The claim that only the top players have fully mastered muscle memory is ridiculous. You acquire muscle memory regardless of skill level, it's just that the muscle memory that top players are trying to acquire are at of much higher speeds than ones of newer players. The procedure you linked will apply to every player, at any skill level. Maybe more experienced (not even top, just players who are exposed to almost every type of pattern out there) players will have an easier time learning how to hit certain patterns at 280bpm when they have "mastered" 260bpm than a new player learning how to hit said pattern at 80bpm, but saying that experienced players have mastered muscle memory completely because of this is silly. It's just easier to learn these patterns than if you're new, because you've learnt it before.
Bobbias wrote:
I have my doubts that actually training muscles would have a particularly large benefit, since in my experience what USUALLY keeps people back is actually reading and technique itself rather than a physical limitation of their muscles. Even when you think you're able to read something, if it takes too long for your brain to understand what you're seeing you might feel like you are reading it (and you are) but you won't have enough time to actually respond. Similarly, if your technique isn't good enough you will feel slow, or lose stamina very quickly on patterns.
If anything, training would improve stamina, but I have my doubts on it improving actual finger speed by much.
This is mostly the right answer. 85-90% of the reason why players plateau at a certain level is not because of muscular atrophy or just poor muscle conditioning, just poor reading or poor building of muscle memory. The 10-15% of the reason why players tank in skill is because of muscular atrophy.
There's no doubt that there is a strength/power and stamina component to rhythm games. Vibro is the best example of this; it's essentially the ability to tense up a certain muscle at a certain speed for a certain period of time. This certain speed is much faster than speeds required for every other skill in the game, which is why vibro has a clear upper limit for players. This is not to say that vibro can't be trained, vibro consistency (i.e. the ability you can sustain that speed) can be trained to the point where it feels as if your vibro speed has improved.
One hand trilling and wrist jacking motions can also be worked on if muscle memory isn't the problem (which is a problem that's usually faced by top players). I don't quite agree with the finger extensors exercise that Etienne linked, because not all players utilise their finger extensors, but reverse wrist curls can help considerably with sustained wrist jacking and even faster wrist jacking, though they have to be trained in different ways. Stamina can definitely be worked on if muscle memory isn't the problem too, either through again, finger extensor endurance training or just forearm endurance training.
But the problem for players (even at the top) is mostly an inconsistent execution of muscle memory more than anything. Most players I know, even top players, can one hand trill and wristjack speeds that are far faster than what they can realistically do in charts that tests one hand trilling. This is because of unoptimised muscle memory; or rather just muscle memory that does not match the player's actual maximum output. The only way to train muscle memory is to practice more in a deliberate manner. This involves mostly pattern exposure/processing and proper pacing of how you're going to expose yourself to these patterns.
That's not to say that stamina is entirely based on muscle conditioning either; stamina expenditure is also dictated by muscle memory. That explains why even lower-level players get tired, it comes from a misdirected exertion of power. You can realistically expect forearm/finger extensor endurance training would help with stamina (since it gives you more stamina to expend), but that's probably the extent of how useful training outside of rhythm games can be.
