+ 3 Slow down and grow
OK boys and girls. Lets have a think about this for a minute. When we train we place stress on the muscle to promote growth (atrophy). So instead of going into the gym and doing your max bench to get your chest to grow, or any muscle group in fact. Drop the weight a bit and slow the rep down. What this does is increases the time the muscle is under tension. And as such places more of a demand on the muscle. Buy doing this there are more than one benefit to your training. Firstly you will promote more growth due to time under tension, and secondly you will dramaticaly reduce the risk of injury. The reason you reduce the risk is that you have more control on the rep. Gravity isn't doing half of the work you are. When you slow down the rep you recruit more fibres as the work load is greater. Buy recruiting more fibres you can stimulate more growth.
If you want to take it even further then go to absolute failure, I mean untill you are doing partial reps to barely moving the weight at all. It's all for maximum stimulation for maximum growth. But dont forget to grow you need to eat good clean sources of protien, carbs and fats. Give it a try what do you have to gain.
- Bookmark
- 3
- 0
Very good read.
I Don't want to get all muscle techy but I tend to lift more towards the explosive reps on certain movements like the benchpress or chin ups. lifting a weight enough but also maintaining good form, slowly bringing the weight down, and lifting explosively on the way up, while controlling the weight during the lift. I do tend to tire out alot more, maybe because its using white muscle fibers and not red.
I will have to try using less weight and returning to my usual ways, as I love that sexy pump feeling you get with slow reps, and I swear I noticed better results with slower reps.
Yeah I am enjoying the slower more controlled reps. When you explode up from the bottom of the rep the weight transfers from the muscle to the tendon and stresses that instead of the muscle. As well as that you start using momentum and not muscle to move the weight.
Totally agree with this. I have been experimenting with not so much slow reps but accelerated reps. Starting the concentric portion of the rep slower with less force then increasing power, and as a result speed, through to the end of range. The eccentric portion is a controlled pace, not fast nor super slow, im guessing around 3 seconds on smaller lifts and 4 on the big ones. I am finding this much less taxing on my delicate tendons. Using this technique i am now able to do exercises that i couldn't do before due to tendonitis.
Yeah that's it mate. It's a whole new level of soreness as well bro.
I've found that the older I got, the easier it was to drop the weight a bit and do nice slow steady reps. Not because I couldn't do more if I wanted, but because I became more concerned with the quality of gains I was making in the gym rather than the amount of weight I could lift. I feel that the male ego, at times, plays a big part in how a lot of people train and at one time I was no exception. I felt I had to "go big or go home" every workout. I liked people in the gym watching me press heavy weight. Once I stopped being a cocky idiot, I started making incredible gains in my workouts. One of the best things I did was to drop the weight and do slower, more controlled lifts. Great advice Walla.
Thanks mate. I am the same as I have struggled in the past with training my ego as well. Like you I have gotten older and smarter. Train smarter leads to better gains and staying injury free for longer. In that regard no injuries means more consisten sessions in the gym to stimulate growth.
Love it. Thats how i train cept for the occasional HEAVY day once a week or so to evaluate progress.
Yeah that's it. Nothing wrong with going heavy mate. Apparently the slow down of rep speed and lighter weight is the way a lot of pro BBers train these days.
AnonSounds logical! Good post bro!
Cheers thanks mate.
AnonNo prob