Fitness fans - Have you heard of or, used this method?
 

I was reading something the other day relating to fitness, The main idea was (from I can remember), to overload everything and to drop the weights after a period of 10 seconds, rather than lift reps.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

I briefly glanced over an article about it and can't remember where I read it or, what site it was on.

So, one lift at max weight, with a hold for ten seconds? And thats the WHOLE workout?

Power lifters do a lot of that type of stuff?

I guess you guys don't know, I don't remember much of it either myself (and can't find it again).

It was like a type of limit training, you take a load to the muscle you want to work, hold it for 10 seconds, then drop it.

It was based on the idea, that you can lower more weight from a height, than you can actually lift. (That might strike a chord with some people.)

Instead of lifting weights, you drop them. Was the basic premise.

Oh negatives?

You grab the weight and slowly lower it? Is that what you're getting at?

That sounds about right. You stack higher than you would normally lift, and do very little movement. The idea is to hold the weight, rather than move/lift it.

I'm searching and trying to find it again, I want to to try the methods out.

Negatives sounds similar or perhaps correct, but I can't remember the exact term.

Yeah, if you can't lift it you start from the end position and slowly bring them to start.

I usually get my workout partner to assist me on bench more than i can do, and have the weights lowered slowly.

That sounds very similar, have you noticed any more progress from it?

Well when I do pull ups I go up and try to hold it as long as I can. It hurts like a mother fucker.

I guess it's similar. You hold the weight and deal with the pain.

I do this all the time. I used to have contests with my bro on who can hold a pull up longer.

Yes, and it also works as a mental benefit to by pushing something so hard and impossible, it makes your regular sets feel like nothing!

Yeah, it's exactly like this, and I think it makes sense. I'm going to try it out as my only method for a while, and see what happens.

Some of the "routines" were things like, taking a weight off a side, and holding it on the way down, instead of lifting, etc. Doing a lat pull-down but only 1-2 inches and holding.

I just wanted to see if anyone has had results from it before trying, but I'll probably give it a shot anyway.

I like the sound of that :thumbsup

I'm going to start trying it from Monday, I'll record all my regular limits first, then try some negative lifts and see where I end up.

I believe the premise is to change up your workouts. So you can continue to shock your muscle into growth. There are many ways to do this. Negatives are a good way. Although I remember they are usually done on the last set. So you do your normal routine for the first three sets of each exercise, then the last one you go fornegatives. Really good on biceps.

Another way to shock the muscle into more growth is to try changing your sets and reps. We used to do ten sets of ten for squats on leg day. Try walking up the stairs to leave the gym that day. .. lol

Train with a partner you don't want to get pinned by your weights. Also why I recommend doing it as your last set.

I thought you were talking about going down, holding it for 10 seconds and pushing back up with power. Power lifters train like that i believe as part of anaerobic training/conditioning. I don't know much about power lifting, but i've been around plenty of competitive power lifters and watched them train.

If you are talking about stuff like 2 seconds down and 6 seconds up or whatever, its nothing new and has been around since the 70s. Just another way of doing the same thing, under the false belief that it is somehow going to give better gains.

Weight lifting is exactly like diet. Ask 1000 people "how do i lose 25 pounds" and you get 1000 different answers. 90% of them are not going to be helpful or useful or even remotely close to true/accurate. But strangely, people who base their careers around lowering their body fat all do the same things. There is reality - which is what everyone who competes is doing and there are the 1000 "different ways of doing it".

Broadly speaking, you have to understand ones goals to understand why they are training how they are and detail the training itself. "I read about this thing" isn't helpful in discerning what you are talking about. There is a huge difference in training for power, training for strength, training for optimal muscle gains or sports specific training and so on...

I was actually reading up on this the other day;

Negative simply means the exercise is reversed. For example, if you are doing a bench press exercise, once you have failed and can no longer push the bar up, you must then try and stop it from coming down.

Once you have reached failure, your partner will help your perform the positive (push or pull) part of the motion, taking most of the load and you will perform the negative part of the rep for a time of 5 seconds. The aim of this is to try and hold the weight at its most contracted phase. This is where we tear down the muscle, which leads to growth.

Negative strength is normally around 30%-40% stronger than positive strength, in which case we can use the extra reps to further breakdown muscle tissue and go even further beyond positive failure. Look to achieve an extra 4-5 reps after failure.