SuperSlow Workout for increased growth

[Yung Wun]

posted by JustMe at Musclenexus

IRA DREYFUSS
Canadian Press
Friday, April 11, 2003
http://canada.com/calgary/story.asp...4D-31A69268008E

WASHINGTON (AP) - Dan Fitzgerald takes 10 seconds to lift a weight that other people lift in four. It takes him five seconds to ease it back down, even though others can do that in two.

Fitzgerald is not having trouble with his lifts. He wants them that way.

Supporters of super slow training regimens such as the one Fitzgerald uses at a YMCA in Quincy, Mass., say they can build more muscle. Fitzgerald said he's added a lot in the three years he's been doing super slow.

"I went from 165 to 180 (pounds) and I'm pretty solid," he said. "I'm 12 to 14 per cent body fat. That's not too bad for a 50-year-old."

Researchers and exercisers say super slow workouts are an effective way to wear down muscle, triggering the body to respond by making the muscle fibre grow. But they warn that super slow can be very hard work.

In 1993 and 1999, exercise physiologist Wayne Westcott, who has done studies at the same Y that Fitzgerald uses, compared super slow and conventional workouts in people Fitzgerald's age. Fitzgerald was one of his experimental subjects.

The super slow group lifted up in 10 seconds, doing five repetitions. The conventional groups lifted up in two seconds, doing eight to 12 repetitions. All the trainers averaged four seconds in lowering the weights. Strength improvements in the super slow groups were about 50 per cent greater than in the conventional groups, Westcott said.

Super slow workouts have special value on the downside, said Jeffrey Potteiger, an exercise physiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. It's a new version of what veteran weight trainers know as doing negatives, he said. Negatives work on the part of the lift in which the weight is lowered. Positives are the part in which the weight is raised.

The body doesn't recruit as many muscle fibres on a negative movement, so a slow negative means "a tremendous amount of force is being applied to fewer fibres," Potteiger said. This extra work should build more muscle.

Compared with conventional workouts, super slow is super fast, said Frederick Hahn, a trainer and gym owner in New York City and author of one of the current spate of books on super slow workouts, The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution.

Hahn's regimen requires only 30 minutes a week - 10 seconds up and 10 down per lift, with only three to six repetitions. And this set of lifts is done only once, while conventional regimens require each set to be done two or three times.

Super slow lifters also can drop aerobics. The combined demands of super slow and aerobics break down muscle faster than it can repair, Hahn said.

That happened to Fitzgerald, who described himself as a former 10K and half-marathon runner. "It was killing me," he said. "I cut it out because it was cutting into my recovery ability."

However, Potteiger thinks there's no proof that super slow can replace an aerobic workout. The idea that super slow workouts can improve cardiovascular fitness "is true if you are doing nothing now," he said.

Similarly, although super slow can burn calories, one new study found that conventional weight training burned more. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham looked at seven men with an average age of 25. The men did about 30 minutes of work in each session of each type of workout.

Conventional lifts used 45 per cent more energy than did super slow, which had an energy demand equivalent to a walk, according to their report in the February issue of the National Strength and Conditioning Association's Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

Switching from conventional to super slow is not an easy change of pace, Fitzgerald said. Slowing down the movements to the creep of the super slow pace may require coaching, he said.

And super slow is a demanding workout, Westcott and Fitzgerald warned.

Super slow takes a lot of practice to learn, a lot of concentration in keeping the form right and the mental stamina to keep pushing weight while your muscles ache. "It's not for everybody," Fitzgerald said.

In Westcott's studies, 95 per cent of the people who did super slow chose not to continue after the research ended. Their feeling was, "Even though it did work better, I'll just stay with the standard because it will get the same results but it takes longer," he said.

© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press


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[Short_Guy]

I mix this sort of thing in from time-to-time though I can't vouch for what 6-12 weeks on a routine devoted solely to this form of training might accomplish.

I seem to recall this being featured in Muscle Media about 8 years ago, too (which is where I originally picked it up).

[Poppa Pump]

Don't worry about what these suddies and "experts" say. When it comes to icreased growth you'll hear different responses from everyone you ask. I've heard how good it was to do your workouts slow, do them fast, pyramid, pyramid up in weight; but keep reps the same, work with low reps,work with high reps, rest for 40 seconds between sets, rest for 2 minutes between sets....i'd imagine you get my point.. The reason all of these "experts" all have different versions of "the best way to put on mass" is because every body is different. Find out what you respond best to, and don't worry about the studdies and the expert opinions. Find out what makes you personally grow, and go for it. Hope this helped. Peace

[Warrior]

Negatives are being explored as a possible way to induce hyperplasia due to the extreme trauma that is causes on the muscle group. Whether there is a deffinitive answer on if they do or not - I don't know, but I always treat negs with respect and occasionally do them very slow or with static contractions.

I had a buddy try and spot me on a negative (vs the positive range) and I nearly threw a 45 pound plate at his nugget - don't touch my negatives!

[brad fuel]

Originally posted by Yung Wun
posted by JustMe at Musclenexus

The super slow group lifted up in 10 seconds, doing five repetitions. The conventional groups lifted up in two seconds, doing eight to 12 repetitions. All the trainers averaged four seconds in lowering the weights. Strength improvements in the super slow groups were about 50 per cent greater than in the conventional groups, Westcott said.

Super slow workouts have special value on the downside, said Jeffrey Potteiger, an exercise physiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. It's a new version of what veteran weight trainers know as doing negatives, he said. Negatives work on the part of the lift in which the weight is lowered. Positives are the part in which the weight is raised.

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I do agree super slow workouts will build more mass but not for the reasons they mention. In their study all the trainers lower the weight in 4 seconds....how is that an advantage for the eccentric contraction to any group??? They're a little mixed up.

[Yung Wun]

thanks brothas
i just wanted to see u guys put ur 2cents in
just curious as if whether this makes any sense at all