Counter To DC's Slow Negatives?

[Tom Treutlein]

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=13;t=1

Basically, during the 15's the reps should start out slow and then speed up as you feel the burn begin to kill your strength. After all, the whole point is to flush the muscle with lactic acid.
During the 10's you should go slower when the weight is light. That way it will still be difficult to complete the set. As the weight gets heavier simply increase the tempo to ensure that you complete the set. BE careful not to get too sloppy though. It will do little good to use momentum to move the weight during the 10s.

The first week of 5's should be slow on the way down but still pretty explosive on the way up. Then as the weight nears your 5 rep max you will have no real control over how fast you move the weight. It will generally go slow simply because it is so heavy.

During negatives you should lower the weight in about 2-3 seconds. This may seem too quick to most traditionalists. Research has shown that if you go too slow during negatives you don't get the same growth stimulus. it begins to resemble the effect of isometrics if you go too slow. This is one reason why the old principle of "time under tension" isn't so simple as just time. The action of the muscle while under load is very important when trying to produce a specific effect.
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What I'm looking at is the bottom paragraph. This talks about negatives hindering gains in size if they're higher than 2-3 seconds, average. DC training calls for 6 or more second negatives, does it not? What's the deal?

 

[coolcolj]

quoting Christian Thibaudeau

During eccentric training (or the eccentric portion of a lift) less motor units are active, however these activated motor units handle a much higher workload, thus the growth stimulation on said MU is very high. There is scientific evidence that the prefered MU recruited to do that job are fast-twitch fibers. Thus we could say that accentuating the eccentric portion of a lift (either via overload, slowing down the eccentric portion or plyometric drills) would lead to a specific structural improvement of the FT fibers

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Alright I somewhat understand, but to make sure I'm grasping it fully... tell me in basic terms CCJ?

 

[coolcolj]

firstly eccentrics and concentrics, plus isometrics are all separate process in the CNS so you have to train them all. And differnet fibers maybe recruited to work during each. Research shows that fast twitch fibers are mostly recruited during eccentrics

basicly when you do eccentrics, less muscle fibers are recruited to do the job, so each of those recruited muscles fibers have much more stress on them, due to lesser amount recruited. So they fatigue much more and thus they get better stimulation. And since these are mostly fast twitch fibers they also grow rapidly.

Not just light slow eccentrics or very heavy ones though, but also very fast abrupt braking ones like in plyos and speed/power type work.

But accentuated eccentric work is also quite hard on the CNS, so you have to cycle on/off them. Plus you want to do that anyway to reverse the fiber conversion that happens from eccentric work.

The only thing with slow eccentrics is that the weight you use will be very light so, you have to maximally acclerate the concentric to get more tension on the muscles and recruit the fast twitch fibers during the concentric.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Very interesting. Thus, DC's call for explosive positive, slow and controlled negative. HST calls for something similar to this too. Right now I'm stuck between both problems and their philosophies which pretty much overlap. Now it's a matter of which I want to try.

 

[coolcolj]

Well doing slow negatives all the time is a bad idea, so I would cycle between slow and fast.
Faster negatives generate more power on the following conentric.

And dropping a negative real fast and switching directions very abruptly creates a lot of tension on the muscles too. Very effective for used in speed and power type work. There is a research showing increasse in fast twitch growth and increase in type IIB numbers

 

[Tom Treutlein]

So both show an increase in fast-twitch growth then, basically.

 

[bignate73]

my suggestion, to keep well rounded, do both programs. then switch to a speed oriented program perhaps.

 

[Sammy Sosa]

You are overthinking BFS. Just concentrate on moving heavier weight. In my opinion a slow negative kills the stretch reflex.