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Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

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Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#121

Post by tuatoru »

malshe wrote: post #33
mrob wrote: post #15

I used eccentric muscle contractions to gain enough strength to do pull-ups when I was too weak to do even one. I stood on a chair to get into the top position, then lowered myself as slowly as I could. The exercise was effective, and after a few weeks I could do full pull-ups without the chair.

Thanks for this tip! I am trying to build upper body strength and pull-ups kill me

> pull-ups kill me

To build volume with pullups, complete your sets with negative pullups as gp describes (nb: at least three seconds down from chin over bar to full hang) when you fail the full pull-up (at least two seconds up, from full hang to chin over bar) any more.[1]

>> I am trying to build upper body strength

1. Keep a diary recording every session. 2. Stay away from the bench press. Focus on your back chain, arms, and grip: deadlifts, pullups (weighted, when you can do a set of 20 body weight), and overhead presses. Add squats and weighted press-ups if you insist. (Make sure you get taught both proper form and proper warm-up sequencing and always use them!)

Observe that these are all exercises that most people hate doing. For good reasons: they are hard work, and nearly all the gain is in your back, which you can't see in the mirror.

1. I used to see a lot of people doing what they claimed were pullups, with only a ten inch range of motion. Not helpful in real life. Start from a full hang: shoulders under hands, arms straight.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#122

Post by flamebreath447 »

So there’s a few really good resources on what we would now call minimalistic training.

Most people who go to the Gym do not need to squeeze out every ounce of progression. Unlike the fitness industry which is obsessed with small percentage gains because they are already in the 90+ percentile.

The study sighted really doesn’t do it justice to explain how much is enough to get the balanced, healthy long term impacts of going to the gym.

Go watch Jeff Nippards video on minimalist training, he also has a video interviewing someone whose PhD research is in this area.

tl;dr weight training for 45 minutes to an hour 3 times a week is often enough to gain 80% of the benefits from going to the gym (this excludes cardio vascular capacity and health)

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#123

Post by ehnto »

thewizardofaus wrote: post #44

This is extremely common in the triphasic training approach. "Each block focuses on a particular portion of the main lifts—the eccentric (down) phase, the isometric (static) phase, and the concentric (up) phase." Another common technique for force production in elite sport is to use weight releasers that overload the eccentric phase of a movement. For example; squat eccentric 200kg, weight releases, concentric with 1…

I am enjoying seeing so many different training styles in the comments, and the commonality in some of them. We train using pause sets which sounds like what you mean by the static portion of a lift? Unless you mean the squeeze at the top of a lift?

Squat down, pause for a few seconds, then up.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#124

Post by trentgreene »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #100
trentgreene wrote: post #72

Hi, worth mentioning that you should explicitly ignore this advice if you’re lifting heavy deadlifts. Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. Above 3-4 plates and you probably should be dropping the weight. Maybe even less. Your lumbar will thank you.

> Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. I'm not particularly qualified to speak on this, but this does not match my experience. I can deadlift 455 lb with great difficulty, but I can lower 455 lb to the ground fairly easily. And I don't see any physiological reason why this would be true—if…

Heh, ‘drop’ is an overloaded term. I don’t mean you need to release the bar from your hands or not follow through on the eccentric. By ‘drop the bar’, I mean you shouldn’t resist during the eccentric portion in the same way you might during a pull up or curl. Said another way, on heavy deads, your eccentric should be noticeably quicker than the concentric. The bar falls to the floor with you attached.

The other commenters explain why — you’re building up fatigue during the concentric, easier to over round on the eccentric if you resist.

It’s worth caveating to that there are many ways to pull, and I could imagine someone lightening the weight to resist and control the eccentric. But in the the style of pulling I grew up with, a set of 5 reps functioned more like 5 heavy singles in a row, with some seconds of rest and resetting form between pulls. I’ve never seen controlled and resisted eccentrics with that style, and the thought of it lit scares me.

PS. Pulling 455 means that you almost certainly have some expertise in this matter ;). That’s not an untrained pull

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#126

Post by Alt4Alt »

dnissley wrote: post #12

Sounds great if you've got an assistant who can raise the weight back up for you! "...each participant in the CON group was instructed to lift a dumbbell for the concentric phase in 2s, and each participant in the ECC group lowered a dumbbell in 2s, and the investigator set the dumbbell in the starting position (0° for CON, 50° for ECC) after each contraction"

Or you can do it while hanging upside down with a lighter weight - 'lifting' is no longer an effort. /s

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#127

Post by dirtyid »

Dumb study with:

>Non-resistance-trained young adults

As long as novice lifters fuck around consistently with challenging weights they'll milk their beginner gains within a reasonable time frame (months), being slightly suboptimal will make the process slightly longer. "All you need" is just finding a routine that you can stick to consistently / sustainably that leads to your goals. Sure you can do only negatives but just about everything works for beginners, so do something you enjoy. In my experience most people don't like negatives, they're challenging/fatiguing vs normal reps work. Exception being bodyweight exercises like pullup/dips where slowly moving in space (forgot technical term) works very well for building groove.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#128

Post by trentgreene »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #84
glfharris wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure linking to a post detailing the PEDs alongside their routine is typical of the average person who does bodybuilding style training.

PEDs seem to be the most classic bodybuilding routine.

Competitively, sure. Casually, no.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#129

Post by dirtyid »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #100
trentgreene wrote: post #72

Hi, worth mentioning that you should explicitly ignore this advice if you’re lifting heavy deadlifts. Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. Above 3-4 plates and you probably should be dropping the weight. Maybe even less. Your lumbar will thank you.

> Eventually you will get to a point on that exercise where your concentric pull can put up vastly more weight than you can safely lower to the ground in a slow manner. I'm not particularly qualified to speak on this, but this does not match my experience. I can deadlift 455 lb with great difficulty, but I can lower 455 lb to the ground fairly easily. And I don't see any physiological reason why this would be true—if…

IIRC you can generally handle 120-140% weight of concentric with eccentric. The issue is HEAVY eccentric for advanced lifters is extremely taxing and fatiguing on body and is suboptimial in how much it can eat away at overall routine volume / practice by pushing body into recovery debt that ultimately drives progression (for many). Singles with 90%+ or supermax (over 100% 1RM) eccentrics when programmed are done with very few reps (often just last rep to pins/safety, anything over handful singles per week is considered machoistic). Otherwise it's reserved for tempo work i.e. 4010 or 40X0 (4 second down, no pause at bottom, 1 second up or X explode up, no wait at top) with relatively light %s that doesn't fatigue for technique work.

Re: Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

#130

Post by galangalalgol »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #93

As is often the case with these sorts of studies, I'd be wary of over-extrapolating. The study specifically looked at the dumbbell curl only among untrained individuals. If you did a similar study on trained individuals, or on a compound movement like a squat or a bench press, I'd expect to see different results. (In fact, it's effectively impossible to only perform the eccentric portion of a squat or a bench press u…

I'd like to see a study of people who do slowed negatives on deadlifts vs just barely controlling it on the way down.
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