Really? That’s your objection? Sounds like I am having an argument with my wife - she lost, but still wants to win lol. It’s cool man, let’s just leave it here.
Go on? what does the literature say on it?
My objection is that I never lowered a weight where I counted to 3. I can count to 3 in less than half a second. You are most definitely not a STEM.
Here is the argument. You said, “3 seconds” and I commented that we never ever did a 3 second negative at all, and much less as a rule of thumb. “A nice smooth descent, but not significantly slow” is and has always been, less than 3 seconds.
Ok, sounds good. Sounds we can file that under “preference” and leave it alone and not muddy the waters. I use, and have used, around 3 seconds negatives. It helps protect me against injury, gives consistency, and takes away momentum. That is enough for me. If you want to just “control” the decent and it isn’t 3 seconds, that is great too. You sound like you are trying to train safely as well. Apart from that, I don’t think we differ very much on opinion around the point. Fair?
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I prefer to do my ‘assistance’ work similar to those discussions. I think 5x5 FSL type work helped my bench last year but I was probably closer to SSL weights. 5x5 with something I can do 10 times seems like a waste of time. 5x5 with a 7-8 RM is closer to that 80-87% range that is supposed to build strength (according to CT).
I think it’s silly that after all these years coaches will still call something different than their method inferior. I don’t quite buy into the neuro typing stuff, but we know everyone is made up of a different amount of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers (and the in-between). That means some people are naturally good distance runners while others are better at sprinting. It’s not a stretch to think those same differences might mean one person does well with junk volume while another does better with a DoggCrap method.
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Through the decades I have seen a number of people develop significant muscle in completely different methods. This begs the question: Did the person just pick the correct method for him, or were these people going to put on muscle regardless of the training method?
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I think most cases are examples of people finding what works for them through trial and error and a bit of personal preference. There are a few rare people who can just suck it up and work hard no matter what, but most of us mortals want to enjoy what we’re doing at least a little bit. I know I do. If I don’t enjoy the training, or worse, if I loathe the training then there’s a good chance I’ll hold back, skip something, miss a session, or just quit altogether. That’s not going to work. But if I pick a different method and show up every session and put in the work, then I’ll get results.
I think most of us can get to 80-85% of our potential with moderate effort. Those that wish to step on stage have to trade a lot of time, energy, and life to squeeze out the rest (whether natural or not).
This is a mindset I have never been able to achieve and I am realizing that this is the way. I have always tried to micromanage anything I do. I always have to get the best possible outcome for as little work as possible. Actually ironically the only thing I didn’t do that with is learning to play guitar which is one thing I’m actually good at because I practiced it 6 hours a day every day for like 5 years without telling myself “I need to do it this way” or “I can’t do that fun thing on guitar today, I have to do this other thing to be optimal”.
Lot of mindset gains in this thread
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Any half-assed program consistently followed works for beginners.
After you have hit a good chunk of your potential, doing something completely different sometimes works very well and sometimes doesn’t do much at all.
For me, things that were not worth the aggro included: super slow movements, maxing out a single set, sets using under 50% of RM, single sided movements, passive stretching before the workout (with a few exceptions), using rollers or squash balls, CrossFit gymnastic stuff and CrossFit high jumping for speed (high jumping, with bigger pauses between reps, is useful with much less risk of injury).
Things which paid off handsomely included: loaded carries, overhead work, heavy rows, Kettleball volume, GVT, Bunch Of Skilled (Heavy) Singles, Nautilus circuits, pelvic thrust machine, Weighted Dips, Pull-ups, sprinting, the climbing (rope pulling) machine, Viking presses, ab rollouts, Jacob ladders and adding some CrossFit stuff (Olympic lifts, burpees, EMOM) to powerlifting workouts.
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