Lifting Speed to Get Big?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Umm, hi, hello members, new user here, I have been scanning the site and I just want to ask why is it that somebody says “lift fast, as fasta s possible or try to do so” and then you see bodybuilding videos and pros and people from eevry magazine saying, and showing on the videos, that you should take 1-2 seconds or so to lift and 2 seconds, as a minimum, to lower the load, and never high reps or lowe reps with heavy or light loads, but always moderate sets of moderate loads, 8-12 reps with a 15-12RM ?

I have read enough to know that this site sticks to facts, but please tell me what should I aim to get out of a rep speed to know how to feel like when I do things right?

2

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:
Umm, hi, hello members, new user here, I have been scanning the site and I just want to ask why is it that somebody says “lift fast, as fasta s possible or try to do so” and then you see bodybuilding videos and pros and people from eevry magazine saying, and showing on the videos, that you should take 1-2 seconds or so to lift and 2 seconds, as a minimum, to lower the load, and never high reps or lowe reps with heavy or light loads, but always moderate sets of moderate loads, 8-12 reps with a 15-12RM ?

I have read enough to know that this site sticks to facts, but please tell me what should I aim to get out of a rep speed to know how to feel like when I do things right?[/quote]

Honestly, IMO you shouldn’t agonize over details like exact rep speeds until perhaps you were very experienced, or if there were some sport/activity specific reason.

On the positive (concentric) portion of the lift, contract the muscles as hard as possible against the resistance. Make certain to maintain as perfect form as possible on every rep.

On the negative (eccentric) portion of the lift, lower the weight in complete control. What I mean is that you should lower the weight in such a way that you could choose to stop the weight and reverse directions at any point along the negative. I’m not personally convinced in this notion that one should lower the weight as fast as possible. I’ve seen lots of people in gyms do that, and it hasn’t seemed to give them any impressive results.

Your point about the pros lifting advice/practices is a valid one. Remember though that not all pros train exactly the same way. What you want to do is look at the similarities between those who have already achieved what you wish to achieve and then try to adopt those habits/practices.

Good luck.

3

seriously, just smash iron and eat big.

5

I have to say that Sentoguy is right.

Lowering and lifting a weight isn’t something you can count in seconds. You have got to play it by ear, in this case, get a good idea how it feels on your muscles to know if it’s giving you a pump.

It all depends on the load. If I try to do a 10-rep set with a heavy load, all I have to do is to lift by contracting the muscles as hard as possible and lowering slow enough to feel I get a level of tension out of it as good as I got during the lifting, and it’s a great idea what Sento tells you: if you lower with the appropiate speed and control, you should be able to put the brakes, hold the load statically and reverse it if you had to, that is true.

If the load is heavy,I won’t spend more than 1 second lowering it and 1 second or more lifting it. If it gets lighter, I can lift it faster, but I can also lift it slower, and I definetly will be able to lower it much more slowly.

If you wonder why people would lift a load slowly, it’s because the load itself isn’t difficult, but they need to make it feel difficult by using a slower speed to take away momentum and focus the work. I believe if a workout has fast and slow reps, slow reps are the last half of the workout, to affect a specific region and number of fibers, for lifting something fast means to lift something with all your power (when we talk supramaximal loads) and more fiber recruitment per movement.

In any case, select a speed where you find that you get the most out of the rep, follow Sento’s advise and just make sure that whatever load you use, you are contracting the muscles as hard as possible, on the lifting and lower slow enough to reverse the direction at any moment with ease and keeping the muscles almost as tense as during the lifting.

If you wonder why “3-4 sets of 8-12 reps per exercise, 3-4 exercises per muscle group, 2 times a week per muscle group” works different for people who are phisiologically/anatomically identical, it’s because of these little variations.

6

One more thing: you may discover that even if you stick to the rule Sentoguy told you:

“…On the negative (eccentric) portion of the lift, lower the weight in complete control. What I mean is that you should lower the weight in such a way that you could choose to stop the weight and reverse directions at any point along the negative…”

You may find that you can use different lwoering speeds for the same load within the parameters of that advise. You can lower a load in 1 second and be able to do what Sento says as well as you could do it if you chose to lwoer it in 2 or 3.

Think of it as if you were running the 1000 meters and they told you to do it in the easiest way you can to get tired out of it as long as the average speed used isn’t the same as a full throttle run: you could run 100 meters, stop, rest (walking or standing there) and then do another sprint and repeat or you could just keep a steady pace for 500 meters so you’d only have to rest once, you wouldn’t be so tired and your muscles won’t get sore, but you’ll get the effect you need and you’d save yourself the knee and ankle pain of having to brake hard after running at your best speed those 100 meters.

7

Also note that when they say lift “fast” or “explosively”, it doesn’t mean that you should do a 200kg bench press fast. You probably couldn’t if you tried. When you TRY to move the weight fast, you generate more force.
And lowering the weight fast is not a great idea either. Reversing the movement against all that momentum is a nasty shock to the joints(imagine the squat, leg press).

8

Well lets look at a few specific exercises:

  1. Bench press - Lots of guys ‘throw weight on’ then go balls to the walls in speed, bouncing off their chest, and flinging it up and down, risking injury to themselves and anyone else in range of the bar. The problem is that often most guys who always bounce have such a harder time taking controled up/down vs using the extra upwards energy they get from bouncing off their chest. I’ve seen nasty bruises and worse from guys doing this. Controled momentum is best. Now you can also lower weights on the bench and do ‘explosive’ ups but again, your still controlling the weight coming down and up.

  2. Squats are a lift with ALOT of range on the lift. You have guys that do partial, half, full and ATG ranges on their squats. Depending on their range some guys do them at different tempos. I’ll do some of my lifts with a 1.5/0/1.5 or 2/0/2 ratio going ATG. I’ll even do a 3/0/1 when doing squat jumps. The key is being in control of whatever weight you have on it. When i’m doing squat jumps with 135 its not until about 20 reps that I know i’m risking bad form if i don’t slow down some. But if I put 225 on it, i’d be stupid (knowing my limits) to think I can do the same tempo with this weight.

The key imho is to control the speed and thus control the weight. Learn what tempo’s work best for your goals and stick with them.

9

You know what is 1000 times more important than the speed of the rep?

The fact that the weight on the bar is heavier than the last time.

Dont major in the minors, at least not until youve covered all of your other bases. If you are lifting a truly heavy weight, then you shouldnt be able to voluntarily slow the concentric down.

10

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
<<< If you are lifting a truly heavy weight, then you shouldnt be able to voluntarily slow the concentric down.[/quote]

Then how, pray tell, do you prevent it from killing you at the bottom?

11

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
<<< If you are lifting a truly heavy weight, then you shouldnt be able to voluntarily slow the concentric down.

Then how, pray tell, do you prevent it from killing you at the bottom?[/quote]

Concentric, not the negative. Deliberately moving a heavy weight slowly on the positive is a sure sign that the weight isnt really that heavy.

12

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
<<< If you are lifting a truly heavy weight, then you shouldnt be able to voluntarily slow the concentric down.

Then how, pray tell, do you prevent it from killing you at the bottom?

Concentric, not the negative. Deliberately moving a heavy weight slowly on the positive is a sure sign that the weight isnt really that heavy.[/quote]

I do hereby stand corrected. I misread your statement.

13

Here’s my theory and this is how I’ve always lifted and it has worked at least for me. The negatives should always be controlled, never just dropped. The can be longer if that’s what you desire and thats what gives you the best stimulation but for me I just make sure its controlled.

As for the positive portion of the rep. Speed is not the same as explosion. Just try to visualize yourself pushing (or pulling) it has fast as possible while maintaining control. Obviously I can’t push 285 on the bench as fast as I can push 185, however, I still focus on pushing as quickly (read: forcefully) as possible. All of this is excluding bouncing reps off your chest or whatever else.

Does this make sense?

Take home points:
Always maintain control, but push (or pull) with as much force as possible. This will get you to bigger weights.

14

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:
Umm, hi, hello members, new user here, I have been scanning the site and I just want to ask why is it that somebody says “lift fast, as fasta s possible or try to do so” and then you see bodybuilding videos and pros and people from eevry magazine saying, and showing on the videos, that you should take 1-2 seconds or so to lift and 2 seconds, as a minimum, to lower the load, and never high reps or low reps with heavy or light loads, but always moderate sets of moderate loads, 8-12 reps with a 15-12RM ?[/quote]

The time you take to in lifting speed is somewhat dependent on your goals. Usually, for strengh and power development, force should be applied as fast as possible; however, for mass development goal of a bodybuilder applying force as fast as possible is not necessarily needed… in general i would not worry about lifting speed; only concentrate on a speed that allows you to keep proper form and that does not cause you to be slinging the wieghts all over the place which i have seen some people do. Also, on the hegative portion of the lift, try and lift the wieght down rather than letting it just fall as this lets your muscles rest.

I am unsure of your reference to “never high reps or low reps with heavy or light loads, but always moderate sets of moderate loads, 8-12 reps with a 15-12RM” as you can definnitely go heavier than 8-12 reps and many programs actually recommend lower reps such as 4 to 6 using heavier wieght…

15

Listen, newbie, there are 2 sides of the lifting scales, it’s like laoding a barbell:

In one side, you’ll find TENSION, and on the other side you’ll find TIME UNDER TENSION. The HEAVIER that something you try to do reps with is, the LESS TIME you should spend on each rep under it. Either you lift heavy or you lift slow, but not both. As for the lowering, that’s a whole other thing to explain:

You can get big in three ways: By getting the most weight moved at each rep, by moving a weight for the most reps possible (both are on the ehavy lifting, the tension side of the scales) and also by getting the most out of each rep per laod (this is the time under tension side of the scales).

I surely can bench press a 3RM of 145 kilos, if I do it by trying to lift as fast as possible, something slightly over a second, and lwoer it in a second or slightly more, close to two but not quite.

However, my 3RM load if I tried to lift with as much force possible and then to resist the load on the way down to slow it down as most as possible with as much force I had, this is lower it in 4-6 seconds, I could only do it with 105 kilograms.

Heavy is relative. If you really want to use common sense to know when to use fast, normal, medium or controlled/slow eccentrics, the rule is simple: lift as hard as you can get, lower it equally hard as well. If the load makes you lower in 1, 2 or 4 seconds, it’s ok as long as you see you are giving it your best.

I’ll find a routine that I got from some guys who really understand the concept of ghetto gym here, shame my current trainee is a freak of nature himself, but you aren’t, so I’ll post it to get some feedback, after all, you gotta believe a guy who eats a shitload of beans and doesn’t have money to buy supplements or steroids, but only decent steaks and chicken and still looks like a bodybuilding contest finalist and lifts like a powerlifting contest winner too.

16

¿ The idea is that if I pushed/pulled the weight on the concentric by making sure I put all of my force, 100% to move, or try to mve the weight as fast as possible, then I should make the same effort on the lowering, trying to put as much force as possible in it so the weight moves as slow as it can or trying to slow it down as much as possible, so i could stop and reverse at any point during the eccentric, right ?

Ok, so…¿ when, why and how do I use drop sets, pre exhaustion, post exhaustion, supersets, rest paused sets, one-and-a-half reps, partial reps and 21’s and all of those and which work best for what ?

17

By any chance, anyone here can tell me which style is better in Martial Arts to kick someone’s ass good?..I have seen 7 gyms, they have Kenpo-Karate, Savate, Wing Chun, Hapkido, Taekwondo, Kickboxing and Krav Maga, and I need something that teaches mostly to block/parry any punch, that emphasizes being “untouchable” and which is fast to learn and can be used easy.

18

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:
By any chance, anyone here can tell me which style is better in Martial Arts to kick someone’s ass good?..I have seen 7 gyms, they have Kenpo-Karate, Savate, Wing Chun, Hapkido, Taekwondo, Kickboxing and Krav Maga, and I need something that teaches mostly to block/parry any punch, that emphasizes being “untouchable” and which is fast to learn and can be used easy.[/quote]

You might visit the “strength sports” area for this subject. There are lots of threads over their on martial arts/MMA, fighting and such. They can probably answer your questions pretty efficiently.

19

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:

Ok, so…¿ when, why and how do I use drop sets, pre exhaustion, post exhaustion, supersets, rest paused sets, one-and-a-half reps, partial reps and 21’s and all of those and which work best for what ?[/quote]

Given your questions I would say none of those are really necessary for you. They are advanced techniques and you can milk straight sets for a long time before any of that is even remotely needed.

20

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:
<<< being “untouchable” and which is fast to learn and can be used easy.[/quote]

They don’t have that at a 7-Eleven near you?

Edit: Allow me to just throw in here that if I were someone close enough to you to cry at your funeral, I’d be advising you to give up this beef now before you get yourself hurt.

21

[quote]ScrawnySavant wrote:

Ok, so…¿ when, why and how do I use drop sets, pre exhaustion, post exhaustion, supersets, rest paused sets, one-and-a-half reps, partial reps and 21’s and all of those and which work best for what ?[/quote]

All of the above mentioned methods are known collectively as “intensity” techniques. I personally consider them advanced training methods, so if you’re just getting into BB’ing/resistance training I wouldn’t suggest worrying about intensity techniques. You’ll make plenty of progress using just straight sets, adding weight to the bar and eating and resting enough.

I will however give you a brief description of several intensity techniques for future reference.

  1. Drop sets- do a set to failure, and then decrease the weight on the bar and continue until you once again reach failure (rest just long enough to strip the weight off the bar, or better yet have a partner or two there to strip the weights for you). This process can be repeated several times (i.e. “double drop-set” “triple drop-set”).

This method is good for stressing a wide range of muscle fibers very efficiently. In other words start with a fairly heavy weight (say 5 RM/fast twitch fibers), then when you reach failure drop the weight (now you’ll be hitting more intermediate fibers), when you again reach failure drop the weight again (now you should be using fairly light weight and stressing more of the endurance fibers).

  1. Pre-exhaustion- perform a set (to failure) of an isolation exercise for a specific muscle and then immediately perform at set of a compound exercise that also works that muscle (example leg extension/squat).

Generally with pre-exhaustion the purpose is to emphasize a specific muscle that you have a hard time recruiting during the compound. So, while I used leg extensions (quad) and squats as an example, that’s probably not a very common example (most people tend to be quad dominant squaters naturally). A more common example might be something like straight arm pull-downs and pull-ups (for someone who has a hard time recruiting their lats).

  1. Post-exhaustion- Basically the opposite of pre-exhaustion. Perform a set of a compound exercise and then immediately perform a set of an isolation exercise for a specific muscle. This method allows you to use slightly more weight on the compound than pre-exhaust, so some people prefer it.

The idea is to really stress/overload the muscle with the compound and then use the following isolation exercise to really pump it up and get lots of blood/nutrients into the muscle belly.

  1. Super-sets- (Note: this is the method that Arnold preferred for super-sets, though some would consider pre-exhaust and post exhaust to be forms of super-sets). Perform an exercise for a muscle group and then immediately perform an exercise for the opposing muscle group (example bench and rows).

This method is a good time saving method as is allows you to do two muscle groups in about the same time it would normally take you to do only one. Some suggest that it also actually improves strength/performance in the lifts as the muscles not only rest while the opposing muscle works, but also provide less resistance to the opposing muscles due to fatigue.

  1. Rest-pause- as originally invented by Mike Mentzer (or at least I believe it was) was basically the same thing as what CT describes as “cluster sets” in his newest article. Many people however have come to associate the term with Dante Trudell’s methods. Basically Trudell’s method is to take a set to failure, take 10-15 deep breaths, go to failure again (keeping the weight the same), and repeat one more time.

This method is very good for building strength (both the original method and Trudell’s method) as it basically allows you to get more reps with the same weight in less time than you normally could.

  1. One and a half’s- is another method designed to emphasize a specific muscle group during a compound exercise. Basically you do exactly as the name implies, perform a full rep followed by a half rep.

For instance during the bench the chest/pecs are primarily responsible for the lower half of the movement and the triceps are primarily responsible for the upper half (or at least that is the theory). So, if you wanted to emphasize your chest you’d do a full rep, then come all the way down to your chest, come up half way, back down to your chest and then all the way up again. If you wanted to focus on the triceps you’d just do the half rep in the upper half instead.

  1. Partials- generally partials are done with supramaximal weights (more than you could lift through a full range of motion) and are used primarily for building strength. Once again, check out CT’s latest article for an example of a method utilizing partials. CW also did a good article a while back that was completely based around using partials.

  2. 21’s- are performed by breaking a movement into three ranges/parts (a bottom range, a middle range, and a top range) and then performing 7 reps in each range. It’s primarily a “pump” exercise designed to get a lot of blood/nutrients into the muscle.