Recently I?ve taken note of a guy who has built a tremendous competition quality physique at my gym. The interesting thing about his routine is I have never seen him do a full range of motion repetition for any exercise. I?ve noticed his rows, ab flexor, hyperextension, curls etc. all move about two inches. He will go heavy and just sit there and perform a lot of these little micro movements. Anybody familiar with what I am describing?
Partial range movements have their place in certain training programs, but most people I see doing what you’re describing aren’t using it for that purpose…usually they just don’t know what the hell they are doing.
I saw Sergio Oliva train this way, in the early 80s. Not just once in a while, pretty much all the time. He’d do seated barbell curls, for example, and do fast reps, a lot of them, with 135 lbs and up. On bench presses, he’d do like five short reps in the lowest position, and then do a regular rep, then do five more “bounces” etc. (I know, sounds like shoulder-rippers). Even though he was slightly past his peak at the time, he was massive, lean, and truly amazing-looking.
Of course, he is far from being the “average trainee”.