Going to try to find it, but I stumble onto, whether it be articles here, research articles, or even YouTube videos that make me say hmmmm, and I try and give it a go.
One of the subjects was the speed of the eccentric. Trying to find it, but this piece mentioned that of course the eccentric is an important growth trigger, but that the speed of the eccentric isn’t important, that 3-5 seconds was sufficient, but that the tension that you keep during that eccentric is the most important. While performing the eccentric, the key is to keep as much tension, contracting the muscle as hard as you can, as well as during the concentric.
I tried it yesterday. Very difficult, very draining for the set, but it felt great. Any thoughts?
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Sure!
When you’re trying to move weight losing tension in the eccentric and bouncing out of the bottom can be advantageous.
But when you’re trying to build muscle maintaining the tension on the way down and not bouncing can work great.
Slowing the move down can help to focus, to not lose the tension on the muscle and eliminate the bounce.
But just thinking about it and trying extra hard works too.
You can also try fun stuff like lifting against bands or chains, or hanging weights off the barbell with bands or lifting on machines with cool cams, or breaking up the eccentric and concentric to force your body to use a non-bouncing, constant tension style, without having to think about it.
All of that said, slowing down the eccentric is still a cool, useful technique too.
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I do remember reading one on here that said that a slow eccentric isn’t any better than the same volume (TUT) overall (doing normal speed reps).
All tools in a toolbox but the slow eccentric crowd arnt anything special.
It’s good for tendon health
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“Slow and controlled” is about as far as I’ll ever go with this stuff. Especially on the big lifts.
If I had to count "1, 2, 3, 4 "on a squat I’d probably mess all my shit up, I got other stuff I’m focusing on.
yeah Squats and def deadlifts no. Single joint exercise though…
I tried it today with about a 4 second negative. I kinda liked it.
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3-5 seconds on every rep is a slow eccentric for a vast majority of lifters. Its also hard if not impossible to lower a weight for a controlled 4 seconds without having tension, so controlling the speed ensures the maintenance of tension, so the speed is important.
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