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4.5 Metabolic Stress Techniques
4.5.1 Partials and Pulsing with Isolation Movements
Regular sets have the disadvantage of a lot of wasted effort with both a pronounced eccentric contraction, which leads to a respite and oxygen "refeed" (due to blood pooling back in), and lack of relative TUL spent in the most contracted part of the ROM, which has the highest fatiguing rate.
Static contractions have advantage of fixing at a peak contraction, but the disadvantage of decreased force requirement in an isometric position.
Partials, particularly pulsing, with isolation movements are by far the most effective way to generate metabolic stress in a specific muscle.
A true pulse is really a very short partial (1-3 inches) done at near peak-contraction (but not lock-out.)
The idea is to just get enough ROM in order for the target muscle to palpably shorten. A pulse is performed slowly (but not so slow as to turn it into a static contraction) during the concentric and quickly at the eccentric.
You'll be doing pulses of roughly 1-2 second concentric and ~0.5 seconds. You'd use a load that's fairly low (for isolation movements, that's somewhere in the 15s range) to produce 15 pulses. In a short 30-40 seconds, you can an excruciating burn.
Another advantage to do this technique is that you can use them rest-pause style. That is, when you start out, if you can't make 15 pulses, you can periodically have respites by lowering the weight all the way down, breathe, and then rejoin in the fun.
Unlike drop sets, you can easily manage the amount of neural fatigue in order to generate the net metabolic stress that you want.
Finally, let me vouch for the machine-assisted pullover, especially the Nautilus pullover. It's my favorite isolation movement; so much so that I think it can supplant chins for lat development.
However, it's also truly terrific for creating metabolic stress in the abs, traps and upper back as well as the lats. Even if your routine comprises of only compound movements, I strongly recommend pulsing with this exercise in order to create an effect in many parts. Again, highly recommended.
4.5.2 Statics, Partials, Pulsing and Grip Width with Compound Movements
Because pulling movements tend to have their weak links in the point of contraction, pulsing is the way to go with pulling movements too.
However, due to the pulsing needs a slightly wider range of motion in order to generate a palpable shortening in the target muscle.
Since there are multiple primary movers at work, loads will be heavier too, approaching what you'd normally use at the end of 15s or beginning of 10s.
Using a close-grip helps too, since it situates all of the primary movers at more contracted position. For example, you can do wide-grip pulldowns for your normal set.
Lower the poundage significantly, and then pulse out with close-grip pulldowns. Partials can work well with pressing movements.
Here, traditional pulsing would be a bad idea because you're simply too strong near lockout.
BUT, normal partial training, from 50% to near-lockout with a close-grip, essentially works like an instantaneous drop set.
You don't need to reset the weight, and so you can go straight into partial training right after your normal set.
You can control the # of reps you can perform by adjusting ROM and rep speed. When it gets too hard, you can rerack and repeat rest-pause style, which lets you control respite better than drop sets.
For example, after your 5RM set, you can perform another 5 partials reps, then another 5 pulses, then finally use static holds for a few seconds, all without adjusting the weight.
By varying your ROM and speed and concentric vs. static, you can increase metabolic stress and manage the neural fatigue simultaneously.
