Viability of slow negatives

[HST_Rihad]

Some people question the ability of negatives (aka "eccentric contractions") to cause muscle microtrauma, and thus, to promote growth. They claim that in order for negatives to be useful, it's crucial to first reach the state of "functional rigor" of the tissue, and that may only happen during the positive (concentric) phase. Moreover, they suggest that weight be lowered fast in terms of subsequent muscle growth. From what I know this goes contrary to the HST principles of just doing slow negatives with a load higher than 5RM.

 

[Sci]

Bryan Haycock doesn't recommend "super-slow negatives", but using a heavy weight that can be lowered "under control", which isn;t slow, but isn;t "fast' either., its just enough to lower the huge load under control of your muscles. He has a great article about training using eccentric load-stretching, very insightful stuff in there. I have always steered away from this type of training, due to a lack of training partner, but he has some great ideas about doing negatives alone too.
http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?12704-Negatives-eccentrics

 

[Jester]

I've never had any complaints with negatives. I like to pair them up w/high rep sets (done afterwards), part anecdotal, part to get the metabolic work in there and to keep the joints smooth.

The exercises you can do by yourself is certainly a list that's quite short, but chins are obviously an easy one (just get a step/box etc). Weighted pushups or dips are fairly easy, though be careful w/dips as poor form/too much load will cause put a lot of force in poorly leveraged angles (bad). Leg press machine is obviously viable but an absolute pain in the a$$ as far as time management goes (take the plates off, push it up, put them on, do the negative, repeat etc).

 

[HST_Rihad]

Bryan Haycock doesn't recommend "super-slow negatives", but using a heavy weight that can be lowered "under control", which isn;t slow, but isn;t "fast' either., its just enough to lower the huge load under control of your muscles. He has a great article about training using eccentric load-stretching, very insightful stuff in there. I have always steered away from this type of training, due to a lack of training partner, but he has some great ideas about doing negatives alone too.
http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?12704-Negatives-eccentrics

Yeah, I know that, all this material is also piled up into HST FAQ.

I've never had any complaints with negatives. I like to pair them up w/high rep sets (done afterwards), part anecdotal, part to get the metabolic work in there and to keep the joints smooth.

The exercises you can do by yourself is certainly a list that's quite short, but chins are obviously an easy one (just get a step/box etc). Weighted pushups or dips are fairly easy, though be careful w/dips as poor form/too much load will cause put a lot of force in poorly leveraged angles (bad). Leg press machine is obviously viable but an absolute pain in the a$$ as far as time management goes (take the plates off, push it up, put them on, do the negative, repeat etc).

Wow, that's almost a minute of rest between each rep! Does that mean you don't need to perform a consecutive series of repetitions for their cumulative effects to sum up? As long as the muscle stays warm (i.e. ready for heavy loads) the rest interval between EACH rep doesn't matter? This undermines the whole lot of gym folklore, indeed! Is it suitable for those few who are training naturally?

 

[Jester]

The heavier the weight, the longer the rest period in between sets needs to be. Obviously we're talking in between reps here, and in a non-ideal scenario because you don't have a spotter. However, consider the situation when one is training at their literal 1RM. In this case, you're only ever doing singles and probably doing about 2-4min rest in between each rep. I'm quite sure having a one minute rest b/t negatives is far from the longest rest. Doing controlled eccentric reps at 120-130% etc of your 1RM is extremely hard, definitely worth it though. My personal experience is that negatives help gain strength, considerably, and the strength gain leads to muscle gain for your next cycle when you're lifting heavier across the board.

Having said all that, the only two exercises I find it to be really effective for are chins and bench press, pragmatically it's a bitch to get it working for anything else. BB bicep curls are easy to do negatives for but they just caused a lot of elbow soreness and didn't seem to correspond to a size increase for the guns.

 

[Old and Grey]

What works best for me is to combine the best of strength and hypertrophic programs by doing forcefull (fast) concentrics and controlled (slow) eccentrics. For example 1 second up and 3 to 4 seconds down.