Post-5 Negatives - opinions?

O

Ozzidazza

New Member
Hi guys,

What are everyones thoughts on the importance of the 2 weeks of negatives once you've completed your 5s'? Or is it just as good to try to extend your 5s' instead, pushing for new maxes?

I've just completed my 2nd cycle and find the Negatives really beat me up joint-wise, especially chest. First cycle was OK, 2nd one had me dreading them. The only two negatives I do are chins and bench. I work out alone, so I bench negatives down to support pins. I find that 10 reps of negatives for bench takes me approx 10 minutes, which includes resetting the weight (lifting each end back up to the starting support). The full ROM really kills my right pec/shoulder connection (whatever thats called).

Also the extra time taken to incorporate the Negatives pushes me over an hour for the workout. I generally super-set Bench with Chins, then Dips with Rows, but am unable to do so with the Negatives. Hence I have dropped the isolations I do for Bi's and Tri's for the duration just to get the workout to fit in my schedule. I don't really want to drop these as I feel they are lagging body parts.

FYI, I'm on a long slow cut (lot longer than expected so no discernable size changes) so my last cycle I dropped the 15's from it, and extended both the 10's & 5's by one week to compensate. Not sure if this is a good idea! I'm thinking for my next cycle I might have one week of 15's to start with before doing the same as last time with extending the 10's & 5's.

Sorry, this is probably two posts in one! But I am mainly curious about opinions on Negatives. Any other critique people may make about what I'm doing will be very much appreciated.

Regards,
Dazza
 
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I work out alone too and I feel negatives are just far too awkward. I do 8´s, 4´s and then down to 3´s so I can increase the load. Instead of 2sets of 4 Ill do 3sets of 3 instead. I too am cutting so I just skip between 8´s and 4´s/3´s. Im not SDing per say now when Im cutting so I just start off again on the 8´s without any time off. The negatives can be great if there are two working out together but I feel going down to 3´s and then using clustering to go even further helps.
 
If your joints are still up for it after the 5's, I personally prefer to do limited range of motion lifts with heavier weights where possible instead of negatives.You need access to a rack with adjustable pins, but you can continue to increase the working weights.
 
The best/easiest two exercises to perform for negs are dips and some chin/pull-up variant. Or you can do unilateral negs when it's possible to use both limbs to lift the load and then to lower it with one: eg. single-leg calf raise or db bi curls. It's also possible to change the movement for the negative part: eg. Db press to raise the load followed by a db flye to lower.

Personally, I wouldn't want to do any negs during a cut. You need all the nutrition you can get to recover from heavy workouts that include negs, which you just aren't going to get on a cut. Besides, you are trying to maintain muscle mass while dropping bodyfat and don't need to be working with such heavy loads in order to do that.
 
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