Negatives

toggsy

This may sound like a stupid question, but what do people mean by training the negatives??

I have seen this posted on a few forums and was wondering what it ment, how to go about it and what you get from doing it!!

Thing is I could be doing it already, but dont know that i am ops:

Benj

Its the negitive part of the movment....Hmmmm....

Such as with bench press its when your lowering the weight towards your chest, and with tricep pushdowns its when the weight is pulling your arms back up!

Training the negitives is generally used when you get to a sticking point and its where you take your time in the negitive phase of the movement, say 5 seconds lowering the weight.

Gail

Hi guys

I'm currently training negatives on my chest. I'm still stuck at 50 kilos on my flat bench, have tried everything! I have for the last 2 weeks lowered my weights and done high reps, then went back to my bench at guess what, got stuck at 50 kilos!

Therefore, for the next couple of weeks I'm upping to 60 kilos, but I am controlling the downwards movement really slowly, then my spotter helps me press.

Hopefully I may progress soon ( MY CHEST IS CRAP!!!!) ops:

Gailx

Anonymous

negatives are very good.

you are probably doing them already toggsy

i take about 2 seconds doing myne,

what about everyone else,

does anyone really concentrate on doing a negative while squatting heavy?

Anonymous

Negatives and slow controlled exercises in general are fantastic for adding strength and mass.

As a rule of thumb I tend to do one out of four exercises a super slow one for 8 reps, ie for 4 sets of DB curls I'll do 3 at normal pace and 1 super slow - it really fatigues the muscles and gets a good pump going!

To be honest Steve mate, I don't do slow negative squats - I save that particular joy for the leg press machine

The Natural

A muscle has three levels of strength, positive(aka concentric, the push on a bench press), static(aka isometric, holding a contraction eg top of leg extension or 'posing' a muscle) and negative(aka eccentric, the lowering of the barbell during a curl).

The strength of each level is in that order. ie negative strength is the greatest. it is a safety factor, if you can lift a weight- you can put it back down. So, if you can bench 140kg for 1 rep upwards(positive) you will be able to lower(negative) more, eg 180kg.

To effectively train your eccentric strength a partner is necessary. You will have them lift the weight and you will resist it's movement(isometric strength)and then when you can no longer 'hold' the weight you will lower it as slowly as you can)eccentric strength). For example, leg extensions, preachers curls, pec deck. This is not a technique suitable for squatting unless you are using a squat rack and two extremely strong spotters, as you do not want to be doing any work on the positive(standing back up) phase of the movement. Also you will need to be using weight above what you normally rep at.

The utilisation of negative movements has been shown to increase DOMS, ie more muscle damage occurs, which in theory means more muscle repair and growth. Personally i would only use this training technique onone body part a week and cycle it, so each body part gets hit every 4/5 weeks. This is not pleasant.


Cheers.

Benj

BUMP

Excelent explanation there!

Anonymous

BUMP!