Lou's blog post on rep speed

[banderbe]

Lou posted this to his blog this morning.

In light of all that, should we now disregard Alwyn's recommendations for rep speed in NROL?

I've been doing 311 on my lifts for H1, but frankly I always lift (concentric) as fast as I can. For instance on the incline bench, I explode up as fast as possible, but I still adhere to the three seconds lowering.

I have a hard time believing that if you lower the weight as fast as possible, which is essentially letting gravity do the work for you, at least until you have to stop the weight's downward movement, that you'll somehow get more damage to the muscle that way.

Also, if you lower as fast as possible you'll bounce out of the bottom position, which makes lifting the weight easier than it would be otherwise, and also increases the chances of injury.

I certainly don't think ANYONE should be squatting as fast as possible, for instance. Sure, stand up as fast as you can but just dropping into the hole is a recipe for disaster.

[justinbass]

I do a lot of my lifting fast, and other lifts slow. It depends on the lift.

Most "pushes" feel like exercises I should do fast/explosively. But when I get to heavier weights, I slow down the movement to be sure I am in control. Form first, then power. Now that I think about it, this applies to most of my lifts. I tend to be explosive with lighter weights and more careful and aware of form on heavier lifts.

[JorgenMan]

I'd like to know what Alwyn thinks about this.

One problem I have with this post is that there isn't much differentiation between concentric and eccentric movement. It seems entirely possible that even if concentric movements should be done as quickly as possible, eccentric movement might still be best done slowly. In other words, just because I should lift a weight as quickly as I can, that doesn't necessarily mean I shouldn't lower it slowly.

I'd like to hear some more thoughts on this. I'm doing Strength I right now, and the 3-second eccentric movements seem to wear me out quickly. Lou seems pretty thoroughly convinced that fast is the way to go.

[Lou Schuler]

Sorry, I wasn't talking about fast eccentrics. There are times when it's best to do both halves of an exercise fast, but it should probably be on the safest exercises.

Push-ups are a good example -- you're working with about 60 percent of your body weight, and your body is probably accustomed to the exercise. So there's no risk in going fast on the eccentric, which is probably what most of us do anyway.

On squats, I think you have to lower yourself under full control. Whether it looks like a fast eccentric from the outside, to you it has to feel as if you're in full control of the lift.

Seated cable rows are another exercise that comes to mind -- I don't think many people could do fast eccentrics with optimal form.

And some exercises don't really have an eccentric component -- on deadlifts, for example, you're really just trying not to drop the weight as you let it return to the floor.

The concentric part of the deadlift is probably going to be fast relative to your other lifts at the same percentage of your 1RM, just because there's no advantage to doing any part of it at a deliberate speed. I don't think anyone would argue that you need a specific amount of time under tension when it's your spinal erectors that are under tension.

[JorgenMan]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[PowerManDL]

Better analogy for power and strength would be a Ferrari vs. a Peterbilt big-rig. It's more apt than the dial-up vs. broadband.

[banderbe]

Originally Posted by Lou Schuler

Sorry, I wasn't talking about fast eccentrics. There are times when it's best to do both halves of an exercise fast, but it should probably be on the safest exercises.

Push-ups are a good example -- you're working with about 60 percent of your body weight, and your body is probably accustomed to the exercise. So there's no risk in going fast on the eccentric, which is probably what most of us do anyway.

On squats, I think you have to lower yourself under full control. Whether it looks like a fast eccentric from the outside, to you it has to feel as if you're in full control of the lift.

Seated cable rows are another exercise that comes to mind -- I don't think many people could do fast eccentrics with optimal form.

And some exercises don't really have an eccentric component -- on deadlifts, for example, you're really just trying not to drop the weight as you let it return to the floor.

The concentric part of the deadlift is probably going to be fast relative to your other lifts at the same percentage of your 1RM, just because there's no advantage to doing any part of it at a deliberate speed. I don't think anyone would argue that you need a specific amount of time under tension when it's your spinal erectors that are under tension.

Hmm, I thought the tempo for deadlifting in Strength I was 311. I read that as lowering the weight for three seconds.

I guess my confusion came from this part of your post:

In this study, two dozen people lifted either fast or slowly, and each group focused on eccentric training (lowering a weight against resistance) with one arm for 8 weeks, then on concentric lifts (raising the weight) with the other arm for 8 more. The arms that lowered weights fast got the biggest gains in strength and muscle size.

I thought that was suggesting that fast eccentrics were ideal.

[Lou Schuler]

thought the tempo for deadlifting in Strength I was 311. I read that as lowering the weight for three seconds

.

With each book, I go through a stage of second-guessing my decisions almost as soon as the book is published. I could list dozens of problems I found in NROL after the book came out. (I'll get a chance to correct the ones I flagged for the paperback edition, whenever it comes out.)

I remember having doubts about the "tempo" column in the workout charts, especially for exercises like lunges, deadlifts, and step-ups, where you can't possibly expect somebody to take a full three seconds for the negative part of each repetition. But I didn't do anything, and before the book even came out I got a scathing email from someone in the publishing industry who'd gotten an advance copy and ripped me a new orifice for that "311" tempo on lunges.

I thought that was suggesting that fast eccentrics were ideal.

They were ... in a short-term study of arm curls. But that study (and several others, IIRC) got a lot of people in the fitness business rethinking their ideas about slow eccentrics.

For any individual lifter, I think it comes down to what's safe, what's practical, and what works. You can't tell someone with little experience and/or suboptimal form that fast eccentrics are the way to go, because that's the type of person who should be learning to lift under control so he can master the technique. Lifting faster with bad form will just get him hurt.

Conversely, I think it's ridiculous to prescribe a deliberate and functionally useless tempo (like the old Nautilus protocols) for everyone. If there's a functional reason to do an 8-second eccentric on every single repetition, I've never come across it.

I guess the bottom line is that fast eccentrics are probably better for some lifters on some exercises. Like I said in the post, I don't really do anything at a deliberate speed anymore, although my actual rep speed varies from exercise to exercise. I'm not doing to do ballistic eccentrics on exercises like dips, where my shoulders might be at risk. But I think that's just common sense.

[PowerManDL]

Tempo's such a wacky thing.

I think a lot of the time rep-speeds get prescribed "just because", kinda like how training for size is always 3-4 sets of 10 with 60 second rests. There's some truth to it, but with a little more thought you can flesh it out more.

Firstly, I think counting tempos strictly is pointless during a set. If you're doing that, you're just not working hard enough in the first place.

Having a general idea of speed, sure. Move fast, move "naturally", whatever. The load will more or less dictate things, IMO.

If you're talking about the study I'm thinking of, that was done with isokinetic equipment, which kinda skews the whole "fast tempo" thing. But, there is some truth to it. Lengthening the muscle under tension isn't the exact same as just droppign the weight.

If you take a rubber band and stretch it slowly, are you putting more stress on teh rubber band than you do when you stretch it out fast? Both the maximum tension, and the time it takes to reach that tension, are going to be improved when you stretch it quickly. THe muscle's not any different.

This isn't to say that there's never a use for slower tempos. Extending the TUT on both the eccentric and concentric can be useful for "training muscles" or for "training endurance" since it builds up fatigue. For power/speed/strength stuff on bigger lifts, moving faster is almost always a good idea....and of course there's that old Behm/Sale study showing that intent of speed actually brings about the same neurological adaptations, even if the *actual* speed isn't high.

So...yeah.