Yesterday I discussed one recent damage-reduction strategy: I’ve re-introduced Speed Sets.
Those sets with 1.5-second reps reduce the damage from “garbage negatives.”
If you lower the weight slowly on too many sets, you trigger excessive damage without a lot of hypertrophic return…
In the Old Man, Young Muscle workouts, I was doing around half my sets in Speed style. I had shelved that tactic months ago, which was one cause of the overtraining hammer smacking me down. Too many garbage negatives creates cumulative damage…
I’m now back to doing about half my sets with a faster cadence. The other half of my sets I lift in one second and lower in three—to get the growth benefits of slower negatives like heat-shock proteins and satellite cell proliferation.
One other damage-control tactic I’m using related to fewer garbage negatives is to do all of my stretch-position exercise with only partial reps…
Doing only the bottom one-third of the stroke on those exercises emphasizes the area with the most growth potential, the stretch, and reduces the length of the negative stroke.
You’ll feel the anabolic drive of only one set of 10 stretch-partials. Don’t forget that a recent study compared stretch partials to full-range reps and contracted-position partials. [Eur J Sports Sci. Pedrosa, et al. 2022]
Stretch partials built more muscle hands down. And the bonus is that you create less damage so more recovery energy goes toward hypertrophy.
Note: For a chart of stretch-position exercises for each muscle, as well as the ideal and contracted-position moves, see pages 42 and 43 of Old Man, Young Muscle.
Sculpt your perfect physique: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best stretch and contracted add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos, and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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