Throughout my training career, it’s always bothered me that so many top bodybuilders talk about the importance of slow rep speed—especially on the negative or lowering stroke, yet most don’t follow that protocol…
Almost all of the videos of the top guys training show them using fast reps. Even high-intensity advocate Mike Mentzer, who preached lifting in two seconds and lowering in three to five, used a faster tempo much of the time—1.5 to two seconds per rep.
And Olympia winners like Jay Cutler (below) and Ronnie Coleman performed piston-like reps on most work sets all through their careers.
Even so, in my articles and books as Iron Man’s Editor in Chief, I always suggested a slower cadence for better muscle stimulation, time under tension, as well as to avoid injury. But I may have been wrong—to a degree…
If you’ve read Old Man, Young Muscle and this newsletter, you know I’ve made recent discoveries that shy away from slow reps on half of the sets in each workout. Why?
When I wrote OMYM, my only rationale was that Olympic coach and hypertrophy expert Charles Poliquin said that rep-speed variation was the most neglected growth stimulator in bodybuilding. I figured I needed as much stimulation as I could get in my bare-bones home gym…
Respected hypertrophy researcher Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., also cited studies suggesting that performing reps with velocity can promote “the addition of sarcomeres, even in those with considerable training experience.”
I got great results doing half my sets in Speed style—1.5 seconds per rep. Then I got some bad advice and dropped Speed Sets from my workouts, I started losing muscle size. Yikes.
After weeks of wondering if my new scarecrow appearance was something I had to accept due to old age, I figured out that using Speed Sets was the missing element. A Speed Set works especially well after a 20-rep set of standard reps.
Once I went back to using speed on half my sets and reduced my volume a bit, my bodyweight shot back up from 180 to over 190—and I noticed no fat gain.
In the next training newsletter, I’ll lay out why Speed Sets are so important for efficient training—keeping workouts shorter with maximum muscle gain. I’ll also discuss the best way to use them so you start growing again.
Your Efficient Mass-Building Handbook: For more mass-building tips like the above plus complete workouts that include the ideal exercise for each muscle and the best stretch and contracted add-on moves, get your copy of 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
Recommended
Lose 17 Pounds of Fat in Just 3 Weeks!
Today’s fitness industry dieting advice is secretly ruining your metabolism, crucifying your most powerful male hormones, and forcing your body to store ugly bodyfat around the clock.
But there’s good news…
After years of plowing through unproven paths and suffering through fitness ups and downs, the hidden passage to achieving your dream body has been discovered …
And it only takes 21 days.
No, it doesn’t include hours of boring cardio, a boring and bland meal plan, or run-of-the-mill fat burners that don’t deliver on their promise…