A CRITICAL PART of making gains in the gym is to increase your training loads over time OR increase the number of repetitions you can achieve with the same load.
The issue that most people face is that they COMPROMISE FORM over time, in their well intentioned quest to get stronger.
If this sounds familiar, we have you covered:
STANDARDIZE YOUR REPS BY SLOWING DOWN!
When Mechanical Tension (think challenging the muscle fibers through LOAD) is the focal point of an exercise, it makes a hell of a lot of sense to slow down and place an equal amount of emphasis on the eccentric.
Here are some of the main benefits that slowing your reps down a touch can provide you:
➡️Standardizes each rep, making the gains in strength “honest and real”
➡️Forces you to use a full Range of Motion…when you go slower, you often go lower, which is a good thing provided we are smart and safe.
➡️Places an emphasis on the eccentric component of each lift, which is an overlooked element of maximizing muscular hypertrophy.
➡️Keeps your joints safe by eliminating sudden, ballistic eccentric movements under load.
You do NOT need to go down in 10 seconds or anything like that, we strongly believe in keeping training FUN, but by incorporating a consistent “1-2-3” into your eccentric rep counts on the movements where Mechanical Tension is the focus (Metabolic Stress is a different story, and a post for another day), you can make consistent, HONEST gains over time!
Please check out @metabolicdelmar Head Coach @patdevoe showing exemplary control as he hits KB Split Squats with the 106lb KB’s for a quality set of 10 reps!
