| Re: WEIGHT LIFTING & STRENGTH TRAINING THREAD |
Subject: Re: WEIGHT LIFTING & STRENGTH TRAINING THREAD by Matatk on 2012/6/22 1:47:57 Quote:
New muscle is built when the existing muscle is broken down (cells damaged). This happens by placing a large load on it during a contraction. During a bicep curl, the up phase is concentric (shortening) and the down phase is eccentric (lengthening). I feel they are both *equally* important, but this is my opinion. All of your reps should be slow and controlled. Counting 2 seconds up and 2 seconds down is a good practice. I think the reason trainers say focus on the negative (in general, down) is that people tend to "drop" the weight instead of using muscle to control it down. If you read some training methodologies, like Pavel for example, he stresses muscular irradiation throughout the whole lift which is tensing all surrounding muscle groups including your core to increase your strength. I personally tend to follow that philosophy. Hope that helps. This article also mentions isometric contractions - I don't do them much but they are hard and some people like them. I think like anything, balanced, they are a good addition to any training regimen. http://muscle.ucsd.edu/musintro/contractions.shtml |
