SLOW ECCENTRICS — MORE GAINZ WITH LESS WEIGHTS III
Slow Eccentrics are THE KEY for improving lagging body parts and building GNARLY strength endurance.
If you read a bunch of my articles before, you're aware that LIFTING VOLUME is directly correlated with MUSCLE HYPERTROPHY.
The standard order of operations is over time, increasing reps, sets, and weight on the bar to ensure that you're introducing PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD— when a muscle is CHALLENGED to perform at a higher magnitude over and over again, assuming you're ingesting enough calories and sufficient spare proteins, inevitably, THEM GAINZ, ENSUE, BABY! HAHAHA
But yo, in our efforts of being the ultimate fancy lifting nerd— we've gotta be real scientific about this shit, and understand that CORRELATION DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN CAUSATION!
Yes, increasing volume will yield hypertrophy, but not all volume is created equal, the highest quality of volume will come when you're going NEAR FAILURE— making adding volume for the sake of it, without effort, WITHOUT CHALLENGE, is simply a WASTE OF TIME— the dreaded JUNK VOLUME.
In this series, we're exploring how to increase THE QUALITY of our sets, so we can get those GNARLY 3-4 reps shy of failure, without having to resort solely on adding weight, sets, and reps to our workouts, here's what we've already covered:
MORE GAINZ with LESS WEIGHT I: GREASING THE GROOVE — Aiming at improving coordination, technique & ABSOLUTE STRENGTH.
MORE GAINZ with LESS WEIGHT II: FULL RANGE OF MOTION — Aiming at improving muscle hypertrophy, mobility, and flexibility.
MORE GAINZ with LESS WEIGHT III: SLOW ECCENTRICS (this one) — Aiming at improving muscle hypertrophy, coordination, and strength endurance.
I hope this article gives you a bit more ammo to your muscle-building arsenal, and before we start, please, consider supporting my independent writings with a small subscription by clicking the ugly-ass yellow button below.
We've already covered the importance of using a full range of motion (FULL ROM). Now, it's time to delve into another game-changing technique— SLOW ECCENTRICS.
The eccentric phase of an exercise is when you're LOWERING THE WEIGHTS— all your body really wants to do is succumb to the aid of gravity, and drop the weights down as fast as possible— it's like your brain predicts that this section of the lift is going to be easier, and then we go there, and ACTIVELY slow this portion of the lift, fighting against gravity to control the descent of the weights, sounding the alarms for THE UTMOST stimulation of your muscle fibers.
There's a growing body of scientific evidence showing that the eccentric portion of the lift, is particularly superior to the concentric portion (when you're moving the weights up) when we're aiming at muscle hypertrophy, improved coordination, and enhancing strength endurance.
For those of you who do not know, strength endurance is the ability to dish out force repeatedly over longer periods of time— I call it REAL WORLD STRENGTH— the kind of strength that people who carry furniture for a living usually have, the type of strength that feels irregular, like a 60kg Judoka that feels immovable, just by having those thousands of hours resisting falling prey to gravity.
Slow Eccentrics might just be the secret weapon you've been missing, for a number of reasons:
1. Greater Muscle Activation: Plain & Simple, study¹, after study², after study³ shows this— slowing down the eccentric phase engages more muscle fibers, leading to improved muscle activation and, subsequently, hypertrophy.
2. Enhanced Mind-Muscle Connection: Slower movements during the eccentric phase is a mental battle, you're fighting your body's urge to drop the iron down, allowing you to focus on the mind-muscle connection with way more intent, ensuring you're recruiting the right muscles for the exercise.
3. Strength Endurance: By extending the eccentric phase, you'll develop better strength endurance, which can translate into increased lifting capacity during the concentric phase, and better application of strength in day-to-day life (you'll hold that baby, ALL DAY, son!).
4. Reduced Risk of Injury, sorta off: The controlled eccentric phase can reduce the risk of injury by preventing jerky movements full of momentum that can exacerbate the impact of the movement overloading joints and soft tissue, not to mention that you'll be using less weights, but although all that is true, having great form is the real thing that'll keep your safe, with slow eccentrics or otherwise.
Slow Eccentrics can be applied to almost every exercise, squats, bench presses, curls, rows, pull-ups, you name it— and in my experience, it was THE KEY for improving lagging body parts.
The thing is, your POTENTIAL for muscle growth, is tied to your ability to recruit a specific muscle, and mind-muscle connection plays a GIGANTIC role here— have you ever tried to build your delts with lateral raises, and all you ended up doing is pumping your traps like crazy?
Slow them eccentric suckers down, and watch how all of a sudden, you'll start feeling those delts BURNING, BABY!
Wanna get that booty game to the next level, do the same thing with some RDLs, and thank me later.
It's ALL ABOUT EXECUTION, and here's how to implement slow eccentrics effectively:
1. CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR, AND LOWER THE WEIGHTS— Yeah yea, you can barbell row 205lbs looking like a walking flamingo, but if you slow down that eccentric phase, you'll get SMOKED by 135lbs, when you first introduce this technique TO ANY LIFT, start with a fraction of your usual training weight, all the way down to 60 to 70%, and don't worry, you'll BE SORE the next day if you properly introduced that grindy portion to your lift.
2. IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTROL, BABY: When lowering the weight, aim for a count of 2-4 seconds, focusing on maintaining tension in your muscles throughout the lift, ideally, YOU WILL SUCCUMB TO GRAVITY when the last couple of reps are on the way, but fight against it with HEART, son, in particular in those first leading reps, so you can accelerate the pace in which you approach failure, increasing HIGH QUALITY VOLUME.
3. TECHNIQUE IS IMPERATIVE: Slow Eccentrics should not compromise your form— IF YOUR FORM BREAKS LOWER THE WEIGHTS— rule number 1 is A MUST, ensure your movements are smooth and controlled, you're properly braced and feeling utterly stable throughout the lift.
4. NEW VARIABLE TO PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD: As you become more comfortable with Slow Eccentrics, consider increasing the time under tension during a specific training cycle, to switch the type of adaptation you're shooting for, and account for THE LAW OF BIOLOGICAL ACCOMODATION.
In conclusion, Slow Eccentrics are a powerful tool in your arsenal for achieving more gains with less weight. By emphasizing the lowering phase of your lifts, you'll stimulate muscle growth, enhance coordination, and build strength endurance.
So, if you want to see better results in your training without solely relying on going the meathead route and "just add weights, bruh"— give Slow Eccentrics a try, and I'm sure, you're not going to be disappointed.
Yo, give this a shot, master it, and pretty soon I'll be exploring another technique for maximizing gains with less weight— GODDAMN PAUSES, bruh.
Until then, BANG THAT IRON, MY BRUDDAH!
AND STAY ON THE IRON PATH!
Big KISS
THE POTATO MAN