Optimized training with negatives and rest pause
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In my previous article “Getting buff in a hurry” I mentioned some principles that make your workout more effective, that means less work and effort with better results.
In principle 4 i mention working your muscles until you slow down and then take a short break of about 15 seconds, or 5-7 deep breaths, before continuing. This principle is called “rest pause” and will effectively work your muscles and give you what is known as “the pump”.
In principle 5 i mention working your negative (eccentric) part of the exercise, typically the lowering part, with higher tension or longer time than the pulling (concentric) part. Since you are stronger in the negative phase of the lift you are able to stress the muscle more. The slow negative phase can be used in combination with a fast positive phase to give an even harder workout.
It is possible to combine the two principles into one exercise. To stress the muscle more in the negative part you could go slower or have a helper on the positive part. If you are alone you could use two hands or feet on the positive part and only one on the negative part.
For chinups negatives is very simple: Just start at a bench or a chair. You could add weights to a waist belt if the exercise gets to easy.
I made a video showing the two techniques in combination for chinups. I start with a warm up set of 12, then continue with 3 sets of 3 followed by 3 sets of two. The whole exercise takes about 5 minutes to do.
Now you have everything you need to get a super optimized workout.
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