Muscle Growth: Fast Reps vs. Slow Reps- Thomas DeLauer

Muscle Growth: Fast Reps vs. Slow Reps- Thomas DeLauer… Let's talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the negative workout. Eccentric contractions, we hear a lot of people on the internet talking about how eccentric training, focusing on the negative portion of a rep, is going to get you better results. Well, there is some very positive science pointing towards negative training, but we want to focus on the big picture and some practicality here. Today, we're talking about the different styles of training. But I want you to understand the mechanics of how a muscle actually contracts because then everything will make some sense.

First and foremost, let's get the basics out of the way. You have two phases of muscle contraction: concentric and eccentric. I'll make it simple for you. Concentric is when you're flexing. Eccentric is when you are relaxing, but you're still under load. Now, what we have to look at is what actually is happening with muscle fibers. I'm not going to go into exquisite detail here, but basically what we need to understand is we have these filaments. We have these long filaments that are part of the muscle. What happens is we have specific parts of the muscle that have little hook-like things. I want you to visualize hooks like this, okay? What happens is, when you're overlapping your muscles, when you're actually starting to contract, you're overlapping these little fibers. When you first start to overlap, you only have a couple of hooks. But as you start to contract more, the muscles slide over one another, and you have more hooks that are able to make contact with each other. When you're at the peak contraction, halfway through, you have the most hooks making contact with each other. This means that you get the most strength. That's why you have the most strength at the mid-range of a movement.

For example, a bicep curl, as I'm flexing, I'm going to have good strength right here. But what happens after that? What happens when you go past mid-range? Well, it looks something like this. You've slid over. You didn't have much traction. Now you have full traction, but now you've gone so far that you don't have traction anymore, so you've gone beyond it. You go from no traction, lots of traction at the mid-range, and no traction again at the end. That's why you get weaker at the very top of a movement. Think about a bench press. Kind of weak here, then you're really strong here, and then, as you get to the top, you kind of get weaker again. It's because the muscle fibers are contracting beyond where they can actually overlap each other. Now, when we look at concentric contractions, you only have that peak maximal contraction halfway through the movement. But eccentric contractions are very interesting because eccentric contractions are on the way down. Generally speaking, you're going to have an eccentric contraction when you're still under load, so that means that the muscle fibers are engaged, and they're actually getting that maximal load through the entire movement on the way down versus you having to exert force and actually get these little hooks to grab. Now you have all these hooks grabbing each other as you're letting the weight down.

Now, when you're actually looking at the eccentric contraction too, you have more neural activation. Why? Because there's a lot of stability that occurs, and there's a lot of different muscle fibers that have to activate because you are being "overwhelmed" by the weight. The whole idea here with eccentric contractions is you are allowing the weight to overwhelm the muscle because you are letting it win. You're letting it down. That requires a lot of neural activity. But what they've actually found is that you exert about 20% more force, you generate 20% more force on the negative contraction than you do on the concentric, on the up movement. That's simply, again, because the amount of the actual filaments that have to get activated and overlap to control a heavy weight on the way down. Now, the other thing we have to factor in is, when you are letting a weight down in that concentric motion, that's where the damage occurs. You don't actually break down and tear muscle fibers on the concentric. In fact, you're just kind of working them.

References:

[cjtodd]

I agree with using TUT. The muscle doesn't know how much your lifting, all the muscle knows it how much tension is going through it. Tension is the language of the muscles when it comes to Hypertrophy.

[craigm]

Thomas please, take a good look at the comments below. A lot of people are not clear on what your point was. Yes the science stuff can be fascinating, however this could have been explained with a basic straight answer, THEN getting into the complex science. That would have been better. Going by the comments below, you are losing people understanding what you are saying before you get to the point. Sometimes it's better to keep it simple at the start, then get complex after, not the other way around.

[demtekllc]

9 1/2 minutes later I'm still not sure which is better...

[monique]

Just realized that this is the only channel I follow that doesn't constantly interrupt us with commercials 👏🏿👏🏿😭

[rrrrtttt]

Main point: Eccentric movement increases muscle growth even 128 hour after workout. So, you need to have at least 1 eccentric movement exercise every workout session to benefit from the 'heat shock protein' that peaks up to 15 times during eccentric movements.

Hope this helps 😃

[MikeCola]

I like to perform my eccentric reps slowly most of the time. You want to keep continuous tension on the desired muscles and slowly move the weight. I like a 5-second eccentric contraction followed by a one-second pause and then a 2-second concentric contraction. For example, if you are doing a push-up, slowly lower (eccentric contraction) your body for 5 seconds then pause for one second and slowly raise (concentric contraction) your body for 2 seconds. Your rep cadence would be 7 to 8 seconds. If you did 10 reps of push-ups your time under load would be 70 to 80 seconds. To build muscular strength and endurance (induce a good training effect) it makes sense to move the weight relatively slowly to prevent injury and properly close the muscle down to momentary muscle failure. Most people injure themselves at the point of transformation. The transformation point is when you change direction from lowering to raising the weight. By going slowly you minimize the force in the joint at the point of transformation.

[ahumm]

Slower reps are usually quality reps in which you not only are more likely to have propper form but also have more time under tension which causes more muscle activation and a better mind to muscle communication or control. Try it out!

[DieHumanless]

How about make the answer quick and concise, then explain the answer. 9 minutes later, I still have no clue what the answer is.

[ironmanlifts]

I'll save you the 9 mins, basically all he said was focus on the eccentric part of the lift. This we know already. #broscience

[CliffordStarks]

I feel you Thomas, having a kid really makes you condense your day haha👍

[yessumify]

I love hearing the deep science of this! Rather than just "do this" / "don't do this." Great video!

[BigBadBadger]

@Thomas DeLauer
Been reading the book "The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting" and the doctor (author 1) and the experimenter (author 2) both agree with you at 7:40 to 8:03. Starting to really see you know your stuff Thomas, at first I really did think you were throwing big words out to "scam" us; but as I look into keto and intermittent fasting, you sound more and more like the guy I need to be taking seriously rather than rolling my eyes at.

Appreciate this! i am in the same boat with my 11 month old!

[SiimLand]

If you subject the body under stress it will adapt accordingly.

[ICVEGAS]

Awesome science info, will add negative reps to my routine...thanks Thomas! ☺

[supercal]

A point I think needs to be made: In eccentric focused training you can cheat and/or go fast on the concentric part of the movement, as long as you do the eccentric part slowly and with strict form.. In fact cheating on the concentric part will allow you to train with heavier weights which increases the intensity on the eccentric part of the movement and so should get you more of those heat shock proteins he's talking about.

[Lasharella]

Great Video as always, only thing I’d ask if you could show examples of eccentric exercise, thank you!

[ArtbyPaulPetro]

Arthur Jones would have LOVED this video! as far back as 50 years ago he was touting the benefits of negative accentuated or negative only training when no one else was giving it much thought at all. he even at one point had several Nautilus machines designed for just such a training protocol.

[rndst]

THOMAS!!! YOU ARE A WEALTH OF USEFUL I'M SO GRATEFUL THAT YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO DELIVER SO MUCH VALUE AT NO MONETARY COST!!!! THANK YOU BROTHER!!! WISHING YOU NOTHING BUT THE BEST AND MUCH SUCCESS!!!!

[TripSmith]

Love the videos Thomas. It wasn't totally clear on fast or slow reps? Reading through the comments I want the only one who is still not sure what the best way to move would be....
I wonder is someone should make a channel like "Thomas Delauer - Nothing but the Point" You certainly do great content with great info. But I'm thinking most folks are after the point once the learn they can trust your information.

[DCDEver]

Every time Thomas says, "Heat shock protein", take a drink. 😂👆