Does this sound all too familiar?
You walk up a bench and start loading up your bar. One weight after another clinks on until the weight is too much to count. Then you plop down and start ripping away reps. By the time you are done, your arms are killing, your chest is killing and heck even your abs are killing!
As you get up you notice that the lifter next to you has a great physique… the body that you are trying to get. As you shoot envious glances over you notice that his weight is half of what you were lifting and you can tell he is struggling.
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Well my friends… thank your parents. It all comes down to genetics. Everyone is different when it comes to physique. Just look around. Some people, no matter how hard they work or how low their body fat is just can't get a 6 pack. It's not in the cards.
When it comes to muscle building you just have to train differently to get those kinds of results.
No matter how strong we are, the ability to pack on the muscle is pretty poor. So discover a sure fire way to get around this and see some real growth!
What Does It Mean To Put Negatives In Your Workout?
You are sticking to your workouts like duck tape sticks to... well, everything.
You're eating healthy and regularly (6 meals a day) but still the results just aren't loading on like you had expected. It's time to give your muscles a challenge.
One sure fire way to challenge and add muscle to your body is to stress the negatives of each rep in your exercises.
First, let me clarify what a negative is: the lengthening stage of the muscle movement (eccentric movement). Think of a simple bicep curl, the curling up would be the contracting phase and the lowering down is the negative. The bicep is lengthening during this movement.
Many people rush through the negative giving it no thought at all.. This is a big mistake. When stressing the negative, you are not only working the muscle longer but also taking away momentum. No swinging of the weight with negatives… all prefect reps.
Stressing that negative movement (by making it last longer) is great for helping to pack on muscle. You are fighting gravity and your natural tendencies to speed through. The big change in your workout will make your muscles confused and eager to build muscles No plateau problems for you.
Research has shown that the greatest majority of muscle trauma (needed for growth) occurs during the negative movement.
Muscle gain isn't the end of this story… with the slower movements more stabilizer muscles are being activated. These muscles are often neglected and can lead to movement dysfunctions. This is great for increased performance and functionality.
So when I said slowing down the movement, how slow am I talking?
Try taking 5 seconds to lower the weight and 3 seconds to lift the weight. The longer the time it takes, the harder you are pushing your body. Of course you will start with a lower weight than you could normally handle just to finish the sets. It takes some getting used to, but you will catch on fast. Any exercise can be performed in terms of negatives.
Think of the dip. For complete dip negatives jump straight to extended position on the dip bars and slowly, very slowly lower yourself down. Once down as far as you can dip, jump back to the extended position. For squats, once down in the squatted position take your time returning to standing position. You will quickly feel the burn and the difficulty of the moves!
Changing you routine up completely like this will get you over any hump or plateau you may be battling with to start seeing real results again. It is all about making sure those muscles never get accustomed to any particular workout. When they do, that's when progress slows down, who wants that?
The key is slow and controlled movements. I like stressing the negatives for less sets. I generally would do 1 set per exercise BUT going to temporary muscle failure. Basically you are going till you just can't go anymore. Remember to lower your weight by around 20% to handle the stress and really push yourself through. Because you are only doing 1 set, your workouts should not last longer than normal. Keep them no longer than 60 minutes
And yes, you will have some initial delayed muscle soreness right after changing the workouts. Go with the negative routines for 30 days, and see how your muscles react! After that month your workout will change (we'll send you the new one).
Any doubts that you may have about negative workouts will be cleared up after your put your workout to the test. These are really INTENSE and intense is exactly what you and I need to build some great muscle and definition.
Before you know it people will be throwing envious glances your way wondering what you do differently to get that great body.
Building muscle is more than a workout or a nutrition plan. It is all in knowing that you can achieve your goals. Even if you have a great workout plan (which you do) if your head isn't in a positive state then you are just wasting your time.
Think you're ready to start seeing changes? Move to the final lesson for hardgainers.
Get more information about exercises to lose weight and make sure you check out our fitness courses podcast where we talk about current fitness events and give you help to get great results.