Bill:
Have you (or your wife) had any experience using or researching the "Super Slow" lifting technique (i.e. 1 set of 3-6 reps, with each rep done over 15-20 seconds)?
For those not familiar, the idea of the slow movements is to remove momentum from the lift, while working every muscle fiber to exhaustion, which promotes new muscle growth.
As usual, there seem to be contradictory views from the proponents who love it & the aerobic set who aren't as convinced.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
David
Super Slow Workouts
Moderator: Available
-
David Kahn
- Posts: 84
- Joined: Tue Nov 17, 1998 6:01 am
- Location: Wheeling, IL, USA
- Contact:
Super Slow Workouts
Study the technique, until the technique studies you.
email: chgouechi1@aol.com
website: http://www.chicagouechi.com
email: chgouechi1@aol.com
website: http://www.chicagouechi.com
-
Tom Faigle
- Posts: 130
- Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2002 6:01 am
- Location: Fairfax, VA, USA
David,
On the About.com body building forum, there is discussion about super slow. It seems that it got really popular a year or so ago and there was a great deal of discussion about it. Several of the folks there who are very well educated in physical develpment seem to feel that super slow isn't all it's cracked up to be, and not very effective. So take the information for what it's worth. But with that said, I'd like to hear Glasheen Sensei's opinion.
Tom
On the About.com body building forum, there is discussion about super slow. It seems that it got really popular a year or so ago and there was a great deal of discussion about it. Several of the folks there who are very well educated in physical develpment seem to feel that super slow isn't all it's cracked up to be, and not very effective. So take the information for what it's worth. But with that said, I'd like to hear Glasheen Sensei's opinion.
Tom
I went through a year or so phase of super-slow lifting while in college, a few years back. It seemed to be faddish and in vogue at the time and there was a group of us who were into it. The emphasis was on the negative. It's different and it burns plus it really tired out the muscles, but they did get noticably stronger. This was one of the few physical interests of my life that I recommend doing NOT every day. 
Sensei Glasheen, you know the inside dope on this stuff. What's your take.
Sensei Glasheen, you know the inside dope on this stuff. What's your take.
Always with an even keel.
-- Allen
-- Allen
-
Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
- Joined: Thu Mar 11, 1999 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
Good pick up, guys!
David, the value of the execise depends a lot on what you are trying to accomplish.
When working with my people, I try to explain to them that bodybuilding is VERY different from weight training. Ninety-five percent of the books you find in the bookstores emphasize bodybuilding. The goal of that activity is to enhance your physical appearance - period. It doesn't matter if you are flexible or not. And it doesn't matter if you have big muscles but you are slow as mollasses. Wanna be big and slow? Fine, but don't ever face the likes of Joe Pomphret, Gary Khoury, etc, etc.
Martial arts relies a lot on speed and power.
* Speed in the "purely muscular" sense depends on the total number and thickness (= total cross sectional area) of fast twitch muscle fibers. Most muscle fibers are preprogrammed as being fast or slow, and you can't change that. This is why so many Americans of West African descent (NOT places like Kenya) fill the ranks of the NBA. This is why some white men will never be able to dunk. The easiset thing for a person to do to increase muscular speed is to increase the thickness of the fast muscle fibers you have. However... Recent research has shown that a small portion of your muscle fibers are "ambivalent", and so can be trained to be either fast or slow. If you had a choice in martial arts, which way would you want them to go?
* Power is a complex, neuromuscular phenomenon. It comes from understanding the essential synergy of muscle groups (how to get them to work together with maximal output) and a development of the dynamic stretch reflex. When it comes to something like power, momentum matters!
Martial arts is an anaerobic phenomenon. Karate aerobics (a.k.a. the misnomer "kickboxing") is an oxymornon. When it comes to energy production, the martial artist wants to stay anaerobic. The initial energy production in muscle - lasting the duration of a 100 yard dash - comes from the ATP-CP (adenosine triphosphate, creatine phosphate) system. While it's capacity may be low, its maximum power (rate of energy expenditure) is very high. Thus this is the predominant energy source for high-intensity, short-duration exercise. When that sytem begins to fail, the glycolitic system kicks in. That stays with you for another 10 to 20 seconds until aerobic work kicks in. With each successive system comes greater capacity, but lower maximum power.
And interestingly enough, fast twitch vs. slow twitch work pretty much follows the same course as the energy production system. Fast twitch is pretty much not working any more after the first ten seconds; all the load is on the slow twitch muscle fibers.
Bottom line... My recommendation would be the same proposed by Allen. Take your time (NOT super slow) going down in the exercise, but then explode up. This will give you the best benefit for someone who plans to actually do something with the muscle made in the weight room.
- Bill
David, the value of the execise depends a lot on what you are trying to accomplish.
When working with my people, I try to explain to them that bodybuilding is VERY different from weight training. Ninety-five percent of the books you find in the bookstores emphasize bodybuilding. The goal of that activity is to enhance your physical appearance - period. It doesn't matter if you are flexible or not. And it doesn't matter if you have big muscles but you are slow as mollasses. Wanna be big and slow? Fine, but don't ever face the likes of Joe Pomphret, Gary Khoury, etc, etc.
Martial arts relies a lot on speed and power.
* Speed in the "purely muscular" sense depends on the total number and thickness (= total cross sectional area) of fast twitch muscle fibers. Most muscle fibers are preprogrammed as being fast or slow, and you can't change that. This is why so many Americans of West African descent (NOT places like Kenya) fill the ranks of the NBA. This is why some white men will never be able to dunk. The easiset thing for a person to do to increase muscular speed is to increase the thickness of the fast muscle fibers you have. However... Recent research has shown that a small portion of your muscle fibers are "ambivalent", and so can be trained to be either fast or slow. If you had a choice in martial arts, which way would you want them to go?
* Power is a complex, neuromuscular phenomenon. It comes from understanding the essential synergy of muscle groups (how to get them to work together with maximal output) and a development of the dynamic stretch reflex. When it comes to something like power, momentum matters!
Martial arts is an anaerobic phenomenon. Karate aerobics (a.k.a. the misnomer "kickboxing") is an oxymornon. When it comes to energy production, the martial artist wants to stay anaerobic. The initial energy production in muscle - lasting the duration of a 100 yard dash - comes from the ATP-CP (adenosine triphosphate, creatine phosphate) system. While it's capacity may be low, its maximum power (rate of energy expenditure) is very high. Thus this is the predominant energy source for high-intensity, short-duration exercise. When that sytem begins to fail, the glycolitic system kicks in. That stays with you for another 10 to 20 seconds until aerobic work kicks in. With each successive system comes greater capacity, but lower maximum power.
And interestingly enough, fast twitch vs. slow twitch work pretty much follows the same course as the energy production system. Fast twitch is pretty much not working any more after the first ten seconds; all the load is on the slow twitch muscle fibers.
Bottom line... My recommendation would be the same proposed by Allen. Take your time (NOT super slow) going down in the exercise, but then explode up. This will give you the best benefit for someone who plans to actually do something with the muscle made in the weight room.
- Bill
Super slow workouts
In reference to Bill's comment:
Vicki
Interesting stuff! The weight trainer that I had worked with this past winter stressed the very same thing Bill suggests....take your time going down in your exercise. He also stated that most injuries in the gym occur when people do just the opposite (ie. speeding up on the down stroke before the recovery phase or upstroke). He also said slower but steady throughout the exercise, never really resting that muscle until the set ends.Bottom line... My recommendation would be the same proposed by Allen. Take your time (NOT super slow) going down in the exercise, but then explode up. This will give you the best benefit for someone who plans to actually do something with the muscle made in the weight room.
Vicki
"Cry in the dojo, laugh in the battlefield"
-
David Kahn
- Posts: 84
- Joined: Tue Nov 17, 1998 6:01 am
- Location: Wheeling, IL, USA
- Contact:
thanks
Bill, et. al.:
You got right to the heart of my concern...If I chose to employ the Super Slow method, would my strength & size increase at the expense of speed?
My usual lifting technique is exactly as you recommended. I explode on the positive & return slowly on the negative.
I have been happy with the results so far, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on something worthwhile. Since my primary goal in weight training is to enhance the power & speed of my martial arts techniques (secondary goal is weight loss & overall health), I am going to continue with my current program.
Thanks again,
David
You got right to the heart of my concern...If I chose to employ the Super Slow method, would my strength & size increase at the expense of speed?
My usual lifting technique is exactly as you recommended. I explode on the positive & return slowly on the negative.
I have been happy with the results so far, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on something worthwhile. Since my primary goal in weight training is to enhance the power & speed of my martial arts techniques (secondary goal is weight loss & overall health), I am going to continue with my current program.
Thanks again,
David
Study the technique, until the technique studies you.
email: chgouechi1@aol.com
website: http://www.chicagouechi.com
email: chgouechi1@aol.com
website: http://www.chicagouechi.com
I returned to college full time in the early eighties and I believe it was about that time that the negative aspect was being touted as all the above descriptions read. It may be one standard method of free weights by today. One trainer at that time considered the negative part of the stroke MORE important than the positive.
David, without having gauged results at the time, I believe the type of training described above actually increased my speed while improving strength.
Bill, I have seen people hurt themselves benching using too much weight and coming down much too fast with an inexperienced spotter, and too little weight while straightenting the arms too fast because the arms don't seem to know when to stop... and there you go with a hyper-extended set of elbows.
The saying is go with the flow, but maybe in context it should be go with the slow!
David, without having gauged results at the time, I believe the type of training described above actually increased my speed while improving strength.
Bill, I have seen people hurt themselves benching using too much weight and coming down much too fast with an inexperienced spotter, and too little weight while straightenting the arms too fast because the arms don't seem to know when to stop... and there you go with a hyper-extended set of elbows.
The saying is go with the flow, but maybe in context it should be go with the slow!
Always with an even keel.
-- Allen
-- Allen
-
Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
- Joined: Thu Mar 11, 1999 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
Allen
I hear you.
As Vicki also alluded to, coming down slowly is not only beneficial in terms of squeezing more benefit out of the exercise, but it also is safer.
As for the hyperextension with too little weight, well I agree. But I'm one of those people that believes you shouldn't be messing with too little weight. One light set to warm up - done gently - is all you need of the light weight. Then you shouldn't really be messing with anything less than what you can do more than 10 to 15 reps.
People used to do punches and kicks with wrist and ankle weights, thinking it would help them. Big mistake! Best to stick with the more traditional freeweight motions.
By the way, a lot of these principles of engagement go out the window when you start doing plyometric training. But that's a whole other bag of worms.
- Bill
I hear you.
As Vicki also alluded to, coming down slowly is not only beneficial in terms of squeezing more benefit out of the exercise, but it also is safer.
As for the hyperextension with too little weight, well I agree. But I'm one of those people that believes you shouldn't be messing with too little weight. One light set to warm up - done gently - is all you need of the light weight. Then you shouldn't really be messing with anything less than what you can do more than 10 to 15 reps.
People used to do punches and kicks with wrist and ankle weights, thinking it would help them. Big mistake! Best to stick with the more traditional freeweight motions.
By the way, a lot of these principles of engagement go out the window when you start doing plyometric training. But that's a whole other bag of worms.
- Bill
-
Tom Faigle
- Posts: 130
- Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2002 6:01 am
- Location: Fairfax, VA, USA
David,
One of the Personal Trainers that I know who is strongly against SS (super slow) made a very good point that I think is worth thinking about. He said that using SS you use less weight than using a more convential lift, therefore you can't build muscle as quickly. So therefore it's better to do what Glasheen Sensei said (lift at a comfortable speed, and drop fairly slowly). Anyway, this is what, I was taught way back when and it seems that some of the "old" techniques stand the test of time becaue they're effective.
Just my humble oppion, but cross training is probably the best way to make sure that you get the results that you want/need. In other words, do weights to build strenght, cardio to build up your lungs and loose fat, and then do your karate exercises to build speed and muscle memory. Also to me crosstraining helps prevent boredom, which in itself is worth a great deal.
One of the Personal Trainers that I know who is strongly against SS (super slow) made a very good point that I think is worth thinking about. He said that using SS you use less weight than using a more convential lift, therefore you can't build muscle as quickly. So therefore it's better to do what Glasheen Sensei said (lift at a comfortable speed, and drop fairly slowly). Anyway, this is what, I was taught way back when and it seems that some of the "old" techniques stand the test of time becaue they're effective.
Just my humble oppion, but cross training is probably the best way to make sure that you get the results that you want/need. In other words, do weights to build strenght, cardio to build up your lungs and loose fat, and then do your karate exercises to build speed and muscle memory. Also to me crosstraining helps prevent boredom, which in itself is worth a great deal.
