Ive been looking into doing a cycle of Pavel’s Power to the people program after i finish EDT, so i bough and read the book.
The plan seems good, and am looking forward to it, but am still a bit confused about one area.
Pavel states that you should use dynamic tension when lifting regarldess of the load. What this means, is that you dont simply lift the weight, but instead feel the tension in the muscles increase, and as a result the weight is lifted.
He states that whether your lifting a max, or 75% of your max, you should be contracting as if it were a max, if your training for strength.
Now this makes sense to me, because why waste your time lifting something that is easy, and is similar to CW’s recomendations for maximal motor unit recruitement.
But heres the difference,
CW states that you should try to lift the weights as fast as possible, and since they will be heavy, it will still move slow. But you are still trying to accelerate the bar as fast as possible.
Pavel, states that you should lift with maximal tension, but which will be slow for sure when the weight is heavy, but also, should be slow when the weight is lighter. From what i understand, you do this by contracting opposing muscles as well, and this is called dynamic tension.
So basically even as the load gets lighter, the speed of the rep stays the same, because you contract your opposing muscles to make the load more like a max?
I think he recomends about a 5 second ecentric and 5 second concentric contraction, which is very different than im used to. CW states eccentrics should be fast, but controlled and concentrics should be as fast as the given load allows.
Supposedly this type of training overides some of our bodies nuerol controls that hold back our strength potential. I guess a lot of martial arts practice something similar.
So what do you guys know about this, i have never heard of it before, except maybe from bodybuilders talking about feeling the contraction or feeling the burn.
Should i do this all the time, or maybe part of the time, and focus on speed and maximal concentric contractions other times?