Example of Grinding Rep

any videos? what is a no no? I understand what it means but I think I like many others people going to heavy and possibly grinding but it being questionable.Like with deadlifts its kind of hard for me to know whats grinding since deadlifts had a big ROM and you are always slow at the beginning and yes I did watch the videos.

also, one example I think of, which I am unsure of if it would be considered taking a lift too far would be when daryl is on the pull over machine going for his 3rd heavy rep and he doesn’t get it, but attempts it and lets go 3/4 way through it in one of the livespill videos. Is this ok if you attempt a last rep and give up before spending time grinding at it? I think an example of grinding a rep would be like when you see someone spotting on the bench and they have 0% chance of getting another rep and then have their spotter helping them the entire rep.

if the rep speed slows down during a set, that is grinding. as far as i know, it is relative to the set you are doing. a set at 60% will look much faster than 90% but the 90% is not grinding if the rep speed is kept consistent.

[quote]coolusername wrote:
if the rep speed slows down during a set, that is grinding. as far as i know, it is relative to the set you are doing. a set at 60% will look much faster than 90% but the 90% is not grinding if the rep speed is kept consistent. [/quote]

Do you mean “if the rep speed slows down during a REP*” ? This would make more sense to me, because you can still accelerate the latter reps of a set pretty well even if they’re slightly slower than the first 2 or 3, due to fatigue.

For me, I consider it “grinding a rep” if at any point during the movement the bar decelerates. Obviously if it’s way too heavy or you have a weak point at the beginning of your ROM it’s going to be slow from the beginning, so you won’t actually decelerate… but you can use your common sense and stop the set if your reps are THAT slow the entire ROM.

So olimpic lifter could pretty much go 100 percent max all the time since in the videos they don’t really grind since there so explosive and efficent in using all their musucles.

[quote]illgixxer wrote:
also, one example I think of, which I am unsure of if it would be considered taking a lift too far would be when daryl is on the pull over machine going for his 3rd heavy rep and he doesn’t get it, but attempts it and lets go 3/4 way through it in one of the livespill videos. Is this ok if you attempt a last rep and give up before spending time grinding at it? I think an example of grinding a rep would be like when you see someone spotting on the bench and they have 0% chance of getting another rep and then have their spotter helping them the entire rep. [/quote]

With the bench it is pretty easy for me to know what is grinding since the ROM is short but for the squat i did 355x1 even though i was attempting 2 and it felt like a grind but not really sure. If you ever squat and lose tightness and I somewhat fell forward in the bottom and stalled but then didn’t really grind at the top in fact did it pretty explosively. Would the be grinding? Thats why I would like to see videos of grinding that are not so obvious.

while i’m no CT, it might be good to ask yourself “am i generating max force?” in determining if the rep is grinding or not. rather than focusing solely on the amount of weight being moved, it seems that CT’s methodology takes into account weight moved + acceleration in determining performance. although it’s pretty hard to completely accelerate 80% of your 1rm in a lift, i think you can usually tell if it’s grinding or not.

i can say that from personal experience, just because the actual rep speed slows down over ramping up the weight, doesnt mean that you have surpassed your max force limit. i kind of like what was said above, how if DURING A SPECIFIC SET one of your reps start to really slow down, or if you have to THINK about if you are going to get the next rep or not, you should stop. of course i dont think that that means you can go as heavy and as slow as you want if all the reps are the same speed. man, its kind of funny how something as simple as “grinding a rep” is so hard to explain or demonstrate, considering every single person has a different power output potential and some are just naturally more explosive than others. a good example i like to use is the comparison between how Doc lifts in the IBB videos compared to Sebastian. although docs rep speed is just all around less explosive than Sebastian when he lifts, you can still tell that he is IN CONTROL or DOMINATING the weight. sorry for rambling, hope this helps some.

[quote]dayne_lathrop wrote:
i can say that from personal experience, just because the actual rep speed slows down over ramping up the weight, doesnt mean that you have surpassed your max force limit. i kind of like what was said above, how if DURING A SPECIFIC SET one of your reps start to really slow down, or if you have to THINK about if you are going to get the next rep or not, you should stop. of course i dont think that that means you can go as heavy and as slow as you want if all the reps are the same speed. man, its kind of funny how something as simple as “grinding a rep” is so hard to explain or demonstrate, considering every single person has a different power output potential and some are just naturally more explosive than others. a good example i like to use is the comparison between how Doc lifts in the IBB videos compared to Sebastian. although docs rep speed is just all around less explosive than Sebastian when he lifts, you can still tell that he is IN CONTROL or DOMINATING the weight. sorry for rambling, hope this helps some.[/quote]

haha don’t worry thanks for the info. What about things like pulldowns and rows how are you ever slow with that? For example I did the stack for 6 reps and kept the same speed on all reps but the last one was like 95 percent full ROM rep because i could bearly get the last one but it was still explosive? Is it that grinding is based on the type of excercise you are doing for example squats you might stop in a grind and since you dont really “grind” in rows you might want to stop even less?

[quote]motherofpearl2 wrote:

[quote]dayne_lathrop wrote:
i can say that from personal experience, just because the actual rep speed slows down over ramping up the weight, doesnt mean that you have surpassed your max force limit. i kind of like what was said above, how if DURING A SPECIFIC SET one of your reps start to really slow down, or if you have to THINK about if you are going to get the next rep or not, you should stop. of course i dont think that that means you can go as heavy and as slow as you want if all the reps are the same speed. man, its kind of funny how something as simple as “grinding a rep” is so hard to explain or demonstrate, considering every single person has a different power output potential and some are just naturally more explosive than others. a good example i like to use is the comparison between how Doc lifts in the IBB videos compared to Sebastian. although docs rep speed is just all around less explosive than Sebastian when he lifts, you can still tell that he is IN CONTROL or DOMINATING the weight. sorry for rambling, hope this helps some.[/quote]

haha don’t worry thanks for the info. What about things like pulldowns and rows how are you ever slow with that? For example I did the stack for 6 reps and kept the same speed on all reps but the last one was like 95 percent full ROM rep because i could bearly get the last one but it was still explosive? Is it that grinding is based on the type of excercise you are doing for example squats you might stop in a grind and since you dont really “grind” in rows you might want to stop even less?[/quote]

i know what you mean… Ct has said in the past that he discovered that the back muscles respond well to a slight hold at the end of each contraction. you can see it in the IBB videos when he is doing things with kevin on the back phase. he always tells kevin to “SQUEEZ” and hold it in the contracted position for like one second during the end of each concentric before the eccentric. i have been doing this and it helps me know when i “should stop the set”. if i cant (with good form) hold the weight in the contracted position and squeeze for one second, i know i should stop. this works best for me on things like pulldowns, rows, etc.

[quote]motherofpearl2 wrote:
any videos? what is a no no? I understand what it means but I think I like many others people going to heavy and possibly grinding but it being questionable.Like with deadlifts its kind of hard for me to know whats grinding since deadlifts had a big ROM and you are always slow at the beginning and yes I did watch the videos.[/quote]

I think u can see it as sudden significant decrease of rep speed. For example, u are gonna do 5 reps of bench press, the first 2 reps is explosive, the 3rd rep is smooth but u can still accelerate the bar then at the 4th rep, u suddenly have to struggle just to move the bar, u dont feel strong on the rep and u took a much longer time and much more longer time to finish the rep, that would be grinding imo.

Okay, so let’s assume my goal is strength and hypertrophy. I follow 5/3/1 program and I try to combine it with assistance work CT style.

I do mine 5/3/1 main exercise (for simplicyty, let’s call it bench press) just fine, then I start assistant work - for chest/back supersets, lets say dips and chins, 5 reps per set each.

After a few sets my 4th and 5th rep of chins is way slower.

Shall I call it a day or shall I switch to another exercises to add more volume?