Incorporating Dead Stop Training

Hey CT,
I have a quick question on ‘Dead Stop’ training. Ive been incorporating dead stop training into my workouts for muscles I have trouble getting the mind muscle connection or contractions with. Ive been only using this for the first exercise followed by normal execution of exercises for a muscle group.
For me these muscles are:
Quads- Incorporate Pin Squats
Triceps- Incorporate dead stop floor EZ Extensions
Biceps- Incorporate dead stop seated BB curls
Back- Dead Lift

My question is-

  • Is the dead stop training technique (where you relax the muscle during the dead part) an effective tool for hypertrophy gains (I treat each exercise with a controlled negative as if I was doing normal sets)?

  • Or because of the stops in constant tension is it counterproductive for hypertrophy and am I better off working hard to complete these exercises normally and try to work on improving the mind muscle connection?

Cheers,
PK

It’s better for strength than size. Although if you control the eccentric it can still work for size.

There are many factors involved in stimulating muscle growth.

Muscle damage
Muscle fiber fatigue
mTOR activation
Growth factors accumulation
Lactate accumulation

The last two are hard to optimize with lifts from pins because you lack the constant tension,during the relaxation phase blood can enter and exit the muscle, briging oxygen in and lactate out which reduce the release of IGF-1 and,obviously, the accumulation of lactate inside the muscle. If ypu do long sets you can still get lactate accumulation though.

mTOR activation can still be pretty high if you control the eccentric. But with lifts from pins you normally don’t reach the stretched position in the lift, which will lower the mTOR activation.

Muscle fiber fatigue is possible, it depends on the number of reps you do.

Muscle damagecan occur if you are using weights that are heavy enough and emphasize the eccentric, but the fact that you likely don’t reach a position where the target muscle is stretched AND that the transition between eccentric and concentric is non-existant (because you are resting the bar on pins) greatly diminish muscle damage. Which is actually one reason why I like lifts from pins: less damage allows you to do each lift more frequently.

That having been said it’s not worthless. And it can indirectly help you gain more muscle. If it improves your mind muscle connection, it will help your future gains, it can also increase fast twitch muscle fibers recruitment which will increase your future growth potential.

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Hey CT,
Thanks for the break down really helped out… I had a feeling it might not be as effective for hypertrophy…

  • On that, for muscles that are hard for me to get the mind muscle connection, in terms of hypertrophy am I better off starting with an isolation exercise for that particular muscle?

  • For instance in my quad workout Ive been running exercise 1. squats, 2. leg press and 3. leg extensions, but would I better off pre exhausting the quads doing exercise 1. leg extensions, 2. squat and 3. leg press? Good strategy for hypertrophy?

  • Or is it better to start with your biggest exercise for that particular muscle?

Thanks again, appreciate the help,
PK