As an athlete with scoliosis it gives good feedback on finding structural and muscular imbalances.Try a 45 sec up and 45 sec down pull up. Boring? Nah. Humbling. Also, the music listened to while doing the slow movements makes a difference.
There is a difference between one exercise using a superslow tempo and being the only thing you do in your training session.
This is much appreciated. However, I did not come up with the effective reps theory, Chris Beardsley did. However, even before reading his work I considered reps in which you have to more 80% of what you can lift at the beginning of that rep to be those that led to size gains and that each repetition creates 2-4% of fatigue. So if you use a barbell that is 70% of your max, after 4-5 reps it will represent 80%+ of your available force at the beginning of that rep
The principles were fine, the volume was too high
this is more like static rep test, not training set… what is the purpose,reason ?
Could you explain what you meant by the last 5 effective reps? Superslow may only have 4 or 5 reps tops per set, as the cadence is 10/10 in most cases with the majority of practitioners.
Mr. Thibaueau!
I been trying to tell SuperSlow aficionados of the benefits of cardiovascular conditioning for a decade. I might mention that most SS aficionados dispute all attempts to explain cardiovascular conditioning! I gave up. Dr. Kenneth Jay has explained cardiovascular conditioning better than anyone, and I have benefited greatly from his book. Dr. Chad Waterbury’s writings convinced me to explore 8 sets of 3 rep with heavier weights. I should have listened to Bob Peoples and Paul Anderson years ago.
Thanks
Marc
If a superslow set only has 3-5 reps (which can happen, in the original book 3-8 reps are mentioned) then I would say that all reps, except the first one will be effective at stimulating growth.
The point was that a Superslow set is not more effective than a regular set taken close to failure although it CAN be as effective.
Back in the mid-late 80s they were doing 3-5 reps at a 10/5 cadence, around 45-75 seconds. When lower friction equipment became available they increased the negative to 10 seconds, since it provided less of a respite. Eventually Hutchins increased the rep guidelines to 4-8 for novices and 4-6 for some more advanced trainees, but around the late 90s I started cutting almost everyone back to only around 3-5 reps, and most down to 2-4 reps, which results in sets that last about as long as the old Nautilus 2/1/4 protocol at 8-12 reps.
Thanks for sharing Drew
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Great article! I had to read all the way to the end to see what mattered to me the most “use it as a change of pace from traditional training”. I’m an athlete trying to stay one step ahead of old, so whatever it takes to keep me motivated…
As a change of pace for hypertrophy. For an athlete, it’s just about the worst way to train, even as a change of pace
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