I wanted to quickly go over a method used during weight training you may not be familiar with; Eccentric Reps or, as many call them, Negatives.
Negatives are an extremely effective and proven approach for muscle growth after you have hit your 5RM (5 rep max – the maximum number of times you can lift a weight before hitting muscular failure). This is going to be a heavier weight, for me it would probably be between 30-35 pound dumbbells for an exercise like bicep curls.
Using bicep curls as our example, you would perform 5 reps at your 5RM. You would do one count concentric (going up towards your shoulders) and one count eccentric (going down towards your sides).
For the negatives (eccentric) you can choose to up your weight by 5-10 pounds (your 3RM or 2RM more than likely) and negatively contract (go down towards your sides) slowly – a 4 to 5 count should do the trick. This is going to completely fatigue your muscles and allow for greater tension!
Some things to keep in mind:
·Do not overuse negatives or you will quickly over train
·Make sure you are eating enough calories and protein to aid in recovering your muscles
·This is a great way to switch up an “oldie but goodie” exercise and can be done with any exercise you choose!
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