How come, in all of the bodybuilding books that I have read, the authors always stress ‘slow and controlled’ movements, count of two in lifting, count of four in lowering, etc, and in all of the video clips of bodybuilders, they seem to be lifting for speed? It takes me about 2 or 3 seconds to do a lift and lower cycle, but they can whip off about 7 or 8 reps in this amount of time.
Is it like the rule of great chefs-always leave out something from the recipe when passing it on to somebody else?
Does the speed of the lift really matter?
Since body building has existed there has been endless disputes about proper technique. Years ago the debate was about lots of reps with lighter weights vs less reps higher weight. Then free weights vs machines. There are many others.
Every body is unique and responds a little in its own way. I am for less reps and heavy weights. The speed seems irrelevant to me. Completion of a lift seems to be the important factor.
There are two types of people who lift quickly:
[ol]
[li]People who know exactly what they’re doing and will play it safe.[/li][li]People who have no idea what they’re doing and will probably hurt themselves.[/li][/ol]
Most of the people who’ve read a little bit about bodybuilding fall in the second category, so it’s generally a good idea to give them advice that’s less likely to get them injured.
If you want to build muscle there are two phases. First is the bulk phase, most men are satisfied with this. They want a big chest and to be able to make a “muscle” when they flex a bicep
Form is used once you get the bulk to SHAPE the muscle. This is where free weights come in. I have an excellent body and only use machines. But if you want to get that bodybuilder body you have to use free weights.
This is because the bodybuilders have to compete, if you flex a bicep and the peak isn’t perfect you come in 2nd and lose thousand in endorsments. No one else cares if your bicep isn’t perfectly peaked.
The key to building muscle is CHANGE. You can do any routine you want and it works. But once you do it over a week, the body stops building and starts adapting. This is why you should never do the same routine more than two weeks.
Forget bodybuilding magazines, you’re not a bodybuider and it doesn’t apply to you. It’s like reading about building a race car when you want to change the oil on you KIA
Seven or eight reps in 2 or 3 seconds? Doubt it. You must be using a different search engine than I am, because entering “powerlifting” into youtube shows slow, controlled lifts. One thing to remember is that a competition lift (i.e. the ones people are posting on youtube) may be a bit faster than a strength building rep because you’re not trying to build the muscle; you’re trying to get off as many reps as possible before your muscle fatigues.
There’s a lot of discussion of fast and slow twitch muscles, but I’ll leave that part to somebody who’s more knowledgeable about it.
This is anecdotal but it does make intuitive sense - I’ve been told that the muscle will adapt to the type of movements being done. So if you lift quickly, you will develop “explosive” power, useful for sports or Olympic weightlifting. On the other hand if you lift slowly you will develop brute strength and big muscles but you won’t be able to move very quickly.
Seeing a guy at the gym doing fast reps will leave me thinking one of two things;
a) they are trying to show off (i.e. doing fast reps and cheating their form to move a little more weight)
or
b) they are ignorant. They don’t know what good form is or don’t understand the injuries they’re risking (i.e. one guy mortgaging the future of his rotator cuffs by doing fast bench presses)
Either way, they look pretty ridiculous to my eyes. If you’re only curling 40lb dumbells and cheating by swinging your arms to get that much, you have no explosive power to speak of.
Aside from your post being contradictory (Olympic weightlifters need brute strength and big muscles), I’ve heard this before, too, but I’ve also heard that it’s not true.
When you are hitting everything from Winstrol to HGH, it doesn’t much matter at what speed you lift.
I’ve been around gyms for 25 years, and no natural technique in the world is a match for some half-assed bodybuilder with bad form, a bad routine and plenty of the right kind of drugs. I’ll bet on the druggie every time to be photo material for a bodybuilding magazine over some guy who does everything right.
I don’t know if there is a safe, productive way to do fast reps with heavy weights. I have seen many people do fast reps with what I call the “throw and catch” motion, where they get a fast start then let the momentum carry the weight up to its peak and let it fall again. I do not know if these people are impatient to get their set done or if they know something I don’t. Most advice I have seen is to control the weight throughout the lift.
I do not know if the evidence says that the important thing is the length of time of the lift (well, nobody takes 2 minutes to do a rep) or the number of lifts (well, nobody does 100 reps either).
But as to the OP, do not emulate bodybuilders you see on videos.
Most of the conventional wisdom I’ve been seeing lately (“lately” - past ~3 years or so) is to “explode” up with the weight fast, and then lower it in the traditional slow, controlled motion. You can find really good arguments on both sides so at the end of the day just do whatever works best for you.
For some practical input, many bodybuilders also have “cheat” routines/days, where they take on bigger than usual loads and ‘cheat’ it up, by using momentum, contorting their body, etc. In my experience people ‘cheat’ and they also do partial reps, when shooting for bulk size.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is beneficial in building bulk, but muscle shape, definition and striation suffers greatly, unless the bodybuilder has “light” days, wherein the objective is 10-12 rep sets of a weight that is controllable, maintaining strict form, exploding the weight during contraction of the muscle group and releasing slowly when finishing the rep.
I don’t know about you guys, but for most exercises it takes me about 1.5 seconds to get the weight up, regardless of how fast I try to get it up. I’m wondering how much of this “explosion” talk is because people are lifting below their capacity?