Stretched Pause and slow negative

[neverbeenalone]

Hello,

Mike Israetel is a proponent of these two methods and I have recently implented them in my training and it is definitely a different stimulus. On most exercises, the negative portion of the lift takes me 3-5 seconds, then I try to get as deep a stretch as possible and then hold the weight around 2 seonds before exploding up. But is this really important and beneficial as opposed to faster (but still controlled) eccentrics and not pausing in the stretched position? Any difference in hypertrophy? NH claimed that the elastic element when you don't pause also generates hypertrophy and that you might loose some gains if you pause. Israetel's claim is that their is a great potential for hypertrophy when the muscle is stretched and that it makes sense to pause the weight there briefly before going up again. In addition, the could be reduced injury risk.

Are their exercises or muscle groups that benefit more with one method (e.g pause vs. no pause) than the other?

In his recent Tierlist, Natural Hypertrophy listed these two only in B-tier (useful). Mike Israetel points these two out all the time and I would've thought they ranked higher in importance.

What do you think?

 

[mommajulesberry]

@neverbeenalone i'm not terribly sold on NH's understanding of the science. i watch him for the jason blaha roasts and programming advice. i know that alex bromley likes touch and go bench and deadlifts to accumulate more volume but the counterpoint is that you could simply accumulate that extra volume with whatever weight you can move from a deadstop with arguably less overall fatigue.

i would generally just say go by your own stimulus to fatigue proxy.

magnitude of effect is also something people fuck up all the time. hell, mike has said things to the extent that people will make most of their gains just training hard and eating a lot of food and that he's just pointing out optimizations to manage fatigue and reduce injury that usually involve getting a comparable stimulus out of less load.

 

[holyrood]

@mommajulesberry

i'm not terribly sold on NH's understanding of the science

On one of his tierlist videos he said that everything on his channel is based on his experience, not on science.

 

[inbetweendreams]

@neverbeenalone Slow, controlled eccentrics with a pause are great. One huge advantage is that eccentric and isometric work is a strong method of conditioning connective tissue. Combined with fixing muscle imbalances, it's a sure fire way to reduce injury risk.

 

[stanu]

@inbetweendreams Can second this. Seem to get way fewer injuries with a deep stretch at the bottom of each rep. Also get more stimulus from less weight this was too which probably helps too

 

[kittykat239]

@inbetweendreams Late to the thread but agree entirely. A little less weight but doing controlled eccentrics and pauses have helped my elbows and wrists and I am personally feeling a better pump.
That’s anecdotal though to me personally. Try it both ways. This is the fun part of bodybuilding, find what’s optimal for you!

 

[xxusaf1rexx]

@inbetweendreams This. Even if they didn't better condition the joints and tendons (which they do), the higher level of stimulus per weight is going to increase so that you can get an equal stimulus with less weight which is also likely to be better on your joints.

 

[silentdecay]

@neverbeenalone I’ve focused more on slow eccentrics and stretched holds in my training for the past year or so. I’ve been lifting for 5.5 years and I’ve made some incredible gains, maybe more so than any individual year before. Just my experience, good luck!

 

[grace91]

@neverbeenalone Personally, I think slow negatives particularly are very effective. To what extent this type of training is important is debateable I guess. You’ll always have proponents of ‘I just shift the weight as quick as I can’ who prefer half reps and generally just look like they’re ego lifting, however there’s no doubt you can still make progress like this. Then of course you have the likes of Mike Israetel and I guess more ‘scientific’ orientated lifters advocating for much more controlled reps and a slower cadence under the mindset that it is more effective for growth.

Again, I would argue that the latter style of training that you mention, slow negatives and paused reps is much more effective. In the just under 2 years I’ve been lifting I’ve made pretty solid progress and I’ve always tried to use slow negatives particularly. The idea being that the eccentric is where you really allow your muscles to stretch under weight. I would argue this style of training is a lot safer as well. I think another commenter has already mentioned how it helps in strengthening the connective tissues. Essentially, if you’re training with a full range of motion and achieving a full stretch on the muscle you’re strengthening it in its entirety, not just the portions that are being worked through an improper range of motion.

There’s a study somewhere that I’ve seen a few people debunk online investigating bicep tears and improper range of motion on preacher curls. In other words if you’re not achieving a full stretch, later on down the line when you inadvertently go outside of the smaller range of motion that you’re so used to using, with more weight, you get injured. Seems logical to extrapolate this to virtually every other muscle group. Would also explain why half of the pec tear videos you see are of people not touching their chest cranking out a tonne of rushed reps prior, then they go for a heavier weight and sure enough, pec goes snap. I mean this might just be me adding 2 and 2 and getting 12, and there’s obviously a lot more to it than that like being warmed up, PED usage etc but to me it makes a lot of sense.

Totally going off in a tangent here as well but just a thought. In your average gym you see so many typical steroid users, who are seemingly massive, yet training with what a lot of people would consider poor form, poor range of motion etc. Is one of the many reasons behind them hopping on gear because they’ve perhaps achieved less than they’ve hoped for, and this is due to them training with such poor form, and not utilising the principles that OP has just mentioned? In other words, would you make more progress training smart rather than just shifting heavy weight with crap technique? Just a random thought. As far as I know I haven’t read about any studies which actually compare the two ‘styles’ of training (‘scientific’ and ‘just move weight about’) but it’d be interesting to know in terms of long term progress how much of a difference there actually is.

 

[vesselofhonor]

@neverbeenalone Slower eccentric with pause reduces injury risk.

 

[nluvwyeshua]

@neverbeenalone From a study regarding the effect of different eccentric tempos on hypertrophy and strength of the lower limbs: “Our results suggest different eccentric durations produce similar increases in hypertrophy of the vastus lateralis and rectus femoris; however, the vastus medialis showed greater growth from the slower eccentric duration. Eccentric duration did not differentially affect strength-related adaptations.”

So it looks like it depends on which muscle is being worked. Personally I have been using this method for the last few months and for me it does seem to work pretty well. At the very least it helps me to really focus on my technique.

 

[dawn16]

@neverbeenalone Started doing it after watching dr Mike as well.

It’s so painful. But seems to work very well for me so far. Seen a lot of gains in only a few months of being more consistent with it

 

[bluemoose]

@neverbeenalone I don’t personally feel the need or benefit in every muscle, but for chest it works great

 

[wwjosh19]

@bluemoose The stretched position of a dumbbell fly

 

[jeanetteh]

@neverbeenalone I never watch NH's stuff, but i do watch a lot of Mike's videos. I think he overemphasized on lengthened position training, and full ROM and all that. These methods ARE helpful, but his channel overemphasized the benefits of these methods. One thing his channel never mentions is training in the shorted position. In fact, i think he think this type of training flat out sucks. Which is completely wrong. Both shortened & lengthened position training have their benefits. Overall Mike's way of communicating is very dogmatic and being a scientist, this is kind of a red flag for me. I think any good scientist should be able to give nuanced complex answers without being so "my way or the highway".

 

[huskyblue]

@jeanetteh Gonna have to disagree with some stuff here. One question I have is that I have yet to see any valid argument as to why someone should do quicker reps (other than fueling your ego and using higher weights). Even if slow eccentrics and ‘quick’ eccentrics grow muscle at the the same rate (which doesn’t seem to be the case), slow eccentrics seem to be safer.

You also are saying shortened training is super beneficial. While I’m sure it does some sort of good and you can make some gains on it, there are now more and more papers coming out saying that long length partials are as good if not BETTER than full ROM training— so at least for hypertrophy, the lengthened position seems to be much much more important than shortened (Jeff nippard did a video on this).

I don’t think he’s dogmatic (I’m also a scientist), I think it’s just that the he feels the literature is pretty concrete and that he’s merely trying to optimize training. As others have said, he states that it’s still very possible to make gains without doing his exact training

 

[gladventist]

@neverbeenalone Stretched pauses and slow negative should not necessarily be the goal, they are just tools in the toolbox to get more hypertrophy gains. Just like heavy cheat reps, partials beyond failure, drop sets, etc. can be used. You can do a touch and go bench, or you can lower the weight and get a deep stretch with dumbbells instead. Both have their benefits and their place. I don’t think it is necessary to make every rep picture perfect every time for every excercise.

 

[tolch]

@neverbeenalone Dr Mike has been on record saying that just training hard and eating correctly covers about 90% of gains. The controlled eccentrics and pause under stretch gives a marginal advantage in terms of growth.

Where I see the benefit is in terms of injury risk and efficiency. For example if controlled/stretched dumbbell bench gives you the same amount of chest gains as touch n go barbell bench but with much less weight and half the sets, that seems more useful. If I can make my workouts quicker and less injurious, sign me up.

 

[dawn16]

@neverbeenalone I like and implement both the stretch and slow eccentrics in my training, but think some people take it too far. For example, Shimmy (@shimnmy93 on Instagram) is an amazing follow and he has perfect technique on almost everything, I just think doing reps that slowly is over the top.

I think the main purpose is to ensure proper technique, standardize your form to a certain stretch point, and reduce injury risk. The hypertrophy benefits if there are any are just a bonus.

 

[hone]

@neverbeenalone That wasn't the beginning. The beginning was:
What is better, dr mikes loaded stretch, or NH's elastic lifting phase?
Being this a natural hypertrophy sub, i have responded that dr mike uses drugs, and his opinion on the matter is not valid, as he is not natural. There are plethora of evidence that loaded stretch is great, but there are also plethora of evidence that more reps, or heavier weights are better.
All dr mike has is an opinion on the matter. For every evidence in his favor there is evidence against. You have said that dr mike is a source of scientific evidence, and I don't agree with that.