Super Slow Reps Workout
Super Slow Workouts became a registered trade-name when all the hype went out about training once a week and gaining muscle. The now in-famous super slow system requires lifting the weight VERY slowly so that it will take you 10 seconds to lift a weight and then another 5 seconds to lower it.
With each repetition taking you 15 seconds that means a 10 rep set would take 2.5 minutes to complete. According to the original Hutchins system you have to do only 1 set of 10 reps for each body-part training only once a week. Studies done on the super slow technique proved that it benefits people who have never trained with weights before, but it is not sufficient to establish hypertrophy in a trained muscle.
Super slow has now been studied extensively but the study done at George Washington University is a good over-view of the general findings amongst all the other studies that have been done. The study was to compare super slow to normal traditional weight training and they found conclusively that traditional training always got better strength gains compared to the super slow group.
The well-known strength coach Charles Poliquin says that he uses 5 seconds and not 15 seconds for his super slow training for athletes who need to build muscle. He explains that bodybuilders would need to increase what he calls ‘non-functional’ strength and would benefit from a longer eccentric but the concentric must be as fast as possible.
There is no doubt that the debate will continue as people look for a way to get around a high intensity workout and look for a way to get around this time tested way of gaining strength. It is unfortunate that the radical promotion of the new super slow training (SST) went too far when they said it speeds up fat-loss.
Countless studies proved them wrong showing that people who trained with SST had the metabolism and the calorie burning effect 48% lower than the group who trained normally three times a week. SST is certainly not useless however, it can be effectively used in any strength training program.
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