How To Build Muscle Fast: Exploring Tension & Stress

Isometric Phase

During this phase, the target muscle is stimulated. As a result, force is generated, minus joint movement.

Eccentric Phase

Negative Resistance Training involves controlled lengthening of the target muscle. When you lower the weight, the muscle lengthens to protect you from getting injured (due to sudden fall). Negative Resistance Training is the same as eccentric muscle action.

Maximum force generation occurs during the eccentric phase, ands minimum force is generated during the concentric phase of training. Hence, for maximum muscle growth, you must focus on negative resistance training, which can be done by concentrating on the eccentric phase of your lift.

Using Drop Sets For Muscle Growth!

Understanding Negative Resistance Training

Cellular damage occurs when the muscle lengthens. This further activates local growth factors, which triggers anabolism in the body. Did you know that when you lower the weight, the target muscle is much stronger than when you lift the weight? And this is the reason why you should us heavy negatives. A spotter can help you perform heavy negatives correctly.

If you are looking for quick strength gains and muscle growth, controlled negatives is the answer.

Negative Resistance Training And Metabolism

According to studies, focusing on the eccentric phase of an exercise, and performing the concentric phase in a controlled manner raises the resting energy expenditure of the trainee. For example, a full-body workout with 1 second concentric and 3 second eccentric can raise the resting energy expenditure by 9% post workout.

Eccentric Training: Advantages

During the eccentric phase of an exercise, rate of actin-myosin cross-bridge detachments lessens, thus allowing the trainee to work with more weight. Interestingly, the energy expenditure during the lowering phase is less than that during the concentric phase, though during the eccentric phase, more force is generated.

Faster Muscle Growth With Arnold’s Power Endurance Principle

If you are a beginner, do not perform near-maximal or maximal eccentric muscular contractions.

Supra maximal eccentric loading occurs when you perform an exercise with more than 100% 1-RM. You can better Submaximal training volume by adding Supramaximal eccentric loading in your resistance training program. Moreover, this form of training is great for busing plateaus in bodybuilding. Negative resistance training is also beneficial for post-rehabilitation injury recovery for lower body injuries.

The Right Way To Implement Eccentric Training

Regardless of the type of negative resistance training you employ in your workouts, make sure that you perform a full body warm-up for up to 10 minutes. Always perform a warm-up set (with lighter weight) before attempting the working set (with heavy negatives).

The Science Of Muscle Growth: A Microscopic Study

Let us implement eccentric training in your arm workout. Take the barbell bicep curl to understand this. Assuming that you normally lift 40lbs on this exercise for 8 reps (max), perform a warm-up set with this weight. Rest for 30-40 seconds, and perform the same exercise with 105% of your normal poundage. In this case, the weight should be 42lbs. Try completing 6-8 reps, but in a controlled, timely manner. The concentric phase should last for a second, while the negative phase should complete in 3 seconds. 

Perform the next working set with 110% of the poundage. In this case, that would translate into 44Kg. Again, use the 1: 3 tempo. Like this, perform 3-4 working sets with progressive overload, i.e., increasing the poundage by 5%.

Bottom line

Negative resistance training will help you build muscle in short time. This form of training also results in strength gains. Heavy negatives will force your muscles to grow. Hence, the next time you see someone swinging heavy weights, think of eccentric training, and exercise the right way. Performing an exercise too fast (swinging in some cases) will not help you build muscle.