Emphazise the Negative for Muscle Growth

In today’s training article I want to talk a little bit about emphasizing the negative portion of a lift over just the positive side.

First let’s define what I mean here. Let’s use the Bench Press as an example:

• The Positive movement is when you push the weight up.
• The Negative movement is when you lower it back to your chest.

So which is more important for muscle growth? Well, in the end it’s the negative or eccentric motion that will actually give you the most strength and size gains.

The problem is that most of us want to see how much we can push up. We work on having an explosive positive movement, but don’t think much about the negative. Have you noticed that most of the cadence recommendations for lifting recommend spending more time lowering the weight than lifting it? This isn’t just to make sure you’re controlling the lowering of the weight, but is actually because you’ll get better gains this way!

Negative Training

If you want to take this to the extreme there is even such a thing out there as Negative Training, Negative Sets, or Negative Reps. The idea here is that you have a spotter help you lift the weight up (in other words, go heavy), but then it’s up to you to lower the weight as slowly as possibly.

This is a great thing to do from time to time if you really want to blast your muscles! Here’s a list of articles on the topic from BodyBuilding.com: Negative Training Articles.

Tips to Emphasize the Negative

Here are some tips to make sure you remember to emphasize the negative when you’re doing your reps:

• Slow down! Take your time lowering the weight.
• Keep a cadence in your head. A good start is one second up, two seconds down.
• Experiment. Try going even slower and notice how your muscles tire out quicker when you take longer on the negative
• Notice you feel after your workout. Chances are you’ll get a better pump by emphasizing the negative and that alone should motivate you to do it!

Do you have any other tips about emphasizing the negative? Share them below!

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