I’ve spent the past 4 months training in a lot of gyms, and watching hundreds of people in different countries and environments train got me thinking “if I had to give them ALL one piece of advice, what would it be?” 🤔
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I settled on slowing down their reps. I don’t know why there is such a wild obsession with “explosivity” 🤷🏻♂️ It’s like everyone has forgotten the equation F=ma, and lost the ability to observe what happens to joint control when people try to move weight quicker than they’re capable of coordinating 🧐
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I would love to go up to the tonnes of people throwing weight around as quickly as they can and ask them what they think they’re getting out of it❓
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The only possible argument could be that they’re training for the “athletic carry over” of moving quickly (a separate topic of suspect science that I won’t go into now), but it’s very hard to believe that such large portions of each gym consider themselves “athletes” and aren’t just training for improved strength, quality of life and aesthetics 😎
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If anyone is under the impression that making the intended muscles contract and produce force under control at a high intensity without “explosivity” is not getting them the same gains as faster movements, please let me assure you that is not the case☝🏽
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5️⃣ Things to consider with high acceleration movements:
- Forces at transitions increase dramatically, reducing control of the joints that aren’t meant to be moving.
- Stress placed on connective tissue to manage what muscles can’t increases.
- Resistance profiles get changed (and rarely for the better)
- “Range of motion” becomes harder to control, and thus less regular
- Load placed on muscles becomes acceleration-dependent, harder to track & thus only possible to gradually, consistently increase if you have advanced equipment to measure this with.
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I’m not saying bouncing out of the bottom of reps and swinging into “full range” will be the death of your joints ☠️ or get you no gains. (To varying degrees) our bodies are resilient & adaptable and regardless of what you do contractions are still taking place and force is still being produced 💪🏽
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I’m just saying it rarely makes much sense.
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