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Super Slow Weight Training

inode

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 29, 2004
Messages
267
Has anyone had a positive experience with super slow weight training? That is, the method developed by a Ken Hutchins originally meant to treat osteoperosis in older women,

From http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/super-slow-weight-training.html :

In super-slow training, the ‘concentric’ portion of each strengthening movement (in which muscles actually shorten as they are activated) take a full 10 seconds to complete, and the ‘eccentric’ portion (in which muscles are forced to elongate as they are activated) takes 4-5 seconds. For example, in a simple strengthening exercise such as the biceps curl, the lifting of the dumbbell to the shoulder (the concentric phase) would take 10 seconds, while the slow dropping of the dumbbell to the starting position (the eccentric phase) would take 4-5 seconds. By comparison, traditional strength training recommendations often involve a two-second concentric phase, a one-second pause and a four-second eccentric phase; and in practice many athletes abbreviate these phases to just one second each.

I don't meant to turn Healthy Living into the gym forum but I was wondering if any of you have tried this for a regular amount of time. And yes, the search engine has revealed nothing about this.
 
If your body has adapted to your current training program and you're noticing diminished gains, I'd throw it in for some variety. Other than that, I don't think there's that much benefit over traditional training, with the exception of the intangibles like better body control and body awareness.
 
A friend of mine went to Russia and trained with their equivalent to the navy seals. They have a heavy focus on this type of strength training. However, they shun weights and rely on their own body weight.

Some examples:
do a squat with no weight, take a full minute going down and a full minute going back up.
Do the same with pushups, pull ups, dips and sit ups. They also have some other weird workouts that are cumbersome to explain.

The reason for doing this is to develope balance and ligament/cartalige strength as well as muscle strength. This reduces injuries greatly.

BTW, my friend who taught me this did curls with 50-75 pounds in each hand before he switched to weightless workouts. He now swears by them.

Better body control and body awareness are exactly why they focus on this type of training.

peace
 
^He is actually a friend of my dad's, so I'm not sure exactly. He is kind of hushhush about certain things.

I do know that he used to do special ops in the american army (rangers i believe) and that he is way into the whole survivalist thing. He has a massive collection of guns and knives and disapears on "training exercises" everyonce and a while. That's all I really know.
 
Trying to google for what you described only turned up a bunch of sites in russia selling 'kettlebells' but thanks for the insight.
 
Lots of different forms of exercise use slow movement weight training. It is a hell of a lot tougher than normal weight training but has the benefit that you're unlikely to do any jarring damage to your body.

I did a bunch of Pilates 'cause I had lower back problems. It's a lot harder than it seems to roll up to sitting from lying down over a minute or so :P
 
I've trained (martial arts) with a couple of special ops guys. One is a former SEAL, the other is a former Ranger. Neither of them knows much at all about effective strength training...
 
panty said:
Try Mike Mahler (sp?).

I think it's actually www.mikemahler.com

Mike Mahler has proven to me several times over that he knows very little about strength training. Just buy one of his videos and you'll find out. If I didn't know better I would've thought this guy sold kettlebells door-to-door. Every other word that comes out of his mouth is "kettlebell".
 
^^^
How can you say 'several times over', when I just recently pointed out to you who he was, and then you went and checked his website out, and then came back to the thread and sputtered something about him being full of shit for achieving what he has on a vegan diet.

You must have gotten expedited delivery, and then immediately watched it after receiving it. And then immediately after saw this thread and posted what you did.

Or, you're the one who's full of shit.
 
^^
huh?

You pointed out to inode who he was, not Roger&Me. Do you seriously think you are the absolute first person ever on BL to hear about Mike Mahler? Next time you use sarcasm, make sure you're RIGHT.
 
^^^
No, in another thread about a week ago, I pointed out who he was to R&M. He obviously didn't know who Mike Mahler was at that point, which is why his post above sounds ridiculous.

Next time YOU use sarcasm, make sure you know what the hell YOU"RE talking about.
 
yeah, can i get a link to that thread?

because i did a search on mike mahler and this thread here was the only one to show up.
 
You know, I just searched for it and couldn't seem to find it. (I know, sounds like bullshit).

But anyway, the title was something like "Stupid Vegans GRRRRR" (it was by Roger&Me himself) and his first post was something like, "I'll bet you 500 bucks that there's not a single nonmeat-eating person on the planet who can lift more weight than me."

So I posted a link to Mike Mahler for him, and he immediately responded that Mike Mahler must be full of shit about not eating meat.

When I did my search, I put in 'vegan' as a search word, and it didn't come up, same with 'Mike Mahler'.

Anyway, sorry to take this thread so far off-topic...
 
fair enough. didn't mean to ruffle any feathers. The post was confusing and it seemed like you went off on him over a simple mistake.


To get back on topic, i remember reading about super slow training and the book made it out to be some godsend new form of lifting. Haven't followed through on it, but it does seem like the only advantage it has over other methods is greater control.
 
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