Saturday, May 21, 2011

Fat Loss Tips and Tricks : Repetition Speed for Fat Loss






One of the most common questions I receive is “how fast should I be doing my repetitions in weight training exercises”? Well, if your goal is to increase muscle mass lose fat, get stronger, and increase both anaerobic and aerobic capacity, increase resting metabolic rate, then my answer is that you should never intentionally slow down your repetition speed. Scientific journals from even decades ago have proven that faster repetitions will give you better results than slower repetitions, but we still see fitness magazines, fitness books, and online news sources still advocating the use of slower versus faster rep speeds, but are they right? NO!


Let’s take a quick look at a repetition: The raising of the weight is called the concentric contraction, where the muscle shorten and the lowering of the weight is known as the eccentric contraction, where the muscle fibers lengthen. Basically speaking, muscle is comprised of type I endurance fibers, and type 2 strength fibers. We know that the type 1 fibers are always activated during movement, and the extent of recruitment of the type 2 strength fibers is determined by the speed of the movement and the load. So, let’s check out a tweet by Prevention magazine.

‎"Do strength-training exercises in slow motion. This works each muscle fiber harder so you get firmer, faster." May 10 2011-05-19



Does slow motion weight training work each muscle fiber harder? Definitely not! Do you think your using more muscles when walking slow or fast? Do you think you’re using more muscles when throwing a ball fast or slow? Science has already proven the answer, you use more muscle fibers when performing a movement faster, so how can slow motion training train each muscle fiber harder when both the speed of motion and the load dictate which fibers will be used, and how many will be recruited? During slow motion training you will be using less weight, less muscle, and all this adds up to less muscle gained, less strength gained, less calories burned, in short, slowing down your repetition speed has to be one of the worst recommendations in health magazines today.

In one study, performing faster repetitions resulted in 11% more calories burned during the exercise, and 5% more calories burned post exercise in comparison to slower repetitions. So would doing slow speed repetitions be ideal for the person using weight training to burn calories? Clearly not! Another thing to consider here is that, when using a sufficient load and a powerful rep speed, you damage more muscle fibers, and then the fibers rebuild themselves into bigger, stronger fibers. This remodeling of the muscle fibers comes with a great expense in calories. Bigger muscles burn more calories during the day.

But it gets better, studies that compare fast versus slow repetitions always show faster reps more beneficial for gaining muscle across both fiber types and getting stronger, and these studies have been done on people through wide range of ages. Now why is this significant? Remember those type 2 strength fibers I talked briefly about? Yes, those are the fibers we lose as we age, especially from our legs. One study using leg exercises, showed absolutely no gains in muscle size from elderly patients using slow movements, but the elderly group performing faster powerful repetitions gained a significant amount of muscle, predominately type 2 fibers (11% more), the ones we lose as we age. You hear how exercise can have an anti-aging effect, well; it seems from various studies that faster, more powerful contractions offer much more anti-aging benefits than slow repetition training. On another note, using explosive rep speed has also been correlated to a higher levels of anabolic hormones like growth hormone and testosterone, both important for health, fitness gains, and both hormones drop with aging. At least we know with certainty, that explosive reps will increase anabolic hormones, will slow training do that? No studies that I’m aware of to prove yes or no, but it doesn’t look like it would matter much given the so many positives of faster versus slower repetitions.

To conclude my brief review on the top, I want to finish off with the eccentric portion of the rep. Many so called experts recommend we slow down the negative rep, but studies also prove that you will get more out of a faster negative speed than a slower one. One study using eccentric styled reps only, fast versus slow speed found that muscle increased 13% with the fast negatives versus 8% with the slow ones. In the future I will discuss the difference between pure concentric versus pure eccentric movements, but for now I will just say that during a traditional repetition, one that includes both concentric and eccentric actions, slowing down the speed during the negative portion will result in less fitness gains, so keep both concentric and eccentric fast.

If you new to weight training please don’t jump straight into fast explosive movements. Not that I consider it dangerous, this recommendations has more to do with learning the exercise, performing it correctly, learning how to feel and properly contract the muscles being trained. If you bypass all this, you may run the risk of cheating, using too much momentum, and since the tension won’t be properly placed on the muscles, your fitness gains will be much less gained. It’s best to start off with a moderate speed and work your way up the ladder.


‎"Do strength-training exercises in slow motion. This works each muscle fiber harder so you get firmer, faster." Sorry Prevention magazine, you’re wrong.

I hope you found this video interesting and helpful. For more tips and tricks stay tuned here for more videos, and my Fat Loss Tips and Tricks page at facebook, my blog, and at twitter, I’ll post all the urls in the comment box.

For consultations, one on one personal training, phone, email, video and online training, check out my services at my blog page, or send me an email to see how I can be of help to you.

Cheers to great health and happiness, I’m George Tsanis Workout Solutions

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