Anyone ever heard of "The Power of 10"? It claims to be "The once-a-week slow motion fitness revolution". I definitely don't buy the "revolution" part, but are there any thoughts on its methods? "Power of 10" claims that slow resistance training with weights builds lean muscle mass. And by comparison, aerobics builds virtually none, and only lean muscle mass can change the shape of your body to the trim, curvaceous, or muscular form that you want. It's a 10-second cadence: 10 seconds up and 10 seconds down workout movement. You don't stop at the top or bottom, so the muscles sustain a constant, steady load for about 5 to 8 repetitions. You use a weight that will leave you "spent" by the last repetition and it will "fire" the muscles deeply and completely. In addition to exercise, there are two other pillars: nutrition and rest and recovery. Paraphrased from an article I found. - ft
This is a slight variation on super slow. My main criticisms of this are: - The slower you lift, the lighter the weight must be - In sports, speed is important. There's the danger that these slow lifting movements will carry over to your sport - It's so boring lifting slow. Pyschologically, it's torture to deliberately slowing down your lifts - Olympic weightlifters do mainly fast lifts (different types of cleans, high pulls, push press's etc), they have a lot of muscle - Once a week suggest large DOMS (muscles soreness) for many days. If 2 days after lifting, your legs hurt walking up the stairs, how are you going to manage MA training? - Lifting slow causes blood pressure to increase. For people who already have high blood pressure, this can be bad. - It's probably very expensive. Here's quick list of people who you can google and get much better programs - Charles Staley - Eric Cressey - Chad Waterbury - Louis Simmons - Alwyn Cosgrove - Tudor Bompa Look at the stickies on this website for lots good and free advise.
I heard a personal trainer trying to sell this to someone a while back. Just a possible variation. That's all.
I agree with CXW. I think a bit of slow eccentric stuff here and there for aesthetic purposes is okay but to spend the majority of your training with this...not at all.
Just some comments/questions... According to this program you should lift a heavier weight, as much as you handle comfortably and work until you have what he calls "muscle failure" or in lamens terms, until you can't lift anymore. I'm not sure what the relevance for this is...? It doesn't really make sense to me that one would have an effect on the other. Muscle memory (what is used in our MA for fast reflexes etc.) seems different than creating muscle strength. Besides, there is no way you could lift as fast as you would during any MA application that requires quick reflexes. This is subjective. What's boring to you, may not be boring to me (or psychologically torturous! ) I don't think this method is meant to replace fast lifting, the question is, is it effective? straightline hit the nail on the head by saying its just an alternative. Lol, on a good training day in my MA I am lucky if I'm only sore for 2 days! Not an issue since you will possibly experience soreness anyway. Is this something that is well known or just a subjective observation? I would think that lifting fast would cause higher blood pressure since you are exerting more energy... one of the main points the author makes is for you to relax and not strain yourself. Something I forgot to mention in my original post. Not sure what you mean by this...? Will do! For the last week or so I've been following the basic guidelines for this method (slow lifting, heavy weight, lifting until muscle failure, relaxing while lifting) and I don't have any more or less soreness than a good workout day. I'm going to the gym 2-3 times a week and I make sure to stretch and do some cardio in conjunction with so I'll give this method about a month to see if its all its cracked up to be! Does anyone else do the "slow lifting" method even if its not the whole "Power of 10" method? - ft
My Uncle who does Weightlifting at the Gym encorporates this in his sets. He does about 3-5 reps per set at normal speed then on the very final rep of each set he does it super slow up and backdown until hes in quite a bit of unbearable agony. Percieve this how you wish but all I know is he used to go 2 times per week, now he only goes once a week and hes still maintained quite an impressive muscular figure.
It's fine to do once every blue moon, but really, it won't contribute much as far as speed goes (muscle mass, sure). You're teaching your nervous system to work slowly. Olympic lifters (who, by chance, are damned fast people!) do very explosive lifts and require great amounts of speed-strength; a beneficial quality for martial arts. A 10-0-10-0 cadence does not build speed-strength in any way. Muscle memory has nothing to do with speed from what I've heard. How many motor units you can activate at a given time from start to finish (how efficient your nervous system is at recruiting motor units), how large contractile proteins, etc. all play a big role in how fast a person is. Neural efficiency is the biggie (which comes with practice). Lifting slow does cause a rise in blood pressure. I believe it has to do with occlusion of blood flow to the muscles being worked (they basically get very little blood due to vasoconstriction or something like that from the muscles contracting), which can build up pressure because there's a "block" in the system, but the heart is still pumping. Therefore, blood pressure increases. You also mentioned you're not supposed to strain, but say you're supposed to go to complete muscular failure. That's contradictory. You WILL strain when you can barely move the weight. DOMS goes away after doing something so many times. Your body adapts, so you don't get sore anymore. DOMS isn't something to shoot for though. Bottom line, anything works for about 4 weeks. Your goals will determine what you do to get there however.
I've got a different opinion (of course) based on what my knowledge is which is admittedly limited from what I've learned from what I've been told by others with expertise in this area. I disagree with the statement "Olympic lifters (who, by chance, are damned fast people!) do very explosive lifts and require great amounts of speed-strength; a beneficial quality for martial arts." The more muscle mass you have the slower you are. I have never met someone who had huge muscles AND could move fast. I can't dictate what your experiences are, but that's what I have seen time and time again. "Muscle memory has nothing to do with speed from what I've heard." This is an exact contradiction to what I have been exposed to as well. "Lifting slow does cause a rise in blood pressure. I believe it has to do with occlusion of blood flow to the muscles being worked (they basically get very little blood due to vasoconstriction or something like that from the muscles contracting), which can build up pressure because there's a "block" in the system, but the heart is still pumping. Therefore, blood pressure increases." And by comparison lifting "fast" would do the exact same thing. Running fast raises your blood pressure as well as most activities we do to some degree. "You also mentioned you're not supposed to strain, but say you're supposed to go to complete muscular failure. That's contradictory. You WILL strain when you can barely move the weight." Again, I disagree. I've been doing this for about a week so far and have not had any problems in keeping loose, relaxing and not straining with these excercises. "DOMS goes away after doing something so many times. Your body adapts, so you don't get sore anymore. DOMS isn't something to shoot for though." Very true, and the author says the exact same thing. Staying at a constant weight, you will eventually get used to the excercises. "Bottom line, anything works for about 4 weeks. Your goals will determine what you do to get there however." Lol, ANYTHING works for about 4 weeks? Good to know. My goals are simple thus far, and I will post an update on my progress. -ft
Myth. Compare a sprinter and a marathon running...whos faster? I believe there was a study that proved olympic lifters had the fastest 40m sprint or something to that effect. Look at all the heavyweight fighters...are they slow...? You have probably been hanging out around too many bodybuilders with all their fluffy muscles. If your building functional muscle theres no reason it will slow you down. No cos when you lift fast you complete a rep, and when that happens you a small period of rest where your muscle are under mininal stress.
I do SuperSlow, "Power of 10" is a spin off, and while I haven't read the book my understanding is that they are the same thing in general terms with some differences in some of the specifics. I find it to be very effective. I've worked with SuperSlow on and off for about 5 years. When I've been off I basically haven't been working out much due to lack of time (I frequently work jobs that require a lot of travel) or I've been doing minimal, maintenance, body weight exercises using SuperSlow principles. I don't talk about it much on this board because you just get the same old responses that you're hearing in this thread -- "It's only for bodybuilders", "It'll make you slow", etc. but I do Olympic style foil fencing (one of the fastest martial sports out there) and my speed is fine and my endurance and strength are better than they were with conventional lifting techniques, especially when you consider the time investment. I only do one strength training workout every ten days or so and it lasts 15-20 minutes at this point. I think I would see better results if I could fit it into my schedule something on the order of once every 5 days, but I just haven't been able to make that happen regularly. I think one of the big problems is people confusing motor learning and strength development. For instance, "Anything works for about 4 weeks", is a great example. Studies indicate that it usually takes about 6 weeks of doing a new workout routine before the subject has learned it well enough to really be doing it efficiently. If you measure changes in performance of the routine before the 6 week mark you are really measuring motor learning progress as much or more than physical improvements. So sure, from that standpoint anything does SEEM to work for 4-6 weeks. I assume that the “It'll make you slow” beliefs come from the same sort of confusion. As far as boredom goes, well if you're bored with SuperSlow you're not working hard enough (in my opinion). Pushing to momentary muscular failure in one set under a couple of minutes, and completing your entire workout in under 20 minutes doesn't exactly give you a lot of time to be bored. If you're really doing it right it is a grueling workout. That I won't deny at all. Going until failure without breaking form isn't for everyone. DOMS, well, I haven't had a problem with it myself, and if you do it's easy to fix. DOMS aside, you do need more recovery time with SS because if you have good intensity you're going to really inroad your muscles and they'll need time to rebuild, but I've found that you get a superior responce. The important thing to think about is that you're building muscle when you're resting, not when you're lifting weights. The weight lifting is just a stimulus to the body telling it that it needs to adapt to meet the demands placed upon it. I try not to do a workout the day before I do anything physically competitive or expect a tough MA or fencing class, but at once every week or so that's not hard to plan for. Overall, as I said, I don't feel the need to argue about this. I don't have an interest in changing anybody's mind about slow lifting. I'm just trying to share my personal experience since someone asked specifically about this method of training. --Michael
Mexico City Olympics, there was a study on who were the fastest athletes in a 40 yard dash I believe it was (maybe it was 40m). At any rate, Olympic lifters were some of the fastest (faster than some of the SPRINTERS, and yes, I'm talking some of the "big bulky guy" type oly lifters) in that particular distance. I've known powerlifters/olympic lifters who can sprint extremely fast (Old PE coach was a p-lifter and could keep up with me with a bum knee; and he weighed in at 280ish, and I'm not a slow person either). If anything, because they have more muscle they have more potential to be faster (especially since olympic lifters have very high neural efficiencies, they can activate a lot of motor units, and since they're larger, they have bigger, stronger motor units at their control). Now, blood pressure. Any exercise raises your heart rate. What happens when your heart beats faster and with more force? Blood pressure rises because there is more force exerted on arterial walls. I think the way that slow lifting increases your blood pressure, and to what degree, is what prompts people to say it's a little more dangerous. (I'm no expert on cardio vasculars, so take what I say with a grain of salt) Now, failure. The fact that this system is supposed to make you feel "spent" means there must be some kind of straining involved. I've perceived the wording as taking this particular weight to failure. Muscular failure entails a degree of straining. Staying "loose and relaxed" in no way means you're reaching muscular failure. What you're saying is contradictory in terms of failure and staying loose. Especially when moving a weight slowly, the muscles in question will be under a lot of tension. That alone (simply lifting the weight) means you're not really 'loose'. Lastly, lemme clarify my point about "anything" working. If you eat a decent diet, stay consistent, and present an increasing load on your body, you will adapt by either hypertrophying, increasing neural efficiency, or both. Progressive overload and consistency are keys to adaptation. Experience also helps play a role here (how many years training). Mike71- Once every 10 days? I'd go stir crazy from not being able to train more often. Although, I'd like to point out that your speed and endurance are probably more than enough trained just by practicing your sport (which is really the best way to develop sport specific skills...by doing your sport!). Combine that with only working out once every 10 days, maybe that's why your speed is fine and not slowed down. In the end, I'm glad that at least ya'll are doing something rather then nothing, and that's what counts really. Gotta give you credit there!
In the end it boils down to what the trainees goal is. If hypertrophy is the main and upmost goal, then failure work and more TUT is preferred. However, if absolute strength (read: raising the 1RM) is desired, then super slow methods are going to do jack for this. Yes-given the same amount of calories for hypertrophy in the same individual, more muscle mass with teh super slow method would be gained over Oly movements with less eccentrics. So, the argument of more muscle is kinda' void on this point. More muscle does not make one slow. Granted I don't know a lot of individuals who have done the superslow method but those who have ventured into it have come back to say when they tested themselves again in the lifts of bench and squat, they were weaker. As far as athletic performance is concerned- I'm firmly convinced that being good at a sport is entirely based upon practice of the sport. However, if you were to set the same athlete up on two different programs: A)Primarily the super slow method B)A method combined of max efforts and dynamic efforts And all other factors considered the same, your athlete using the B method will come out ahead in the stronger and faster area. This subject has been beat to death and typically the proponents for superslow will stay proponents and those against it will stay against it.
But thats from your experience. We cant make judgements based on that. If you ever meet a professional heavyweight olympic lifter, I am certain that your viewpoint will completely turn around. I believe slow lifting have some merit when your goal is to get big. But this is also the reason why the huge guys you normally see arent very fast or agile.
Ever watched any athletics? If you have then you would have noticed that some of the biggest and most muscular athletes there are the fastest ie. sprinters.
Exactly. I believe that is something I have stated several times in this thread. I can't dictate someone else's experience any more than you can dictate mine. For instance, why would you assume that I have never met a professional lifter? Some of the fastest athletes out there are the ones who are well defined but often have a slender build. Receivers in football need to have a certain amount of speed, agreed? They tend to be very well defined and muscular, but nothing like the linebackers. Not a great example since its two extremes, but whatever. Basketball players are another great example. Not huge by any means but fast as hell. I could go on listing these professional athletes who are not huge men at all and are fast as sin. And I wouldn't call sprinters huge at all... they all have great calves and thighs, no doubt, but huge? nah. Funny thing about blood pressure... at one point my blood pressure was through the freakin' roof! They wanted to put me on BP meds at 25 and it was all a bit confusing since I exercised and was eating better (probably not complete healthy though ). Come to find out, as soon as I quit the job that I had at that time my BP dropped like a bad habit. Its amazing what affects your blood pressure! Its a difference of opinion here. I wanted to see some thoughts on the matter and that's what I got! I appreciate some of the things brought to the table on the matter. I took the time to ask a few people at my school about their experiences on the matter and got some great advice. I am going to continue to do the slow lifting in conjunction with other strength training excercises. I think that and my continued grueling workouts at the school will help me a lot. Thanks! - ft
Sprinters are not small either. Some basketball players aren't that small (alonzo mourning & shaqulle o'neal are two big men that come to mind who are just big, but can be fast when they need to be). Most receivers in the NFL aren't small by any means either (some are absolute FREAKS if you watch the combines and stuff....whew!). For the record though....sprinters are faster than receivers and basketball players; no comparison. Stress affects blood pressure big time. Hence....I chill man. Truth be told, there's so many variables in anything that it's pointless to argue about it. The bottom line, you found something you like, and that's better than doing something you don't like.
I couldn't do it slow the whole time (takes way too much time) But I would do it with 1 or 2 sets out of 5, or 2 out of 8 reps in a set I go slow. I also sometimes hold it halfway, this usually happened most in BMT when we were on our faces. =D
Linebackers are naturally a lot bigger than wide receivers. Also, linebackers aren't training to be able to sprint 40m fast. They only move around 5m before they come into contact with an opponent. Wide receivers are naturally better sprinters than linebackers. That's why they ended up playing where they are. But, both good strength training does improve the speed of both linebackers and sprinters. And wide receivers are very strong, not compared to linebackers, but they much stronger than most people
