Or Extended reps- I've been reading up on these a bit and I was wondering if anyone has tried them, or knows whether or not they are worth wasting my time on... http://bodybuilding.home.insightbb.com/trainingarticles/xrepstaticcontraction/index.htm basically you hold the muscles worked in its contracted for for as long as you can after a few regular sets before completing the rep and you're done...
From that link: That alone tell me that this will be less-than-ideal for martial artists, who want to train for A - Explosive (not static) strength, and B - A Full range of Motion. Plus the fact, from their given description, X-reps work best with most isolation exercises. That's a big thumbs down, right there. From a simply aesthetic, hypertrophy-based, perspective (without regard to improving athletic performance)...eh, it may work. But probably not fantastically better than anything else. It probably should be said, just to be fair, that big Bud Jeffries is a huge fan (no pun intended) of partial rep training (with exceptionally heavy loads), but he recommends doing it either before or after "traditional", full range of motion lifting.
In my opinion holding weights or resistance is ok but I would only do it for a few seconds. I think that holding a motion or doing it slowly builds balance and the studies I've read indicate slowly lowering will build bone density and prevent plateauing more than not. I don't see much value in holding the contractions that long though. In some exercises it could even be unsafe, no way I'd try to contract my muscles slowly if I'm doing snatches or clean&presses. You only need to lower twice as slow to build bone density. For me for the most part though slow movements or conctractions are mainly to get the form of the exercise down and make sure I'm not using moment as I lift. I use it extensively on core exercises but don't hold the contractions that long (unless I'm doing stomach vacs which I only do when I'm bored as hell like waiting in line at the bank.) I've also been using slow contractions on my lat rows to improve my form but once my form is correct I'm not going to hold the contractions for more than 2 seconds.
I personally never seen the point of those contractions. If you do stances and you need them for your art, than it's fine. Otherwise what is the point?
