How To Build Muscle Fast Using Intense Negatives
Written by Tim Ryan
Bodybuilders are always looking for ways to blast through muscle building plateaus, mix up their routines, discover new ways to stimulate muscle growth and increase strength. Finding and using new and different exercise techniques is essential for muscle building success as your muscles soon adjust to the demands of new exercises and will not be able to grow until new different stress is placed upon them.
There are many methods in which to trigger growth including the regular progressive overload principle of using certain amounts of sets and reps and doing as many reps as possible until your muscles won't allow you to do anymore. Other variations include: compound sets, drop sets, partials, supersets, 21s and such like. However in this article we shall see how you can make use of negatives to trigger muscle growth.
So, what is a negative? And how can you build muscle fast using negatives?
Well, negatives are done as follows. Using bench pressing as an example, lets say your usual bench-press is to do 110kg for 8 reps. You have become stale and your struggling to add anymore muscle and got stuck at this weight. Add to the bar a further 20 kilograms and ask your friends to help you push the bar upwards. Now from the top position get your spotters to let go of the bar so that you can steadily under control lower the bar. Then again your friends can help you press this weight up again. Do this repeatedly as many times as you can until you are unable to do any more reps safely.
Exactly why should I make use of negatives? And will I build muscle fast using negatives?
Well your muscles are actually stronger in the lowering phase so when you do regular reps you are only placing stress on the muscle fibers in the lifting phase which are not as strong. So, you can allow your muscles to handle more weight by doing negatives. Do a few workouts such as this and you can trigger muscle mass growth and therefore improve your training sessions efforts for your normal workout routine and increase your overall musculature.
Does doing this pose any problems?
Because your muscle will probably not be used to performing this type of work and also for physiological reasons you will probably be sore on the next day after your workout. Certainly do not workout again until you have totally recuperated and keep high your protein intake and be completely sure to take a quality protein shake straight after your weight session.
Negatives can be used in any exercise but work best for the major compound multi-joint exercises like: deadlifts, pull ups, squats, shoulder presses and so on. However do these type of sets sparingly and use them as a way to bust through training plateaus and to stimulate muscle growth on an infrequent basis.
With those points in mind keep taking on good solid muscle building nutrition, rest plenty and workout vigorously and regularly and you will likely have no problems stacking on muscle mass. Now go ahead and build muscle fast using negatives.
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