Do you want to know the most positive thing that you can do to impact the muscle size
that you can build?
Start focusing on the negatives.
[Music Intro]
What's up everybody?
Jeff Cavaliere AthleanX.com
You know we have talked before about how important the negative portion of a repetition is.
I am going to talk exactly why and show you today why it is so important.
I think it is going to sink in why you should be focusing on it every time you do a lift.
Cross-training on a negative and making sure you are getting something out of it.
Now first and foremost we know when we lift the dumbbell--I am going to do a bicep curl
so we can see it pretty easily.
We know that when you do any type of lift, you have a positive portion and a negative
or lowering portion to that rep.
The fact is that muscles are under tension regardless of whether you are lifting up or
down.
At least it should be: you don't want to lift the weight up and just let it drop.
Right?
If you are controlling the weight up and down then you are under tension both up and down.
But here is one key difference: when you curl the weight up you are shortening the muscle.
So when you are going from the elongated position here, tension is to shorten the muscle up.
When you go down, there is tension on the muscle but it is elongating, stretching, OK?
So you have 2 things going on.
I have this rubber elastics band to show you what I am talking about.
If I were to shorten the muscle, basically it is getting folded up.
Now I can squeeze this thing as hard as I want.
I can apply as much tension to this band as I want, and nothing is going to happen to
it.
It is not going to get damaged, the muscle fibers are going to be nice and intact.
But when I start doing the opposite, put tension while I elongate and elongate more and more,
eventually this sucker is going to snap.
That is what happens inside your muscle when you are lifting.
You are getting little micro-tears only on the eccentric portion of the rep.
What do we know?
We know that size starts with micro-damage to the muscle.
If you are not doing anything in your workouts to cause small muscle damage,there is nothing
to repair; there is no reason to come back bigger and stronger.
So that is where it all starts.
So when you think about that one more time: this bicep curl some people might argue the
most important part of the rep is the positive.
But why?: Only because it then puts you in position to go do the negative part of the
rep.
Right?
All it is,is it just gets up here.
If you want to take it to an extreme, you lift it up to this side, and completely do
your negatives until you are completely fatigued.
Again it is that tension with the stretch that causes those fibers to split apart and
tear at the micro level that now makes me come back and say "Hey I have got to repair
that and come back stronger and bigger."
That is the essence of getting more size when you are training.
I hope that little demonstration helps you.
I hope that helps it sink in.
When we are doing ATHLEAN-X training we focus all the time on getting the negative into
what we do.
Through the techniques that we use, through the exercises that we do, everything gets
integrated together so that you have the most effective exercises that you can.
If you are going to spend some time in the gyms guys, get it right.
That is what we do with ATHLEAn-X: quick, fast, 30 minute workouts.
We nail you and we keep it intense; we make sure that you are working every second that
you are there.
We will be back again next week, more stuff like this.
Again, sometimes these little scientific break-offs that we do are great because it better helps
us understand why it is what we are doing.
Again we put that science back behind the strength.
Be back here again in 7 days.
I will see you guys then.
We have some very exciting things coming, I will start to let you know about that then
very soon.
All I can say is, be prepared.