I dunno... This guy seems to be pretty smart
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Read it. Most of the artcile has zero relevance to what I am saying. At one point he states the following:
"...attempting to apply research suggesting that maximal isokinetic eccentric training at faster speeds (41) promotes greater muscle growth to a free weight training scenario lacks external validity from a scientific standpoint."
Aftert this statement, or anywhere else in the article for that matter, he provides zero explanation as to why this statement might be true...other than it lacks validity from from a scientific standpoint.
However, that's not true, as I have explained in my post. I provided an explanation as to "how" faster negatives result in greater muscle stress and potentially greater growth.
I would be interested to know when he wrote this artcle, as recent experiments involving negative resistance at varrying velocities have INDEED confirmed the fact that performing negatives at a faster velocity results in more muscle damage, generating a potentially greater growth response.
Now, I am no scientist, and although I believe you are correct when you say this man is intelligent, there are also several other intelligent men who disagree with him based on recent studies demonstrating what I've explained above and in the previous post. I am not sure who this man is, but the men I am referring to have their doctorates/PH's, have been heavily invested in exercise science AND research (not just its interpretation), are very well known and respected, have been a part of this community for years, and get paid good money to do what they do.
My opinion regarding the superiority of rapid negatives for stimulating growth was not reached by this recent reserach--it was confirmed by it. Prior to this research coming to light, I wrote a short artcile last year saying basically the same thing--applying the same common sense principles of accelerated velocity to explain why fast negatives supply added stress to the muscle--not less, and therefore are capable of stimulating greater growth. I had already made up my mind regarding the inferiority of slow negatives based on what I considred to be a rational explanation and anecdotal evidence.
Now, this is not to say that slow negatives cannot be effective for stimulating growth. Sure they can. Any additional stress placed on the muscle, which is not normlly encountered during a set, has the potential to stimulate extra growth. This includes isometric holds, forced reps, drop-sets, rest-pause, etc...anything, really. However, just because slow negatives might work, it does not mean they work better than fast ones.
My opinion stands based on the studies I have seen, the explanations I have recieved, and the highly knowledgable men who feel likewise. Still, there is one thing that no one cannot dispute, at least not with any credibility, and that is that doing slow negatives has never--not even in the tiniest way, ever appeared to be necessary for growing to monster size. In fact, as I stated in the prior post, there are significantly more large men who train with fast negatioves than the other way around. With that said, one must wonder why we aren't seeing a bunch of freak who claim that 5 second negatives gave them the best results. This reason for this is, quite frankly, because they DON'T.
Of course, there are many other factors related to the training experience which play a role in muscle growth, but all oher factors being equal, a man who performs his reps in an explosive, non-stop fashion will get results faster than the man who does 5 second negatives. I have experienced it in my own life and witnessed it a hundred times over. The slower one peforms the negative portion of their rep during their set, the more it sucks and the slower they will grow. Try oi for yourself and se. Do all your reps explosively and nons-top, with absolutely no slowing down inbetween reps until you hit failure....then give the oppsite technique a try, with every rep getting a 5 second negative and 2 second positive and tell me what you experience. I am beyond certain you will make the decision to abandaon the later and never return.
Ohh, one more point to make. In the artcile you linked, the author claimed that fast negatives would allow for slack in muscle tension, but in reality, it is the exact opposite. He claimed that pulling the bar down to generate momentum (for a faster negative) would reduce tension..and it would when done like that, but who in the hell "pulls down" a heavy barbell when doing the negatuve portion of the ep? No one I know. I am pretty sure the weight will lower plenty fast enough with gravity alone. Besides, we're not trying to kill or injure ourselves here. If anything, using the 5 second negative and 2 second positive tempo would result in not only more likely breaks in muscle tension, but a decreased tension level due to the slower velocities on both portions of the rep. By training in non-stop, explosive fashion until failure, the muscle NEVER gets even a moment to rest, but is continually hammered with both continuous and maximal levels of tension...and like I said before, the muscle accomplishes more work in a shorter period of time, which has a psituve impact on growth. This been known for decades. In the end, the ability to maintain continuous tension isn't really dependent on rep speed anyway, so I think this is a bit irrelevant.
In conclusion, I believe I am correct for more than one reason, but I really don't care of someone disagrees or not, as petty much all methods have been succesful in building muscle tissue over the years. I just think this way is "better", although certainly more risky and for that reason I don't think it is ideal for everyone, particularly those who are older, have pre-existing muscle injuries, tendon issues, etc, etc, etc. Lastly, while faster velocities will increase muscle stress to a greater degree, I don't think there is a significant difference in muscle stress between training with an extremely fast rep speed compared to one in which the negative is still lowered fairly quickly, but with a little more control. However, I do believe the low negative stuff is significantly inferior when it comes to promoting growth. None of that 5 second shit for me.
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