what pace should you complete a rep?

hollypink

newbie question so apologies if it sounds silly:

As I'm pretty new to weight training and need to concentrate on following the instructions, I tend to go quite slowly. But at one stage during training the other night I was doing bicep curls at a pace of 4 secs per rep and noticed a guy beside me doing about 3-4 reps to my one. I thought you were meant to go slowly so that your muscles are doing the work and not momentum but can your pace be too slow?

t-ha

Answer: it depends, just make sure your muscles are getting a good workout.

Conventional wisdom for muscle growth would be to lift them up as quick as you can, then lower them more slowly. Personally I switch it up.

davyjose

hollypink wrote:

newbie question so apologies if it sounds silly:

As I'm pretty new to weight training and need to concentrate on following the instructions, I tend to go quite slowly. But at one stage during training the other night I was doing bicep curls at a pace of 4 secs per rep and noticed a guy beside me doing about 3-4 reps to my one. I thought you were meant to go slowly so that your muscles are doing the work and not momentum but can your pace be too slow?

Be careful when comparing yourself to others - it's possible he's using poor form. Generally I find it difficult to comple a full rep in less than two seconds, without using bad form (which i don't)

pwd

I read somewhere that if you train a muscle by using fast movement you can exert the same force quickly or slowly. If you train the muscle with slow motions however you won't be able to exert the same force as when moving it quickly.

Moving quickly (and with a lighter weight) is a good way of developing power, although it is more difficult to maintain a goof form.

Shrimp

Quick Reps help to increase explosiveness, while heavey slow reps will increase strenght. That is just a rough outline, however it does depend a lot on the exercise and wieght.

t-ha

There are different fibre types in your muscles, referred to as types A, IB and IIB fibres. You will use them in different amounts based on the power you're trying to exert.

Type A are low force output, long lasting fibres (think long distance jogging) which are the first to be fired.

Type IB are the main ones doing the work when lifting weights in the usual hypertrophy ranges (6 - 12 reps). High force output, decent endurance depending on lactic clearing ability and decent growth potential. These are fired when you need a higher power output than the type As can produce.

Type IIB are known as fast-twitch fibres. They have the strongest contractions but fatigue very quickly. Excellent growth potential but the most difficult muscle fibres for most people to activate. Powerlifters, sprinters etc. will all usually have a high number of these fibres in their muscles, and efficient enough nervous systems that they can use them properly. These are really only used as you try to exert close to your maximum power output, which is why many people don't do it well.

A big weight lifted slowly, or a lighter weight lifted fast will both key in to these fast-twitch fibres as long as your intent is to output your maximum power. Other ways to hit the fast twitch fibres include plyometrics, >100% 1RM negatives and some kinds of isometrics.

Some people try to take advantage of this by lifting the weights up as explosively as they can, and then lowering the weight slowly. Personally I think it makes more sense to do a dedicated training block for developing fast-twitch fibres, as developing your CNS to fire them hard should go hand in hand with training them - which i don't feel is achieved by the above method.