If you’re looking for a bit of instant improvement and sign you’re improving, then try this way of training.
For example, if you’re doing a set of press ups, then presently you may being going up and down at a fairly quick rate, this may be fine to get an impressive number of reps out, but trying it another way may well allow you to feel the exercise more, and get far more out of the exercise.
So let’s stick to the press up, try lowering yourself far slower using a 3 second count on the way down, and then pushing up using a 3 second count, 1-2-3 and your rep is completed. When you do this for the first time, you will find you feel every rep and if currently you are capable of doing 20 press ups at a quicker rate, then really slowing it down and doing it this way will bring your overall capacity down to 10 reps max!
You will find you get far more out of your exercise, and therefore far more out of your workout if you apply it to the rest of your exercises. This takes more concentration but this time you’re really thinking about your workout. You will probably find that you will be a little stiff the next day too. This is because your muscles will have been worked far more thoroughly than normal, which is a really good thing by the way!
Working out slower also reduces the chances of injury, you don’t jerk so much on any movement as everything is being done in a very controlled way.
You always see from time to time when you go in different gyms that most people “cheat” when they do most exercises. This is because they are trying to use too much weight because they associate weight with progress, but if you’re not doing the exercise properly, then you’re not going to get as much as you should out of your workout.
There’s an old saying that you should leave your ego by the door when you’re going to train. The approach that you should use as much weight as you can is long outdated, but that attitude is more prevalent than ever around the area now, it looks like some people never learn, and i think most people don’t want to show that much concentration when they train. It’s all about lifting a weight from A to B, and nothing else matters according to most people!
I guarantee if you try the slow method (on the way UP and well as DOWN), then you will discover some fresh progress in your training full stop. The upward movement and downward movement are as IMPORTANT AS EACH OTHER. Give it a go and let me know what you think.
