The Road to 100 Fit Tip #67: The two biggest enemies of an effective workout!

January 21, 2011 By: Victor Brick

Unless you are training for a sport, the two biggest enemies of an effective strength training workout are momentum and gravity; momentum on the concentric contraction or closing of the joint and gravity on the eccentric contraction or opening of the joint? Why? Because if you perform the exercise so quickly that you generate momentum on the concentric contraction and then let gravity take over on the eccentric contraction, they are doing the work and not your muscle power.

How can you tell if momentum and gravity are doing the work? You’ve lost control of the weight. It is easy to tell when you’ve lost control with pin-loaded equipment. You can hear the clanging of the plates. You should also not speed up the movement of the weight in either direction, whether you are using free weights or pin-loaded equipment.

What is the answer? Slow down; the slower the better. Perform each exercise no faster than on a two-second count on the concentric contraction and a four-second count on the eccentric contraction. For variety, you can perform the exercises slower, anywhere from a 10 second up-10 second down count to a 30 second up-30 second down count. The slower the movement, the less reps you need to perform. If you use the right weight and perform the exercise slow enough, one or two sets to exhaustion are enough.

So, to defeat the two biggest enemies of an effective workout, slow down!

This week’s corny joke: Did you here about the psychic amnesiac? He knew in advance what he was going to forget.

See you at 100. (Years, that is!)

Uncle Vic