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 Intensity comes in many forms. One method that most people never even consider is negatives. A negative is where you use more than your normal weight and have a partner help you get the lift to the end of the positive movement and then you execute, on your own, the negative portion of the movement. For instance, if you were working your chest today and decided to use negatives on your barbell bench press, what you'd do is have your partner help you unrack the weight. You would then control the weight on the way down to your chest. Your partner would assist you in getting the weight back to the top. You'd repeat this over and over. Be careful when doing negatives. Negatives cause the most muscle soreness and they also tend to leave you more open for injury. Always have someone spotting you when doing negatives. Because the actual lift is very slow and controlled you want to give more rest time between sets. Negatives are used in many programs to increase your strength on a given exercise. It is a great way to up your maximum bench press weight. It is also a great way to get yourself into dips without any assistance. You can use negatives in a variety of ways. |
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After not being satisfied at all with my Friday workout, I spent some time discussing things with my trainer, Carlos DeJesus. Carlos suggested that I mustn't be getting enough recovery time between workouts for me to lose the fire at this point. It has been 3 weeks on the H.I.T. program for me. Carlos has stated that I must be working extremely hard to get to this point. As a result of the discussions this weekend with Carlos, I am going to be cutting back to two full body workouts each week–one on Monday and one on Thursday. This will allow for maximum recovery time. I must say, I entered the gym today completely motivated. I hadn't felt this way in a week. I attacked the weights like a hungry tiger would attack a raw steak. Let me take you through the workout and you will see what I mean. I sat down at the Thigh extension machine and put the pin at 190 and then added 5 pounds for a total of 195. I began my slow 3 second ascent and 3 second descent. I controlled this for 9 repetitions. My thighs were screaming in pain. The heat was apparent in my legs as they were turning red from blood rushing to the muscles. I pushed a 10th repetition out of my legs with great form. I then pushed an 11th repetition out of my legs with wonderful form. I hit my 12th repetition and I thought "I need to go for another" so I gave it a shot, but the 13th repetition was not to be. I had hit complete failure on this exercise. I moved to the thigh curl machine. I put the pin at 150 pounds. I cranked out 5 repetitions before I could feel lactic acid forming in my hamstring area. I pushed hard and managed to pump our 4 more repetitions. I tried for the 10th, but it was not to be and I was unable to get the weight up. After using the entire rack for my standing calf raises on the previous workout, I switched to using the leg press machine for my calf raises. I loaded the sled with 340 pounds and proceeded to push myself in brutal fashion. At around 10 repetitions my brain said I should give up, but I pushed on. At 15 repetitions my legs were quivering, but I continued to push forward. I managed to push out 25 repetitions before having to put the safety back in place. I got up from the sled and my legs were a quivering mess. Next up was squats. Even though I've been rolling, my lower back was still a bit stiff, so I went a little easier on the squats, getting 8 reps at 225 pounds. For my Quad Blaster set I added weight and still managed to get in 10 repetitions before hitting complete failure. When I say complete failure on the Quad Blaster, I mean that I was able to go down to the low position of the movement, but not able to lift my body back up, so I collapsed to the floor. It is true failure. All the exercises continued in this fashion. Every single muscle group was stinging with pain by the time I was done with the workout. I was shaking all over and even felt like throwing up the breakfast I'd had before the gym. The intensity today was unparalleled. I was able to push myself to new heights on every exercise. Deadlifts were incredible! Not only did I add weight (255 pounds today) but I managed to add repetitions (9 instead of 8). Some have asked me why it is so difficult to lift 255 pounds when 425 is a weight I have handled in the past. The answer is the timed repetitions. I do these deadlifts 3 seconds on the way up and 3 seconds on the way down with only a second to reset my grip and repeat it again. The fire I feel in my low back and hamstrings is incredible and yet the weight is not even close to what I'm used to handling. Yet another notch for H.I.T. |
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 "If you like an exercise, chances are you are doing it wrong." Arthur Jones (inventor of the Nautilus) |
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 When was the last time you attacked the weights rather than the weights attacking you? Comment this post to answer the question. |
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Until tomorrow…GET BACK TO LIFTING! |
