Negatives - (Stacia Naquin)

By: Stacia Naquin - Email

Updated: Fri 12:51 PM, Feb 01, 2013

They sound like something you want to REMOVE from your life when you’re working towards a fitness goal. But I’m learning that NEGATIVES are exactly what I need.

I’m a couple of weeks in to my training to do a pull-up in 2013! I’ve been working out with Keith Banner at Mitchell Brothers Training about once a week. We’ve been hitting the weights hard and focusing on building the strength in my lats, biceps and abs. But now our training sessions have gotten very specific. In fact, they’ve turned “negative.” Or maybe I should say – we’ve turned TO negatives to take my training to another level.

I’ll let Keith explain “negatives”:

“The standard way people approach strength training is the primary "concentric" motion- going from a lengthened muscle to a shortened (contracted) muscle. This is all fine and dandy, except that when dealing with an extreme load, such as a chin-up, an "eccentric" (going from a shortened/contracted position to a lengthened position) approach is a valuable tool!”

It’s almost like doing the opposite of what you’ve been doing. For example, in the lat pull-down move… instead of focusing on the pull down, we take the “negative” approach. We start at the bottom of the movement and then release the load up from that position.

“In using a negative/eccentric approach, the muscle is already starting in a contracted/shortened position & the effort is then placed upon a controlled releasing or lengthening of the muscle. The result is then a guarantee that every millimeter of the muscle tissue being used then receives isolated strengthening- a dynamic & rapid increase in strength is created!,” says Keith.

You can see here were the movement begins:

In our next couple of sessions, we’ll be doing chin-ups… to lead to pull-ups.

I’m excited! And I’m feeling STRONG!

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Chin-Up Day! - (Stacia Naquin)

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