What your push-pull workout is missing

In life, it’s generally accepted that being negative is not a good thing, and that makes a great deal of sense because it can limit what we get out of life. However, there is one place where a bit of negativity can be a good thing, and that is in the gym.

When working towards growing muscle and getting stronger, it’s the negative that supplies the magic. We push and pull things in the gym to get stronger, but did you realise that the push and pull are not necessarily the most important aspect of the exercise?

Squats, bench presses, deadlifts, pull-ups, etc, are all great strengthening exercises. When you perform the main exertion (the push or pull), your muscle fibres shorten and pull together to move the weight, which is known as the positive phase of the exercise. The negative part is when you release or lower the weight.

What is unknown to most gym goers is that it is actually in this negative phase that the muscle fibres develop many micro tears.

In order to get stronger and grow muscle, we must regularly cause these micro-tears because they heal overnight after training, which is when they grow stronger and bigger.

So, next time you are in the gym, be sure to slow down the negative phase of the exercise to fully challenge those muscle fibres and trigger growth.

As a good rule, the pull and the release should take approximately 2 seconds each, and you can increase the negative to 3 seconds to maximise its benefits.

Try it out and see if you feel the benefits to your training!