Fast Reps or Slow Reps To Build Muscle?

Fast reps or slow reps to build muscle?

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I had a chance to read a meta analysis done By Brad Schoenfeld and this colleagues on rep speed. Where they took a look at a group of studies to see how the speed or length of an individual repetition during a training set affects our ability to build muscle. And while a meta analysis gives us a better overall conclusion it still has its limitations and we will look at those as well as how we can use the results of this study to improve our own training so we can get fit and build muscle at any age.

The age range of the different studies involved in this analysis was quite wide from 18 to over 50 years old. All of them untrained. Each of the sets no matter what the rep speed was were performed to failure.

Now what they found was there was no difference when it came to muscle hypertrophy or growth as long as the rep speeds were between 2 and 8 seconds with rep speeds of over 10 seconds bring about inferior results.

These repetitions were done at an even pace with both the concentric which is the shortening of the muscle and the eccentric which is the lengthening of the muscle being done for the same length of time. We will talk about this in a bit as there are advantages to slowing down the eccentric or negative part of the repetition over the concentric part.

This is very useful information as when we slow down the pace of our reps we will need to lighten the weight in order to complete the required number of repetitions. This can be helpful to those of us that get sore joints and tendons from lifting heavy knowing that we can build just as much muscle with a lighter weight and a slower rep speed. With the added bonus of a reduced chance of injury.

These studies indicating anything over a 4 second concentric combined with and a 4 second negative making for 8 second total repetition time produced less muscle gains. 8 seconds is a long time for a rep most reps only take 2 or 3 seconds to complete.

Another advantage is for people who may be training at home and right now with different flu's and viruses going around more and more are making this choice.

A slower pace is a good way to improve the mind muscle connection and really feel the muscles you want to work.

It is also good to know on the flip side that a faster rep speed with heavier weight doesn’t have a negative affect on our muscle growth.

For most of us, we will pick a rep speed that is comfortable for us and go with that, but when we hit a sticking point and can’t seem to progress increasing your rep speed on that exercise for a few weeks can help us push passed this trouble spot allowing us to get one or two more reps in

One of the biggest reasons cited as to why a slower rep pace is better is time under tension, but where this extra time under tension is placed makes a difference. In this meta analysis they kept the rep pace equal throughout and found when training to failure as long as the total repetition time was under 8 seconds there was no real difference in muscle growth.

But what if the pace wasn’t the same and you made the negative part of the rep slower? It has been long held that negative or eccentric part of a rep is where you get the most muscle damage which ultimately results in more muscle growth.

Right around the same time this meta analysis came out another study was published looking at this exact question. They had the participants who all had at least one year lifting experience do preacher curls with a 4 second negative and a one second concentric for a total of a 5 second rep and compared this to another group who did a one second concentric and a one second eccentric movement for a total of a 2 second repetition.

Both groups were training to failure and after 12 weeks the group with the 4 second negative built the most muscle and gained the most strength.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271533635_Effect_of_Repetition_Duration_During_Resistance_Training_on_Muscle_Hypertrophy_A_Systematic_Review_and_Meta-Analysis

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305676699_Resistance_training_with_slow_speed_of_movement_is_better_for_hypertrophy_and_muscle_strength_gains_than_fast_speed_of_movement