Are full range of motion or lengthened partials better for building muscle and strength?
Full range of motion and partials are two methods for varying your lifting, which involve manipulating the distance that you move the weight. Research generally showed that full range of motion is better than partials, but recent research has started to change on this subject. Recently, the training of “lengthened partials” came around, and shows us that actually, partials may sometimes be better than full range of motion.
What is the belt squat?
The belt squat is a variation of the squat in which the weight is anchored to the waist via a belt, rather than a standard loading method. This may be beneficial for some lifters as it removes the spine from the equation, and may enable you to put more loading on the legs/quads directly. However, I believe that this also has some drawbacks, and may not be a universal benefit.
How Fast Should You Lift?
It’s commonly believed that slower reps produce better results, though recent research strongly contradicts this old school wisdom. While high speed reps generally produce better results, there are still some caveats and nuances to understand. Understanding these nuances will help you understand when to apply purposefully fast reps, and when it may help to slow things down a bit.
Should You Train To Failure?
Training to failure is sometimes heralded as a secret technique for gaining mass and strength, and sometimes demonized as being uniquely likely to cause injury. Here’s what the science says, and how you can effectively implement training to failure in your own training.
The Rest Period Broscience Is Wrong
The old-school belief is that we needed to vary rest periods depending on how strength or endurance focused we wanted our adaptations to be, as well as how much metabolic stress we want to provoke. Recent research suggests otherwise.