START WITH A LIGHT WEIGHT
It can be difficult at first to get used to this cadence. Pay attention to your movement. Concentrate. Establish and build you mind body connection. A lighter weight can help alleviate the need to concentrate on completing the rep and allow you to familiarize yourself with the slower cadence and also develop your neural pathways.
BEGIN FROM AN ECCENTRIC POSITION
An eccentric start position also means an eccentric finish position. This is important. You are much stronger during an eccentric (lowering) motion where the muscles are lengthened than a concentric motion. This maintains the last motion to your rest position is pushing your muscle group beyond the normal point of failure. An example of a "non-eccentric" position would be a free weight bench press. The start and end position is at full contraction.
A seated military press using a squat rack with a safety position that starts at shoulder height is perfect.
REPETITION BREEDS STRENGTH
For Hi-Intensity training, work out with high loads and good form to fire and train the correct muscle fibers. Heavier loads excite more motor neurons increasing motor unit activation. It is essential to train these pathways to enjoy maximum benefit from HIHRWT. The lower the RM you can maintain for greater than 120 S, the better your muscle fiber recruitment. Concentrate on your muscle group and teach your brain to connect with it. The better trained your neural pathways are, the more muscle fiber (larger) recruitment and the higher your heart rate for a given exercise.
SOME MACHINES JUST WON'T COOPERATE
They have sticky points from either a design standpoint or lack of maintenance. Move on to free weights or another machine that works for you.
Volume Training
I know you love your sets and your routines. Great! What is presented here is another hammer (maybe a sledge hammer at that) in your tool box. Try HIHRWT as your last set and see if you really want to pound those again in 2 days. Let me know how you feel.
More to come...
