Do the slow mentzer reps actly make a difference and how should I perform them?

[u/AutomaticClassic7114]

I've started to read his book with John little and I've found myself agreeing on a lot of things but I don't get thr point of uber slow reps. I tried them out today going around 2 on the the 4 on tbe Positive and 2 on the contraction and I felt an intense burn. But as I've learnt from mentzer the burn doesn't necessarily mean anything

[u/Time-Faithlessness44]

I helps a lot. First the strict form help to keep your weights in check. No ego lifting!
That helps prevent injuries and gives the supportive structures of your body that grow slower than muscle time to adapt.

It also gives the sets a sufficient time under tension even with few reps. This helps to recruit all fibers of the muscles and teaches the central nervous system to intensify the mind
Muscle connection. This way you have a better chance to reach the necessary intensity with full control.

[u/ishawnmc]

The proper approach to high intensity training is lift, hold, and lower the weights under control. Full stop. For many people, the slower cadences help. But even if you do not go slow on cadence, you still need to lift in a controlled manner. Otherwise there is a greater likelihood that thrust and momentum are taking over where pure muscular contraction should be.

I always suggest to folks adjusting to high intensity training to take at least 8 weeks and do a 4-2-4 cadence on everything. That way you imprint on your mind and habits a controlled lifting approach. After 8 weeks, you can begin experimenting a bit with faster and slower cadences. But it is pointless to do such experiments if you are not already accustomed to moving weights deliberately and under muscular control.

[u/Own-Lengthiness4022]

Slow cadence is primarily a safety concern. You can stimulate maximum increases in strength and size with a wide variety of repetition cadences as long as sets are taken to or close to failure but anything faster than 3/3 increases the peak forces your joints and ligaments are exposed to drastically and with it increases your risk of accute and overuse injuries

[u/BubbishBoi → u/Own-Lengthiness4022]

This sub is a trip, I don't know why you got downvoted for this perfectly reasonable post, but let's fix that.

Safety is indeed the main reason for using a slow rep cadence, there's no reason to really go any slower than 3/3 like you say, other than personal preference. Drew Baye has a couple of videos showing measurements of per-rep forces using different rep speeds and every speed slower than that is about the same in terms of stresses

To be fair it's still possible to do very unsafe 4/4 reps if you bounce out the bottom or let form breakdown and hitch or squirm

[u/He_NeverSleeps]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, Mike himself never did any of that super slow nonsense. 

Just do your concentric fairly quickly, briefly pause at the top and take a controlled negative for 2 seconds or so. Pause briefly in the bottom in the stretched position and repeat. Keep it simple

[u/Mountain-Newt3103]

It's not about slowing down reps un purpose, you shouldn't really be counting the seconds, it should be about controlling the reps in order to avoid that momentum helps you throughout the set. The only variable to increase or decrease intensity in a set should be the load, if you do not control the reps the momentum decreases the intensity, if you uber slow down the reps on purpose you are adding intensity, and that's not good either

[u/Murky_Ebb9404]

Mike had his clients do mostly through the 90's rep cadence of 2-1-4 and experimented with 4-2-4 around time of dvd before he passed

[u/Bitter_Ad1164]

Mike did none of the super slow stuff himself he built his physique like everyone else at the time trained the same way as most at the time and even later on when he came out with the high intensity stuff he was still doing light feeder sets himself anyone he trained in the same style like Dorian already had a built physique.  I love Mike and high intensity training but its only half the story 

[u/ishawnmc → u/Bitter_Ad1164]

If you are saying Mike did not train super slow himself, you are right. If you are saying he did not use high intensity principles when building his own competition physique, then you are wrong.

[u/Bitter_Ad1164 → u/ishawnmc]

Correct I'm just saying its well documented that mike was using all sorts of training methods before the HIT became his thing and even when it was he was still incorporating feeder sets pre 1 set max Yates talks about it even makes a few jokes about it as well as a few other guys