Very Slow Versus Normal Negative-Emphasized Repetitions

Last week I wrote about Ellington Darden’s 30/30/30 negative-emphasized protocol and my initial impressions of it. Since then, I’ve done one other workout using the protocol, which was equally intense, but highlighted some of the problems with both very slow repetitions and starting with the negative on some exercises.

Ellington came up with the 30/30/30 protocol as a way for trainees following his Body Fat Breakthrough program who didn’t have regular access to the X-Force machines to emphasize the negative. Unlike the X-Force machines which provided forty percent more resistance during the negative, a 30/30/30 repetition increases the time spent performing the negative relative to the time spent performing the positive. Both the X-Force machines and 30/30/30 protocol are effective, however I have concerns about the safety of X-Force due to the abrupt resistance changes and other problems we found when testing them out in Gainesville, and there are a few problems with very slow repetitions and starting with the negative that must be considered.

The first problem with moving very slowly is that when a person moves too slowly the movement is no longer smooth but segmented into a series of very short starts and stops. While the increase in force due to acceleration during the multiple stops and starts during segmentation is unlikely to be high enough to cause injury, it should still be avoided. How slowly you have to move before this occurs depends on your motor control. Some people can move very slowly without segmentation, some people have difficulty moving smoothly even at a moderate speed, and most of us are somewhere in between. For most people, segmentation becomes a problem with cadences slower than fifteen seconds over typical exercise range of motion, only half the speed of 30/30/30 reps.

The second problem with moving very slowly is the tendency to spend a disproportionate amount of time in portions of the range of motion where the resistance is lower to make the exercise easier. For example, when instructing someone in the performance of a slow leg press or squat, unless you remind them not to and correct them every time they do it most people tend to slow down more in the easier upper portion of the range of motion, and speed up in the harder lower portion. Instead you should do the opposite, avoiding or moving through easier portions of the range of motion only slowly enough to be able to reverse direction smoothly, and moving more slowly through the harder portions of the range of motion.

Very slow repetitions

While starting with the negative may be advantageous for improving muscular strength and size when using very slow repetitions since it allows for additional negative work, it is not practical with many exercises. While some exercises like the barbell squat and barbell bench press normally start at the end point, and exercises like chin-ups and dips can be started at the end point by using the legs to assist, for many exercises you would need one or more strong assistants to lift the weight for you (start point and end point refer to the start and end of the positive movement, not where the exercise begins). This can be worked around on some barbell exercises like standing presses and bent-over rows the same way it is done with squats and bench presses, by starting with the bar on hooks set at the top of the range of motion, but not on most dumbbell or machine exercises.

I have no doubt such an approach can be highly effective, and the workouts I have tried it out on have been brutally intense, but I am also not convinced it provides any advantage over regular negative emphasized repetitions, and will probably be very difficult for many people to do with good form. One advantage, however, if you are capable of performing such slow movement without segmentation and have a metronome or other device for keeping time for you, is without having to count reps or record TUL you can focus entirely on performing the exercise instead of measuring performance.

Negative-emphasized repetitions – with a negative twice the duration of the positive or longer – done at moderate speeds are easier for people to perform correctly, don’t require assistants or specialized equipment, and are safer than negative-only and negative-hyperloaded training. I have been using a 3/10 cadence (three second positive, ten second negative) again for the past few months with a repetition range of three to five (about 45 to 75 seconds TUL) for the upper body and four to six (about 60 to 90 seconds TUL) for the lower body, trunk and neck, with good results. The three-second positive is slow enough to be able to perform smooth turnarounds and maintain proper positioning over the full range of motion, and the ten-second negative is not so slow it can not be done smoothly.

If I reach momentary muscular failure anywhere in the middle of the range of motion I continue to attempt to move positively for a few seconds, then perform the final negative as slowly as I can. On every rep I pause and attempt to hold the weight motionless at the end point (or around ten to fifteen degrees short of full extension on pushing exercises) for a few seconds. If I can not hold motionless for a second or two I attempt to perform what I assume will be the final negative as slowly as possible. I still attempt another repetition afterwards, but am rarely able to complete another positive if I am unable to hold the end point on the previous rep.

Contrary to my initial expectations, most clients have found performing negative-emphasized reps in this fashion to be more fatiguing than normal repetitions (using a three to four second positive and negative duration) despite the much lower rate of mechanical work and the greater metabolic efficiency of negative work. This may be because it allows for the use of a slightly heavier weight due to the greater negative strength, or because when moving much more slowly people tend to use better form, or both. When switching from normal to negative-emphasized repetitions you may need to increase your rest between exercises slightly at first.

Ryan Hall recently shared his thoughts on normal and very slow negative-emphasized reps;

There are very few studies examining time courses for concentric versus eccentric excursion times. Most studies, which are not many to begin with, show longer eccentric times resulting in more progress. However, I have reviewed one study recently showing the opposite. I haven’t had time to dive into the full text and digest the details, methods, etc. I started to write a review paper on this topic, but got busy with many other more important tasks.

Regarding Ell’s 30/30/30 protocol, in my opinion, it is needlessly complicated. First of all, few subjects have the motor ability or motor control to perform a 30 second concentric or eccentric with appropriate form. Secondly, you have to find a way to start with the eccentric component. I’m not convinced this is the safest route.

I’ll be interviewing Ryan soon, and discussing this topic and the studies he mentioned in more detail. In the meanwhile, if you are following The Body Fat Breakthrough program but having difficulty doing 30/30/30 reps smoothly or are unable to start with the negative with the equipment you’re using, give regular negative-emphasized reps a try, and share your results here.

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  • Jamieson Bardy Nov 5, 2014 @ 18:20

    Yet another excellent article Drew, thank you!
    I’ve been using your negative emphasised 2/8 cadence for the last 6 months and have made incredible progress, even if I do say so myself.
    The most notable difference is even while getting leaning I’ve gotten progressively stronger on all lifts and appear far more dense and full than when I was using a 4/4 cadence.

    Thanks again!
    Best,
    J.

    • Drew Baye Nov 5, 2014 @ 18:42

      Hey Jamieson,

      Thanks for the feedback. I’ve been using it with all my one-on-one and long distance clients and doubt I’ll ever go back to normal repetitions.

      • Doug James Nov 6, 2014 @ 11:02

        Drew,
        Does the 2/8 cadence include the turnaround pause? The 2 second positive seems fast to me after getting used to a 4/4 cadence.

        Thanks!
        Doug

        • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 16:39

          Hey Doug,

          I have since gone back to using a slower cadence, a three second positive and ten second negative, as I wrote about in the update at the end of Negative Emphasized High Intensity Training. This does not include turnaround time. For teaching purposes, I divide dynamic repetitions into four phases; the positive, the upper turnaround or hold, the negative, and the lower turnaround. For notation, unless holding longer than a second or two at the end point I usually only include the positive and negative durations when writing repetition cadence.

  • Jamieson Bardy Nov 5, 2014 @ 18:24

    Hi Drew, forgot to say, I’ve been training since I was 17 and am now 44 and since using your protocols I’ve made gains in size, strength and conditioning that I thought would not have been possible!

    Cheers!
    J.

    • Drew Baye Nov 5, 2014 @ 18:43

      Hey Jamieson,

      I’m glad to have helped!

  • Christian Marchegiani Nov 5, 2014 @ 19:26

    This is great Drew. The fact that you experimented with it and then give the pros and cons for it shows an unbiased approach to your training methods. Thanks for keeping it real.

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 15:24

      Thanks Christian,

      I will be writing more about this, and it is one of the things I’ll be discussing with Ryan Hall during our interview.

  • ken Nov 6, 2014 @ 3:18

    Thanks for the read Drew,
    So for people like myself doing the 4/4 you recommend changing to the negative emphasised reps?

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 15:23

      Hey Ken,

      They seem to be more effective, so I recommend giving them a try.

  • Scott M Nov 6, 2014 @ 4:27

    Hi Drew,

    Another excellent post! I’m really interested in incorporating this. So you’re suggesting a 3/3/10 type protocol? (3 second positive, 3 second attempt to hold between positive and negative, 10 second negative) Would this be the same for bodyweight exercises or different (I know you personally train a lot with barbells these days)

    Thanks,
    Scott

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 15:31

      Hey Scott,

      I’m doing something very close to this with both free weight and bodyweight exercises. I’m only holding for about a second or two at the most at the end point, though.

  • henne Nov 6, 2014 @ 4:36

    Hello Drew,

    Interesting article. When you hold for a few seconds
    at the end point do you also use the squeeze technique .
    Thanks Henne.

    P.S are you using this with weights or B/W.

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 16:44

      Hey Henne,

      I am using a combination of free weight and bodyweight exercises. I am using the squeeze technique, but only for a very short duration starting with the third repetition.

  • Donnie Hunt Nov 6, 2014 @ 5:01

    I have recently been trying dynamic cocontractions using very light external loads with certain exercises. This has been inspired by some other sources and by you Drew. I keep going back to thought of how creating tension is up to us, not any external source. This also takes away mechanical speed bumps that would normally be present with higher loads. Granted I did say I’ve been trying this on certain exercises. For leg exercises, external load seems to be more necessary currently, to better feel the muscles or to contract better.

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 16:43

      Hey Donnie,

      If you have the motor control to do this it can be an effective way to train, however it does make it more difficult to objectively measure progress. When experimenting with intentional antagonistic cocontraction for Project Kratos I also found it was easier to do with upper body exercises than lower.

  • Bill Wanner Nov 6, 2014 @ 14:25

    I experimented with the 30-30-30 protocol, no special diet, and found your description of what it was like very accurate. If you get the weight right, the first 30 sec negative is not very hard and I had the tendency to want to make it even slower, but by keeping the turnaround slow I found the positive part of the movement to be much like a 1 RM when I approached the sticking point and had to use all the force I could generate to keep the weight moving. Then the second negative part was not like lowering the weight but felt more like I was doing everything I could to keep it from crashing to the bottom.
    On some exercises I had problems keeping the weight moving smoothly, but I think it is Dr. Darden’s opinion that you will develop the neuromuscular coordination to do that over time. I am a little confused about the concern over getting the weight to the top of a movement in order to do the first negative. The book states and I have found that you have to use a weight that you could normally do 8 – 10 reps with in order to properly control the 30-30-30 cadence. That makes it fairly easy to get it into position for the first negative.
    The problem that I had was that about 2 or 3 hours after the workouts I would be exhausted and just felt like going to bed. This leads me to believe that Dr. Darden’s idea that it is tapping into some unknown hormonal cascade has some kind of basis for consideration. I had been doing 8 sec negatives on a regular basis as part of my normal weekly undulating periodization routine, but this was something very different. I eventually cut back to just 5 exercises, but still felt wiped out a few hours after the workout. Dr. Darden claims that he got better results with this that any of his other high intensity programs, so maybe this metabolic impact has something to do with it. I did not try it with the diet, but I suspect I could get away with one workout every 10 days. My other big problem with it is that it takes all the fun out of training and doing it once every 10 days is not very motivating to me.

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 15:48

      Bill,

      If you start out by lifting the weight, even if it’s a short positive, you are not starting with the negative as recommended. I don’t think this is a big problem though, since I have people start with the positive when performing negative-emphasized reps and it’s been a very effective way to train.

      I suspect the part of the book on “evitageN” was tongue in cheek, and really just intended as a metaphor for synergy.

  • Erez Manor Nov 6, 2014 @ 16:25

    Hi Drew,
    Last week I tried the 30-30-30 with my small training group. We encountered the same issues you mentioned. Also, it is hard to reach fatigue within approx. 90 seconds without calibration of weights. Sometimes it is reached within the positive movement… Also, even a little friction prevents smooth motion.
    We’ll try emphasized negatives for the next couple of months.

    Erez

    • Drew Baye Nov 6, 2014 @ 17:00

      Hey Erez,

      Thanks for the feedback, and please let me know your results with negative emphasized reps.

  • Greg Nov 6, 2014 @ 20:14

    Hey there Drew. Thanks for this article. I too was not totally convinced of Dr. Dardens 30/30/30 protocol. I usually do a 3/10 cadence for a TUL of 45-90 seconds. I find that to use the appropriate weight to load the muscles and to move smoothly throughout the 30/30/30 protocol difficult. Also to reach proper momentary muscular failure with strict form difficult also. I trialed his protocol twice, and yes I made sure it was brutally intense, but I don’t think I’ll continue it. I do look forward to your next article with Ryan Hall.

    • Drew Baye Nov 7, 2014 @ 15:41

      Hey Greg,

      I think 3/10 would work just as well but is easier for people to perform smoothly.

  • Mike Wallace Nov 6, 2014 @ 23:57

    Hi Drew

    Another excellent thoughtful post, thank you.

    You mentioned “you may need to increase your rest between exercises slightly at first”. This got me wondering, is there an optimal TUL : workout duration ratio? Eg 10 mins TUL : 20 mins workout?

    Mike

    • Drew Baye Nov 7, 2014 @ 15:39

      Mike,

      The work to rest ratio doesn’t appear to make much of a difference for strength or hypertrophy, but is probably important for cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning. While people should start out resting a minute or two between exercises, as their conditioning improves they should gradually try to reduce their time between exercises until they are moving from one to the next as quickly as they can load the next bar or set up the next machine.

  • David Snape Dec 17, 2014 @ 12:13

    Hi, thanks for the time you put into these articles it’s much appreciated.
    I have tried the 30/30/30 protocol for 7 weeks once a week. I seem to have quite good motor control so find I can move smoothly with most exercises, i also made sure to take only ten seconds to move through the easier section and spent 20 seconds, moving slower, on the harder part.
    It is certainly brutal when you get the weight right and i have made some good progress. However some exercises such as back extension where the movement is quite small I found imposable to move smoothly with a 30 second speed (would like to see anyone manage that!) so replaced with the method from your Kratos book.
    I have also had a few other issues with this method, so I shall try the 10/3 speed from the new year. It seems to make a lot more sense and would be easier to include exercises that use shorter amounts of movement.

    • Drew Baye Dec 22, 2014 @ 14:08

      Hey David,

      If you’ve got the motor ability to perform 30/30/30 protocol smoothly it is a safe and effective way to train on most exercises, but for very short range movements like prone trunk extensions and crunches a more moderate cadence would be necessary to avoid segmentation. I’m currently following Project Kratos with SuperSlow (10/10) protocol and finding it works well for even the shorter exercises.

  • Pablo Sep 22, 2015 @ 20:00

    Drew, even when slow reps (like 3-8) sound good in theory, i feel they lack of intensity.
    In order to execute a negative emphacized repetition i have to drastically decrease the weight, therefore, while the TUT remains , the weight (due to the slow cadence ) is less. If time keeps the same and weight decreases , you are using less force. Isn’t it less intense? Aren’t we looking for intensity to trigger the growth response?
    Regards

  • Fred Oct 27, 2015 @ 16:05

    Hi Drew
    Just starting out and used three different gyms
    24 hour has nautilus, Ymca has a mish mash, but can’t find Medx in my area which I prefer. I am 83 yrs old and I try to use 100 ibs on the leg press but couldn’t
    move it . a place called “the perfect workout” insist on a
    10 sec. positive and negative super slow. I thought you said the 3 and 3 were better.also should I try 80 ibs on the leg press and try 40ibs on the chess press.

    Thanks FRED

    • Drew Baye Nov 9, 2015 @ 11:16

      Hey Fred,

      You’re unlikely to find MedX machines outside of rehab centers and high-end personal training studios, but most Nautilus machines are good. A repetition cadence of three to four seconds on both the positive (lifting) and negative (lowering) phases of the repetition is adequately slow for most people to maintain proper form, but there is no harm in moving a little slower especially when you are learning a new exercise or machine. Start with a weight that is only moderately difficult and focus on your form at first, then gradually add weight each workout until you find a weight that is challenging enough that you are able to achieve momentary muscular failure between around sixty to ninety seconds.

      For more on repetition speed read Repetition Speed Recommendations. I also cover this along with weight selection, progression, and adjusting repetition ranges and time under load to individual response to exercise in High Intensity Workouts.

  • Al Apr 11, 2016 @ 3:16

    hi drew, some people say negative only doesn’t have the carry over effect (example, if you master negative only you will get good at that, not at the entire range of motion) . They compare it with partial reps, saying if you do only a certain range of motion, then you only become strong in that range. They say similar logic would apply to negative only, so why waste time doing it? Instead do full range.

    Do you agree with this logic? If not, is it because their logic is flawed or due to personal experiences?

  • Daniel Kornstadt Jul 17, 2018 @ 15:09

    Drew,
    i have been doing full body HIT 4/4 candence for quite a while, how do i transition from 4/4 to 3/10 when it comes to weight selection.

    thx, dan

    • Drew Baye Sep 10, 2018 @ 12:47

      I recommend a 4/10 instead of 3/10 just to err on the side of caution, and keeping the weight the same and increasing it over the course of several workouts instead of assuming you need to increase it by a specific percentage because this may vary between individuals.

  • ROBERT ADAMS Feb 25, 2020 @ 20:53

    Sorry I’m late to the party. I had been using a 3/1/6 rep cadence on all exercises, simply going to lock out and just out of lock out on lockable movements before holding for the 1. This allowed for negative emphasis and a 10 second cadence so I can calculate the TUL for the movement as well (since I do Doug McGuff’s recimmended 10 second ending push when reaching failure). Standardized to 5 reps to failure for upper body or 11 reps to failure for lower body, along with the 10 second push, using Matt Brzycki’s equation, allows for either 60 seconds of work or 120 seconds of work for movements.

    I just started using Dr. Darden’s 30/30/30 protocol doing Mike Mentzer’s Ideal Routine, which is the program I was using for the negative accentuated reps. So far, on the two workouts I have used it for (shoulders/arms on one and legs/abs the other) it seems to be a much more intense contraction and greater intensity than negative accentuated. However, I don’t “feel” like the muscles worked have been worked.

    With neg-acc training, my workers body parts felt “rough” later in the day and/or the next day. With the 30/30/30 that isn’t the case. Drew, was that your experience as well?

    • Drew Baye Aug 10, 2020 @ 10:49

      I didn’t notice a significant difference between these in terms of soreness afterwards. Neither is more intense than the the other if done correctly. I have done several videos on this in the private group for HIT List members if you’re interested in a more detailed discussion of these and other protocols.

  • ROBERT ADAMS Mar 8, 2020 @ 9:36

    I understand your concern about the segmentation, but do you think it can be trained similarly to tai chi movement? As for getting into the starting position, that is why Ell recommends an 80% of 10 RTF weight. I have found this be very useful, but I train solely on machines at planet fitness. BE exercises would probably be harder to work with.

    • Drew Baye Mar 8, 2020 @ 9:49

      If you’re doing a full 90 seconds under strict control, while avoiding positions where the targeted muscles aren’t meaningfully loaded, you’re not going to use that much weight. Most people are only going to be able to perform around 6-8 conventional repetitions with 80% of their 1RM, for a TUL of around 15 to 30 seconds.

      Also, if an exercise can’t be started at the end point (end of the positive ROM) and you do not have an assistant to help you lift the weight, you should not perform the first positive rapidly to be able to get into position.