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Hello fellow lifters

I have racked my brains for the last few years with all the training plans and now I think I have come upon something that makes sense, none of this is new, but I had the faith to try it seriously, and here is what I have come up with.

What I do is called Rest pause Negative training

The plan is as follows:

I train once per week, using the Master Mike´s consolidated training scheme.

I use pure negative repetitions,

I limit my set to "ONLY" 4 reps and no more or less by that fourth rep I cannot do another.

I do the negative slowly and with nearly double the weight I can use for a a positive max rep.

I have elimanated the squat as I found squats and deads, to be too taxing on the consolidated routine, I do leg extensions instead of the squat (thus saving alot of nervous system and back power). I do the leg extensions with pure negative movement and it takes about 10 to 11 seconds to lower from full contraction to the very bottom ( my training partner actual times them with a stopwatch).

I did negative deadlifts but the weight became insane. Now I do them in the normal fashion, but I would prefer to be able to do them purely negative, I made crazy strength and size gains doing those negative deads, traps, forearms, butt, hams everything grew.

Anyway, why I do this is as follows. Mike said that the last rep was the growth rep, so I felt "well if this is the case why waste those first 6 to 8 on a normal set, why not get that growth rep from the very beginning, only heavy negatives would allow that to occur in my logic. Why limit the resistance my muscles and nervous system could handle by limitations of positive reps. So I got rid of positive reps.

To allow me to get 4 heavy negatives, I have had to take the rest pause angle, as Mike did, there was no other way, otherwise I would have died, I use between 5 to 25 seconds rest actually timed.

My results have been pretty wild, my side delts have grown immensely, triceps and biceps have ballooned, and here is my favourite, without squats, using only deads and negative leg extensions, my quads and hams have expanded dramatically. My quads are growing on neg leg extensions, plus the teardrop muscle is finally evident, I never had that with squats alone.

My training is like this:

every friday workout A

Deads: 1 set of 4 reps Wgt: 495 lbs

Laterial machine raise: 1x 4 reps wgt 85 lbs

R.delt machine: 1 x 4 reps wgt 70 lbs

calves: 1 set to failure with 480 lbs neg reps, (up on two feet lower on 1)

reverse wrist curls: 1 set to failure with 45 lbs plate weight (usually 4 to 6 reps) I do these to balance the forearm ,

Workout B: following friday

Negative Bench Press 1 x 4 wgt as of now 405 lbs ( done in power cage)

leg extension: 1 x 4 (sometimes 6) wgt 310 lbs ( I need to add a dumbell to the stack, to get this wgt)

Neg underhand Chinup: 1 x 4 wgt as of now 92 lbs ( trust me on this 4 reps is all you will need)

That is the plan, it has been working great, my pecs, delts, quads, hams, arms, everything have never been bigger or better.

My stats are

age: 35

weight: 237
height: 5,11

I only use whey protein powder and creatine suppliments, no roids, gear, sauce, juice and so on.
I train with the heaviest weights I can handle in negative fashion, I do not give a tinkers dam about my positive rep strength. Negatives work, they work period, no ifs and or buts, but they got to be limited and done slowly and with maximum weight. I wish I had of done this program back in my teens.

I will soon need to add more rest days, as I am at that point soon. I have a training partner that started this training with me about a year and half ago, he was a really skinny guy, 5,11 tall and weighed only 136 lbs, I am not kidding, he could not bench 135, and could only deadlift 95 lbs, and that hard.

Well he is now 160 lbs, can easily bench in normal fashion 185, neg 275, he does deads with 275 as of last workout he squeezed out 7 reps.

I have a few more bugs to hammer out in this training plan, but it works great overall.

All I want to know is "has anyone else experimented with this type of training and if so what were the results for you.

I would love to hear from anyone, I will be glad to answer questions about this type of training if anyone wants to know. Logic simply told me to use the most weight I could (negatives) limit the load (4 reps once a week) and eat and rest. It has been working great.

Whew, that was alot of writing, but I hope to hear from like minded trainers.

Jetro

What was your weight and measurements before starting this program and the results afterwards?

Hi Jetro,
I,ve been experimenting with neg only chins and dips for the last 5 weeks with fantastic results, Ive put a post up in the advanced section(negatives and tti) showing the results so far and also giving my reasons for why i think negatives are so effective.

All neg only sets are rest pause to some extent due to the delay between reps when your getting back to the contracted position. What your doing with combining the rest pause and negs sounds like a brutal way to train, the only thing I′d say to you is keep a close eye on the timing between reps and make sure its consistent each workout so you know all your performance records are accurate, also be very careful to watch out for any signs of overtraining which could happen quite easily with such a demanding type of workout.

The only other thing I′d say is stick with it and don′t be afraid to reduce volume and frequency as you get stronger, good luck and keep us updated with yous results.

thnx garethhit

Hello Cokerat and garethhit

When I started this type of training I was hovering at 205 to 210, depending on whether or not I was taking 2 protein shakes a day, usually I just have the one, now I need 2 for sure as I am not the same guy I was when I began, so I would estimate that I have added 30 lbs of muscle on this program. I know it sounds nuts, but it is true, I am pretty good in the genetics department, always have been, but until I did negs I never used weights that utilized my real strength, the best part about this training is that since it is nearly impossible to cheat on negatives, my old knee and left delt pain have vanished.

My dream now would be to train in some kind of gym devised by science to train in a pure negative fashion. Here in Sweden in the north there is a company called agaton, they make machines, that double the negative load when a person does normal reps, bench press 135 and automatically lower 270, Magnus Samuelsson uses them.

I believe there is no way possible for a normal rep to really fatigue a muscle if negative strength is greater than positive strength. The Agaton machines have addressed that issue, and no spotter is needed to press down and so on like Negative attitude machines. With this training for the first time in my life I look like a bodybuilder in the traditional sense, rather than just a guy in shape.

To sum up I believe now that negatives are a means to an end, I have no loyalty to positive reps for "traditions sake", if it works it works period as Mike mentioned I think.

People get carried away I think with negs and this is the problem, if a person cannot lower the weight slowly taking at least 5 seconds, then I feel the weight is too heavy. I can lower 405 on the bench press and it takes me about 8 seconds on the first rep and by the 4th on am at about 4 secs.

I will say this also, there is a much thicker look to my pecs, delts and arms now that I do these bench negatives, something happens size wise when a guy goes from normal benching 275 with trouble to negative benches with 405, everything thickens.

It scares me to think what would happen if a genetic freak juice monkey starting training this way.

Oh also, the negative deadlifts were indeed without a doubt the most productive exercise, I used hooks to be able to hold the weight and did them in a rack to the floor. It is a pain getting the bar back to the start position, my partner and I would have to unload and reload plates for each rep, but since I only did 4 it was worth it.

Lastly I predict I will at some point soon, do my workouts once every two weeks. I love it, my friends at the gym cannot believe that I can train only once a week, but then again a farmer 500 years ago, would have never dreamed of a modern combine harvester doing the work of an entire village in one afternoon.

Cheers guys, long live us guys willing to try, fail and eventually succeed.

Great story Jetro! Thanks for sharing!

I may begin throwing in a negative on my last rep of clean & presses now!

Darrell