“Super-slow” weight lifting has been around for a while but has recently emerged again as a “novel” training method. The new books on this technique promise almost instant strength and mass gains with very little effort. The concept of super-slow weight lifting is to perform each repetition of every exercise with very slow movement, until the muscles fail. One super slow method recommends performing about three reps of an exercise in 100 seconds! Another method recommends taking 15 seconds to lift a weight and 15 seconds to lower the weight, that’s 30 seconds to complete one rep!
For building muscle, there are a number of fundamental faults with the super slow technique. Anyone that has tried this technique quickly realizes that the amount of weight that can be used in each exercise is drastically limited. In key exercises such as the squat and bench press, this program only provides fatigue in small muscle groups. Fatigue does not produce an increase in muscle size.
The science of resistance training dictates that overload (not fatigue) governs the amount of muscle strength and hypertrophy (growth) gained from training. Without a progressive approach that involves using high overload, the muscles and nervous system have no reason to adapt (grow) to the stimulus imposed. With the super slow technique, a lifter cannot use a load that is anywhere near their maximum. Therefore, for building strength and muscle mass, this training technique is useless.
