"Other worthless testing procedures performed for the purpose of trying to determine the actual effects upon muscles produced by hard exercise have produced nothing apart from confusion on the subject of "negative" exercise versus "positive" exercise; in effect, which is better, "lifting" a weight or "lowering" a weight. Some authors now are stating that negative exercise is BAD, should be avoided like the plague, causes INJURY to muscles; all of which is pure bullshit.
The negative part of exercise, instead of being something to be avoided, is in fact the most productive part of exercise. Without negative exercise it is impossible to provide any form of stretching, and is equally impossible to provide any exercise in the fully-contracted position of most muscles; thus, again, without negative exercise you are limited to a "midrange" of possible movement against resistance; which will develop part of the muscles, but will not develop other parts of the same muscles.
At least a few members of the scientific community have been aware of the fact that your negative strength is always higher than your positive strength, and some people knew this at least sixty years ago; yet, even today, none of them understood just why this is true. Remained ignorant on this subject because they overlooked a simple law of basic physics that should be obvious to a goat: FRICTION. Everything with both mass and motion has friction; and since muscles have both mass and motion they also have friction; friction which reduces your positive strength while increasing your negative strength; that is, friction "HURTS YOU" while you are lifting a weight, but "HELPS YOU" when you are lowering a weight. Exactly the same situation exists with a car, an airplane, or anything else with both mass and motion.
If a fresh muscle can lift a maximum of only 100 pounds, then the same muscle can lower about 140 pounds; negative fresh strength is thus about 40 percent higher than positive fresh strength, provided only that the speed of movement is the same during both tests. So if positive fresh strength is 100, then negative fresh strength will be about 140; but both of these test results are in fact misleading, are biased by muscular friction, positive being too low while negative is too high. The only valid test of strength is produced by a test of static (isometric) strength; and static strength is always midway between the levels of positive and negative strength.
All of which can now be clearly demonstrated in a simple fashion to the satisfaction of an average rabbit; but all of which still apparently remains unsuspected by anybody in the scientific community, while they go to great lengths in their utterly stupid attempts to explain this difference on a basis of something else. They cannot, apparently, bring themselves to admit their own ignorance; which provides clear proof of their stupidity, or even insanity.
For my part, I may be insane (after all, just how can we meaningfully judge our own sanity?), but I am not utterly stupid; ignorant of many things, yes, but stupid, no. I am at least aware of simple physical laws that many others continue to overlook, or even attempt to deny.
BUT, A WORD OF WARNING: REMEMBER, muscular friction "helps you" during the negative part of exercise, and this help from muscular friction makes it possible for you to continue negative exercise to a point that produces so much fatigue that it may take you a couple of weeks to fully recover from it, and that level of fatigue from exercise is carrying things much too far, will result in "overtraining," which should be avoided like the plague. Exercise with no resulting fatigue is largely worthless, but too much fatigue from exercise is counterproductive, may cause losses in strength rather than gains.
If positive strength of a fresh muscle is 100, then negative strength will be 140 and static strength will be 120 (the "true" level of strength); but when a fresh muscle has been worked to the point that its remaining level of strength is ZERO, then remaining negative strength will be 120 (nearly as high as it was when fresh), while true strength, static strength, will be 60, having been reduced from its fresh level by 50 percent. Reaching that level of fatigue while performing only positive exercise is all but impossible, would require a very high number of sets of the exercise, far too many sets; but reaching that level of fatigue from negative-only exercise is relatively easy.
During large-scale research conducted by us for several months in 1972, we produced almost unbelievably good results from a negative-only style of exercise; but also discovered that very little of such exercise goes a long way, and that too much of such exercise was counterproductive.
And, yes, when your negative strength is increased to a given point, your positive strength is increased to exactly the same degree; so increasing negative strength also increases both positive and static levels of strength to the same extent. Fifty or sixty years ago, Bob Peoples (one of the best deadlifters in history) used a negative-only style of exercise; he rigged up a tractor to lift a very heavy weight that he could not lift, and then trained in a negative-only fashion by lowering this heavy weight back down to the bottom position.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult, and frequently impossible, to perform negative-only exercise without help; which usually makes such exercise impractical at best since hiring such helpers is expensive. By using a chair or a bench, or a short ladder, you can perform negative-only chinning and dipping exercises without help; using your legs, climb into the top position of the exercise, and then lower yourself into the bottom position of the movement while using only your upper-body and arm muscles. Move very slowly during such exercise, never perform more than one set of about eight repetitions, and never perform such exercise more often than twice a week; and once a week is sometimes better, or even once every two weeks. MORE IS NOT BETTER IN THIS CASE, and may be overdoing it. We have a man on our staff who loses strength if he exercises once a week, neither gains nor loses if he exercises once every two weeks, and gains only when he exercises once every three weeks. But only you, by trial and error, can determine just what is best for you." -Authur Jones, found this in an old thread by duncan donuts
Might try doing negitives with pull ups, because that's the easiest one to do alone, just to see what I think.
keep it up!
