Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think you have the consensus correct. For rehabbing injuries I believe the consensus is isometric or eccentric exercises at 80% of 1RM. But the consensus hasn't served me very well. Slow, controlled exercise is always how I have injured myself too.
Personally, I have started to do concentric-only exercise for my current injured area (not explosive though) and it seems to be working better than the eccentric-only regime my PT had me on. Concentric-only and steady pace, not "extra slow" and not fast or explosive, using a bit of momentum generated from non-injured body parts indeed, seems to be way less stress on your tendons than "slow, eccentric, force being generated primarily from the injured body part".
It could be that you and I are just using too much load on slow exercises because explosive movements might inherently limit your load a bit more, so perhaps the time integrated/accumulated force is higher when training at the same rate of perceived effort in slow exercises vs. explosive ones, thus you get injuries on slow exercises more than explosive ones. Whereas with the explosive exercises at least you're still getting high peak forces to trigger adaptations but the accumulated force isn't too much. It is sort of against common sense though, I mean slow/controlled just sounds safer and better than explosive but my experience is more in line with yours than with the consensus so I don't know what to think.
Explosive usually has less eccentric loading, depending on what it is you're doing that is explosive. Wonder if that is a factor too.
I suspect this might be the culprit. How/when are you hurting yourself on slow controlled movements? Are you pushing reps to failure (or close to it)? Are you sure your form was still good when you injured yourself?
I'm only doing slow and controlled now, and my injury rate has been much better. But I stop (and reduce weight before continuing) the moment I feel my form slipping, which happens far earlier than failing a rep.
Interesting, yeah I'd say when going to failure mostly. I don't think my form is the issue necessarily, but perhaps I'm not great at identifying subtle slipping of form. Regardless, I think you make a good point that it's best to stop much earlier than failing a rep.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link