SESSION NOTES: Relative Strength (890)

Although barbell work is often trained with a strength focus, upper body bodyweight movements are often only trained for high reps with stamina. However, the high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres in the upper body make it perfect for adding load.

This session contains both a press element and a pull element.

This session takes advantage of the benefits of eccentric training. ‘Eccentric’ refers to the type of contraction your muscle does as it is lengthening – yielding to gravity. 

If completed on your own, we refer to this as ‘eccentric tempo training’. If complete with partner(s) spotting you (highly preferred), it’s ‘accentuated eccentric training’ – a form of eccentric training where the load lowered is more than the load lifted. This adds positive stress on the body in the phase of the lift that will give us the most benefit.

Accentuated Eccentric Loading delivers superior results to strength, power and hypertrophy (muscle size) over any other eccentric training method studied.

The exercises alternate to allow you to rest as much as possible between each set of the same type of exercise, while still being mindful of time efficiency. The final set for max reps gives you an indication if you’ve gone too light, and if so, allows you to salvage some benefit from extra reps in the final set.

Resistance training, in this case using your own body (and maybe added weight) as the load, makes you stronger. Strength is one of the greatest predictors of both your lifespan (how long you live) and your healthspan (how long you live in a healthy state).

Resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain.

Because you’re using your own body as the form of resistance, this session will improve your strength to weight ratio – making you better able to move your body around.

Eccentric training has wide reaching benefits to your health and body composition – with the benefits even broader than standard resistance training.

Eccentric training results in stronger connective tissue (ligaments and tendons) and increased flexibility by changing the mechanics of a muscle (increasing the sarcomeres in series).

These changes in the mechanics and organisation of muscle fibres, also mean eccentric training is a great rehabilitation tool – not only to help promote the repair and recovery of soft tissue (particularly tendon) injury, but also to reduce the risk of future injury.

As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.

This session increases your lean muscle mass. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so increasing it will maximise how much energy your body burns at rest. This makes it an effective session to reach healthy levels of body fat, both visceral fat (around the organs) and subcutaneous fat (under your skin). After this session, your body will go through a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.

The heavy levels of resistance in this session are designed to increase your upper body relative strength – increasing both your one rep max, and your ability to perform high reps of bodyweight movement. By being stronger relative to your weight, you can lift more, and you will be able to move your body faster and for higher reps because you’ll be lifting a lower percentage of your max.

As strength is an element of power, getting stronger will also improve your ability to move faster – beneficial for more power-based, explosive gymnastics movements.

This session will also improve the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscle fibres (those responsible for lifting heavy and fast), and will improve your neuromuscular efficiency (your ability to turn on a very high percentage of your muscle fibres).

The research is virtually unanimous in heaping praise on ‘eccentric’ training (sometimes called ‘negatives’). This style of training shows strength gains in excess of 10% over traditional methods, and results in great hypertrophy (muscle growth).

Not only is eccentric training superior to regular strength training, but the use of accentuated eccentric loading delivers superior results to strength, power and hypertrophy (muscle size) over any other eccentric training method studied.

Not only are we able to generate more force after eccentric training, but we are also able to generate it over a greater variance in muscle lengths. Effectively, what this does is to make us stronger over a greater range of motion, increasing our muscles’ torque generating ability. Therefore, less sticking points, less failures on heavy lifts.

As the contraction is eccentric, you will be able to lift (lower) more weight than you expect.

Work hard to maintain positions and tension throughout the entire range.

For the bar dips, if you’re not adding weight, use the smallest band possible (and stand in the band). For the chest to bar pull-ups, use the horizontal band (attached to two pins) to ensure you’re getting even assistance through the entire range.

Completing the concentric (lifting) portion of the movements is a common fault. While this will still give benefit, it won’t give nearly the benefit of full assistance on the concentric (lifting) portion of the lift.

Modifying the speed of movement is a technique used to help make the eccentric portion more difficult (and therefore more beneficial). However, the slow eccentric contraction is followed by a tough, grindy concentric lift. Even though we’re using a slow ‘tempo’ to try to overload the eccentric (lowering) phase, the concentric (lifting) phase is almost always the limiting factor, and is almost always the first thing to fail. And so, we know we’re not overloading the eccentric phase as much as we could, because it’s limited by another part of the lift.

The second common mistake here is to count the five second count without the use of a clock. A timer should be used to ensure the slow eccentric contraction is adhered to.

Finally, you will be able to go heavier than you might expect – due to the superior strength during an eccentric contraction.