You're cheating, part 2
Slow the F down
This is not medical advice.
This is not every patient, but if I had to guess, 85% of people complete their exercises way too fast. They pull the resistance much too fast in person, which lead me to believe it’s even faster at home. Sometimes it’s just someone’s personality. Sometimes it’s people just want to get it done and over with.
The other issue is that you’re bored with the activity, and/or, the weight is too light. If the weight is too light, you aren’t really getting stronger.
The importance of slower speeds
If we throw the weight around, we are really using momentum to help us move the weight. What we really want is more muscle fiber recruitment.
Our body is very efficient as survival, and will use as few muscle fibers as possible to get the job done.
When we slow down, we force the muscle to do all the work, and not cheat with momentum. The muscle needs to recruit more muscle fibers.
Increasing the percentage of muscle fiber recruitment is how athletes and body builders get bigger and stronger muscles.
2-4 counts
We’ve all seen those old timey videos of early twentieth century exercisers. It’s possible that some of that film is sped up, but they were also trying to demonstrate exercise very quickly. Quick exercise is still better than no exercise. And they all looked amazingly healthy. I would guess they ate less sugar.
Most of the people I see who pull a weight too fast, complete a repetition in 1-2 seconds.
It’s actually supposed to take 4 seconds! That cuts down on momentum and cheating, and will ultimately make you stronger.
It could be worse. Some strengthening circles advocate for a 2-4 count. Two seconds to lift or pull the weight, four seconds to let it out slowly. This second part, the lengthening or lowering is called an eccentric muscle contraction. This is where many strength coaches believe you get most of your strengthening benefit.
The other benefit of slower speeds is decreased risk of injury.
When we need more speed
There are times when we want more speed in rehab. If we are seeing an athlete who is nearing a return to sport after an injury, we will start to increase speed with certain agility exercises. Yet most of the previous strengthening was done at slower speeds.
Patients with Parkinson’s tend to benefit from exercises that have faster movements. This helps to alleviate some of the cloud over a depressed neurology.
Speed is one of the first things to go as we age, and decreases the fastest. If you are inclined to try some sprinting, I would caution longer warm ups of at least 10-15 minutes to prevent injury.
"Sometimes it’s people just want to get it done and over with"
This is true. Also not listening properly to cues to rest between sets, jumping ahead when they are not rested sufficiently to get it over with. They never remember from the last time :p.