Negative Repetitions Help You Do Exercises That You Thought Were Impossible.

If you can’t do push-ups, it may be important to forget about pushing for a moment. Instead, lower yourself out of the push-up position for even more benefits. The same trick works with pull-ups and other difficult exercises: this is the power of negative reps.

How negative reps increase strength

When you do regular push-ups, your muscles perform a so-called concentric contraction: muscle cells get shorter as they contract. It’s the same when your arms are pulling you up for a pull-up or when you lift weights off the floor.

But when you drop (or weight) down, your muscles perform an eccentric contraction. This means they try to stay tense as they lengthen. Even though this is the same work in the opposite direction, it is more difficult for muscle cells to do it without damage.

Because of this, eccentric contractions, also known as negative repetitions, can seem like a bad idea. For example, additional damage causes even more pain. But injury is a normal part of training : the damaged muscle needs to heal, and the healing process is what makes the muscles bigger and stronger. So weightlifting is just a habit of gently damaging your muscles a little at a time and reaping the benefits.

If you have the opportunity to train the exercise anyway, it is great to do both, lifting and lowering the weight – slowly enough that you feel as if you are in control of lowering it.

Some negative exercises to try

Even if you can’t lift the weight (or your body weight), you can probably control it enough to slow it down. Here’s how you can turn an impossible exercise into a possible one.

When I first started doing pull-ups , for example, negative exercises were a key part of my routine. Pulling up with thegravitron probably helped me gain strength, but I didn’t notice any improvement until I tested negative. I jumped to grab the bar and then slowly descend. I once told someone I couldn’t do real pull-ups, and as an explanation I took from the bar to show that I couldn’t pull up. Except … I did.

The same technique can work for push-ups as well, which is a great option for people who can’t do full push-ups . Instead of doing a bunch of reps from your knees, start in a plank position and work your way down. When your belly is on the ground, return to all fours and return to the starting position. You never need to push yourself, but you still train all the same muscles as if you were doing it.

Another great use of negatives is downhill running . This will not help you when running uphill (we have other suggestions for that ), but it will help prevent soreness and cramping that can occur when descending in a race. Work downhill, gradually falling into your routine, and you will soon be protected from these unpleasant surprises if they appear in a race or regular run.

As a side effect, you will gain more strength, which will help your running overall. You can also take the principle of negative repetitions and use it in any exercise you find difficult, but always take precautions if you are trying to do something that you are not sure you can handle. For example, if you want to try negative squats, make sure you are in a squat rack with appropriate safety bars . And no matter what kind of exercise, never put on a huge amount of weight that you cannot control.

The first time you try the negatives, the next day you might get pains, so sit back and watch how it goes. However, over time, the impossible may well become possible.

Illustration by Angelica Alzona.

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