Want to Build Bigger Muscles? Do Negatives!

Why You Should Care About the Negatives In Body Building

You may already know about the benefits of negatives in bodybuilding and weight training. Or you may asking, “What in the heck is a negative?” A negative part of an exercise is the lowering phase. Your body can handle lowering 40% more weight that it can lift. The suggestion is to add extra stress to the negative part of the exercise. It’s a good way to build up your strength and work up to lifting more weight when you’ve come to a strength plateau.

You will need to be careful and controlled because stressing the negative phase causes more delayed muscle soreness. There are two kinds of negatives you can do.

You use a spotter for the first type. The spotter lifts the weight, then spots you as you slowly lower the weight (counting at least 3 seconds on the way down). You continue this for your whole set. Start with about 15 – 20% more than your regular training weight. It’s better not to overdue it, work up to th3 40% increase you should be able to handle. A spotter is very important since you are using more weight than you can lift by yourself, especially when doing a freeweight exercise.

The second type of negative you can do are with pull-ups and dips. Negatives can help you work up to full-body weight chins and dips. Step up on a platform and bring yourself to the top position for either exercise. Step off and lower yourself slowly. You should do this as long as you control the speed of the movement, or until you’ve done a set of 10 or 12, whichever comes first.

You should consider using negatives in body building if you want to break through the plateau and move up in weight.