Madcow2 5x5: Explosive concentrics, but what tempo for eccentrics?

[jwwpua]

I'm planning to give this program a try when I get back home. I've read many threads about it and have been putting my workout together. Everything is making sense so far, but I've got one question atm.

Should one use slow eccentrics on the lifts? Or should it be fairly quick (but controlled)?

The tempo definitely changes the amount of weight and reps one can handle, so I wanted to know in order to guess my weights more accurately.

Thanks.

 

[curgeo]

In my opinion, concentric work should never be slow. Always do the concentric portion of the lift the fastest SAFE speed that you can. What I mean by that is you have to decelerate the bar at the end of the lift to save your joints from being injured, but all lifts should be done explosively as possible.

 

[Madcow2]

Yeah, that's the best way to handle it. When the weight is light and you have room for acceleration then use it. As the weights get heavier you won't be able to maintain the same speeds but that's okay. Controlled eccentric - just standard stuff now super slow or any bullshit and then accelerate the concentric to the best of your ability. As intensity (%1RM) increases your bar speed on the concentric will slow but that's okay. Don't overthink it too much just don't make odd changes midway because, like you said - large tempo changes will affect the training weights and targets so you need some consistency.

EDIT - by the way. I'm glad to see everything was fairly clear for you. I've been trying to make the thread more navicable with the table of contents. Since I haven't seen you post on it before and this is a fairly minutia question I'm guessing it's pretty straightforward at this point. If you have thoughts or suggestions let me know.

 

[jwwpua]

EDIT - by the way. I'm glad to see everything was fairly clear for you. I've been trying to make the thread more navicable with the table of contents. Since I haven't seen you post on it before and this is a fairly minutia question I'm guessing it's pretty straightforward at this point. If you have thoughts or suggestions let me know.

The table of contents was very helpful in finding the answers to my questions.

My only suggestion atm would be to create an Excel worksheet to be used as a template for creating workouts. Given the complexity of the program (varying volume, weights, and frequency), I think it would be very beneficial to people who are new to 5x5 and perhaps a sample workout would serve well as a guideline.

Thanks for the quick response! I'm looking forward to starting this program as soon as I get back home from college in about 2 weeks.

 

[Madcow2]

Yeah - I've kind of toyed with that idea. My only concern would be providing percents or having people overanalyze and back out the percents. I've found that most people are pretty rigid moving through the program the first time and when you start providing this they stick with it even when their body is screaming "more" or "I'm dying". If you have a group of lifters that are reasonable homogenous with respect to experience and volume tolerance and you are supervising this isn't a problem but the range of people here is so broad that it's going to either cost a lot of them in terms of progress/gains or it's going to absolutely bury the people on the other side of the spectrum. In the end people need to understand their own tolerances and something like this tends to put blinders on them and they stop paying attention to their bodies. Maybe if I tag enough disclaimers on it people won't be as rigid but I've been mulling this over for a while and I honestly think it will potentially cause more problems than it allieviates in initial confusion. I'll probably end up doing it anyway eventually.

 

[jwwpua]

Yeah - I've kind of toyed with that idea. My only concern would be providing percents or having people overanalyze and back out the percents. I've found that most people are pretty rigid moving through the program the first time and when you start providing this they stick with it even when their body is screaming "more" or "I'm dying". If you have a group of lifters that are reasonable homogenous with respect to experience and volume tolerance and you are supervising this isn't a problem but the range of people here is so broad that it's going to either cost a lot of them in terms of progress/gains or it's going to absolutely bury the people on the other side of the spectrum. In the end people need to understand their own tolerances and something like this tends to put blinders on them and they stop paying attention to their bodies. Maybe if I tag enough disclaimers on it people won't be as rigid but I've been mulling this over for a while and I honestly think it will potentially cause more problems than it allieviates in initial confusion. I'll probably end up doing it anyway eventually.

I understand exactly what you mean. It's difficult to create a template that can be flexible for a variety of people to use.

Having said that, I put together a simple spreadsheet for my own personal use, which I'll e-mail to you in case you'd like to use it. I did not specify any weights or percentages, but rather created a somewhat "neat" format for keeping track of your workouts. I separated the Phases into different worksheets (tabs at bottom) to keep it simple.

Take a look at it, and feel free to modify and share it with anyone. Oh and you'll have to excuse the colors, I just picked them in a hurry to help me design it.

 

[curgeo]

I feel like a dork...I read it wrong and thought you were asking about concentric speed, not eccentric. I'm going to go learn how to read now.

 

[coolcolj]

Well if your loading the intensity, ie speed doesn't matter too much, the frequency and volume takes care of the loading. Just getting the work done is enough, there is no need to maximise intensity with accleration

and you probably won't feel like it when you loading properly... but during the unloading phase you should acclerate

 

[blut wump]

I find I'm fine on accelerating just about everything but barbell rows. I can be explosive until I suddenly find I've crossed some personal barrier and realise I'm just muscling the bar up to my torso. At that stage I'll typically also find that I'm lifting myself above whatever I'd taken for parallel and it's then a different exercise. As such, being explosive on barbell rows is almost not an option during the intensity phase which probably means I should have stayed with lower weights.

I think I might swap it out for power cleans next time. At least with them a failed lift is obvious.

I never gave any concern to eccentrics while doing this program. I just keep it controlled and give my mental focus to the concentric part.