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Outside Magazine December 2002

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Bodywork: Slow Training
What's the Hurry? (Cont.)

SUPER SLOW IS NOT without its critics. "I don't like it," says fitness consultant and six-time Ironman champ Dave Scott. "Especially if you're an endurance athlete. Imagine you're this lean runner strained under this huge, unnecessary load. You come to the gym, you're already fatigued, and now you have to drop your weights 20 pounds to do just one rep: How do you stay motivated? It can be psychologically destructive."

Wary of the opinions expressed by road warriors like Scott, I nevertheless signed up to be trained by Varghese, following Ken Hutchins's original protocols. According to Hutchins, each exercise should be 10/5 per rep—that is, ten seconds on the positive contraction, or push, and five on the return, or negative contraction. (By contrast, a typical rep might be 1/1, 2/4, or 4/4.)

During my workouts, I do exactly one set of as many reps as I can until my muscles fail completely. At the end of each rep, Varghese tells me to make the transition from easing the load down to pushing it back up imperceptibly. Any faster and I'm using momentum to cheat. All along, Varghese reminds me to take controlled, quick breaths: "Pant like a sprinter." Holding my breath, he tells me, will just make me dizzy. At the end of the set, my muscles feel torched by a fresh, white-hot rush of lactic acid.

Because of slow lifting's difficulty—one Super Slow chest press can be harder than ten quick ones—the program suffers a high rate of attrition—another reason it's no longer the fitness flavor of the moment. Wayne Westcott, fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, has conducted two studies on slow lifting. The results, published in the June 2001 Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, indicated that, yes, single-set slow lifters realized a 50 percent greater increase in strength over eight to ten weeks than did those lifting weights at a faster pace. However, only two of Westcott's 147 test subjects opted to continue the slow-lifting regimen.

"The psychological aspect is just as important for a successful fitness program, and this was just too tough," says Westcott, who adds that slow lifting is perhaps best applied as a plateau buster. "Do it for six weeks. But then return to what you're more comfortable with week in and week out."

Positive testimonials and my success with slow lifting aside, Westcott and Scott do have a point. The happy medium may be to see it not as strength training's silver bullet, but rather as a valuable addition to your arsenal of fitness techniques. Periodically fold it into your existing routine (see "The Slow-Motion Workout," next page) and you'll soon reap the performance rewards. "There's this kind of undercurrent in Super Slow circles that almost makes us sound antisports," says Ideal Exercise's Anderson. "But the point of its high intensity is to give you more time to play, and better results when you do."

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