Isokinetics, Excentrics and Hypertrophy

[Scott Stevenson]

Hi,

dont know if this is the right forum, saw Scott Stevenson on the revive stronger podcast talked about that topic, so i hope to find here some Insight/Experience about Isometrics und Excentrics, because there are nearly no Information from Bodybuilders on this.

Trained the last 6 month on machines which can instantly adjust the resistance on every point of the movement. This offers several Resistance-Profiles, the most two interesting for me are the overloaded-Excentric-mode and the isometric-mode.
The used machines have good movement-paths, at least for my mechanics, except that the lower body machines are a bit short on rom:
latpulldown, row, bench-press, front-press, dip, curl, legcurl, legextensions, legpress, goodmornings/hyperextensions

Findings

Overloaded-Excentrics:
mostly i overloaded about 50% (f.e. latpulldown: concentric 100kg, excentric 150kg), fast concentric, controlled excentric, about 10-12Reps in the first set (about 1rep to Failure)
- the feeling/muscle-feeling in this setting is unreal, better than in isometrics
- the combination on fast concentric and very heavy excentric is much fun, gives the set a special dynamic, you feel STRONG
- the cardio-system is hit hard (in comparison to a normal or isometric set of the same type)
- normal Lifting "feels" improved, is this a motor-control thing?
- recovery from this training takes not so long as i thought(based on overloaded-excentrics-experience on the pull-up and Dip)

Isometrics:
the machine has fixed speed and adjusts the resistance as you push harder up to your max-force. In practise you get a highly adaptive slow-moving set.
Setup 1: You push every moment at max-force and after about 5-8 Reps (depending on movement) you have such low force that it doesent feel productive any more
Setup 2: You set a limit for the resistance and can do longer sets, experimented up to 20 reps, this setup is a very productive Pump-Work
- the Setup 1 completely drains you of any force-production, its crazy
- this synergizes well with long rests or training multiple movements in a circle, cause there are no "junk"-reps and you can use one or two reps in the beginning of each set to groove in
- its very draining in Training, but i recover very fast from the isometrics to the next training

Hypertrophy?
There is nearly no doms after isometrics and much fewer after excentric-overloaded than i thought. It might be a factor that there no variation on the machines, but with "normal"training i can infuse doms every week with same exersises for a  long time if i do them right. I have tested and isolated compenents of movements to test which part is most important for doms, and its not the excentric itself, key for me here is the part around the stretched position of an exersise, especially the first centimeters of acceleration out of the stretched position with heavy weight. I wonder if the momentum of a real-weight is key here, because these machines dont have this.

So the next Question is, is the tuned down doms and the missing momentum-impact around the stretched position a good or bad thing?
I dont think you need doms for a productive workout (check two of  the three boxes : 1. Pump/feeling, 2. signifcant reduced strength after workout, 3. doms), but after 20years training i relate: workouts that felt very productive produce mostly doms, phases that got me forward werent without doms.

The thing that makes me really wondering: i made big progress in overloaded excentrics and isometrics, but the transfer to normal lifting is conflicting.

Perhaps there is a phasic approach, f.e. every 7-14 days do a classic doms intense workout and after healing for a few days do high frequency with theses machines?


Have a nice day
Stefan

Hey Stefan!

Thanks for posting this.

Could you tell us what machine you have actually been using?  (Don't worry - I won't accuse you of advertising.)

Also, what has your training split looked like when training with and without this machine?...  What kind of progress did you make in terms of strength, body comp, etc?

Lastly, I'm sure quite exactly what you'd like me or the members here to respond to. You said a LOT of course, but what are your specific questions?... 

-Scott