SuperSlow Training


SuperSlow is not just a specific way of performing exercise movements…instead it is an entire philosophy of exercise.

Key points:

  • Lift don’t throw the resistance-eliminate or reduce momentum and kinetic energy as much as possible.

  • Perform THE PRECISE LEAST AMOUNT of exercise necessary to stimulate maximally the growth mechanism.

  • Never perform a workout until completely recovered from the last workout…regulating the volume and frequency of workouts is crucial to producing optimal rates of progress. If your workouts are too long and or too frequent you will not only not make progress but you will probably get weaker and lose tonus.

  • Weightlifting is a sport…building muscle and a strong lean body only requires that you produce very intense muscular contractions….. whether they be positive(concentric), static (isometric), negative(eccentric) or any combination thereof. And research has shown that the static and negative high intensity muscle contractions are far more effective for the purpose of building strength and lean muscle tissue than positive contractions. So, given the right equipment and exercise environment, you literally never have to “lift” another weight as long as you live….and you can still build all of the muscle that your genetics will allow.

All of the above can be condensed to the following few words…

Exercise should be Very Intense…Very Brief…Very Infrequent…Very Slow

As a Practical Matter……………………………………..

Speed of Movement 10 sec. positive/10 sec. negative
or 15 sec. static/10 sec. negative
or 10 sec negative only

Breathing…… shallow and rapid, much like Lamaze

Number of Exercises….as few as 2 or 3… as many as 7 to 10

Sets per exercise…. almost always 1 in healthy subjects..
rehab sometimes requires multiple sets.

Frequency of workouts…beginners usually exercise their entire body 3 x week.
As they get stronger they begin to gradually reduce their frequency.

The progression goes something like this–

 3 x week to every 3 days
to 2 x week to every 4 or five days
to 1/2 body session every 3 days
1/2 body session every 4 or 5 days to…
you get the idea!!!!!!!!!
Style of performance.. . The trainee begins to produce muscular force very, very slowly-until that force just exceeds the resistance-at which point the resistance barely starts to move. Once moving the trainee keeps the resistance moving with constant velocity until he approaches the endpoint of the rom — where he decelerates to zero(here he holds and squeezes if the exercise is a rotary movement), changes direction very slowly, and commences with the negative part of the rep. As many reps as possible with the chosen resistance are performed and when another rep cannot be performed according to prescribed form, the trainee attempts to lift the weight for an additional 20-30 seconds and then gradually surrenders to the weight and lowers it back down.

Now the trainee quickly moves to the next exercise where he begins the above described process all over again. All exercises in the program are performed in this exact manner… the effect is a series of anaerobic events performed consecutively producing a profoundly aerobic effect. It actually goes way beyond aerobic fitness into a brand new area known as metabolic ability-the ability for the body to function at close to a 100% for a fairly long period of time such as 20-30 minutes. No other type of exercise can produce metabolic ability.

Proper role of exercise in fat loss.. is to build muscle in order to raise the metabolism to make it easier to lose fat. 5 pounds of added muscle costs your body 250 to 500 calories per day-the rest is obvious.

Will aerobic exercise speed fat loss.. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! Aerobic exercise really burns very few calories. Marathon runners can run 50 miles on the calories in 1 pound of bodyfat and aerobic exercise in almost any amount severely compromises your ability to build bodyshaping muscle. There is no rational reason to perform separate aerobic exercise for health, fitness, and fat loss.

Why is it so safe?

Force causes injury, and SuperSlow High Intensity exercise is low force exercise.    FMA, or F=Mvsquared, and in this V is almost ZERO hence Force is almost ZERO even when extremely heavy weights are being used. Light weights lifted or thrown quickly create much higher forces than far heavier weights moved SuperSlowly. So the next time someone tells you to lift light weights quickly for “toning” realize that you are talking to an idiot-and a dangerous idiot at that! Smile and walk away as quickly as you can.

So here you have it-everything you’ll ever need to know about exercise. Well not quite, but enough to at least get you on the road to understanding. At Belmar Fitness we don’t know everything there is to know about exercise, but we know a hell of a lot more than anybody else teaching exercise in New Jersey as of 10/25/96. We know what is safe, productive, and efficient and as soon as anything new and worthwhile comes along you can be sure it will show up immediately in our programs….light-years ahead of the healthclubs, hospital wellness centers and gyms in the state. And that new discovery just might be the result of our ongoing research with our remarkable and willing personal trainers.

Thank you for sharing our passion for intelligent, maximally productive exercise.