Pumping Iron

[dontxhide]

There is this guy a little over a quater of the way through the movie that is obsessed with beating Arnold in Mr. Olympia. He is the hard of hearing, 6 foot 5 guy. Does anyone know why ever rep he does with bench or with overhead presses he only goes half way up, and not to full extension? I know you can work out like that, but he does this on every exercise Ive seen him do so far.

[Zack]

That's lou ferrigno. He does partial reps to stress the main muscle being worked. For overhead press, that's the deltoids. For chest, it's obviously pectorals. The goal of that is to work the main muscle without much help from things like triceps.

[Guest]

It has the potential of causing harm to the joints and ligaments but they didn't really think of that back then. Plus he was young and dumb. It works though. However damaging it may become it really lets you tear your muscles to shreds.

[Zack]

Ronnie coleman bases almost every exercise on that partial rep principle.

[Guest]

And look what happened to him

[kurtjs]

first off . . . pumping iron is one of my favorite movies ever.

 

Second, the partial reps are to keep the muscle under constant tension, which many people feel is key to hypertrophy. When you extend fully, lets say on a benchpress, the triceps come into play at the end, and then the elbows lock out and the pressure is on the joints and off of the muscle. If you never go to full extension, the muscle is contantly working.

 

I had a history teacher in high school who was a powerlifter. This was the first time in my life I ever saw someone bench heavy and all the reps were partials. It blew my mind.

[Guest]

It definitely works but it has a tendency to reduce flexibility as well.