A reader asked if my recent post about TIme Under Tension was related to SuperSlow. SuperSlow is a weight-lifting technique where the weight is lifted slowly (10 seconds up and 10 seconds down, or a variant of this). I have experimented with SuperSlow in the past, even going to visit Doug McGuff at his Ultimate Exercise gym in South Carolina.
I did SuperSlow workouts for a number of months, but they weren't really my cup of tea. For one thing, it was pretty damn painful. That might be okay if the technique caused me to sprout Popeye muscles, but it only gave me typical results.
The other big drawback is that the technique really has no physical historical precedent; in other words, when do you really lift something that slow in real life? The answer: you don't. If you're picking up a heavy box or a sofa, you just try to lift it up at a normal speed - about one second. You might lower it a bit slower just to be careful. This cadence is what I use when I lift weights: about one second up, two seconds down.
The research studies show that SuperSlow is comparable to normal speed weight training as far as results. Yet I worry that SuperSlow could also jack your blood pressure up too high. When you're moving slowly and never taking the strain off the muscle, the body never has a chance to relax. This is all speculation, as I do not believe there are any studies showing these negative effects of SuperSlow.
When in doubt, and when there is not enough available research on a subject, it is often best to go back to our Stone Age roots, and follow the same guidelines. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't lift anything super slowly, and it doesn't appear that we should either.
