B I N A R A G A . I N F O

WEIDER PRINCIPLE - CONTINUOUS TENSION

The Slow Continuous-Tension Principle was developed in the early 1960s because most of the training done previous to that was based on the heavy lifting performed by weightlifters. When I first became involved in the sport in 1933, very few bodybuilders were around and most of them were weightlifters or interested in feats of strength. Therefore they used power movements and lifted the weight up as fast as possible even though they appeared to be lifting the weights slowly.

Certainly, heavy lifting is important to building basic mass and strength. However, when you're constantly trying to move extremely heavy weights and lifting them fast, using strict form is almost impossible. You tend to swing and cheat the weight up, to use inertia rather than making the muscle do all the work. So although you build mass with heavy power movements, you're unable to achieve the isolation and control of the muscle that's so necessary to carve out the greatest possible detail, quality, separation and definition.

THE ADVENT OF CONTINUOUS TENSION

By the late '40s and early '50s, more and more bodybuilders had begun to add a slower, though not stricter, kind of training to their workouts. Looking at photos of a champion like Steve Reeves, who is a genetic wonder, you can see what kind of benefits this slower approach to training had better quality and definition. But only to a degree. There was still a lot missing, such as the full peaking of the muscles, full separation between muscles and muscle groups and the extreme striation in the muscles that so many champions are able to achieve today.

I was spending a great deal of time observing the training of the champions around that time. Although they were training with a slower type of movement, I could see that the reps were not being done strictly, nor were they fully under control. The bodybuilders would start the movement off with a jerk and, even when training slowly, let inertia take over at the end of the rep, lowering the weight so that the force of the weight - not the muscle - was controlling the movement.

Watching this technique, I thought that a great deal of the potential intensity of the exercise was being lost. Lifting with a slower, more deliberate movement was better because it made the muscle work harder. So making the muscle work slower through more of the range of motion of the exercise would cause fewer accessory muscles and less swing to be brought into play. Thus a greater degree of intensity over the muscle range being worked resulted in a fuller development - in fact, through the entire range of motion rather than only the middle - and would yield even better results.

THE HARDER THE BETTER

Since both weightlifters and bodybuilders train with weights and develop big muscles, many people don't stop to think that the techniques involved in these two types of training have very different goals. Weightlifters use every technique available to make their heavy lifts as easy as possible. Bodybuilders, on the other hand, try to make each movement as difficult as possible. Weightlifters accelerate the weight up with a blast of power to get the weight moving as fast as possible. Bodybuilders try to control the weight and prevent momentum from taking any intensity away from the muscle being worked.

You'll frequently see somebody doing a heavy lift "bounce" the weight at the bottom of a movement (at the bottom of a squat, for example, or at the full extension of a biceps curl) because a reflex in the body will cause the muscles involved to contract, which provides a jerk to help get the weight moving. Since the aim of bodybuilding is creating peaks, cuts and shape in the muscle worked, one should avoid bringing other muscles into action, thus weakening the intensity of the muscle exercised.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MADE

I wrote about this in Muscle & Fitness and called the approach I was recommending "Slow Continuous-Peaking Tension." That is, not only doing each repetition slowly enough so that the muscle did the work rather than inertia, but making sure that the muscle worked continuously in this manner from the start of the movement to the very end, as well as concentrating on the range of movement. I urged a number of the champions to try this technique and followed their progress closely.

As I expected, using the Slow Continuous-Peaking Tension Principle made a great deal of difference in the results these champions achieved. Because the muscles involved in a lift were now forced to work at their maximum throughout the entire range of motion, with no ability to rest, more of the muscle fibers were brought into play, developing the body part more completely. Because the muscle had to contract intensely throughout the movement, rather than being assisted by accessory muscles and the swing of the weight, the muscle peak received much more substantial and obvious development.

The biceps curl is an ideal example of how this works. A lot of bodybuilders who want big biceps like to do heavy barbell curls. When the weight is heavy enough, especially after you've already done a number of sets, it becomes almost impossible to lift the weight using the biceps alone. When this happens, usually you see the bodybuilder start the bar up with a swing and a jerk at the bottom - using other muscle groups like legs, lower back and traps - and once the bar is moving fast enough, the momentum carries the weight up to the full-contraction position. Unfortunately, using this technique you'll find your biceps are working at only minimum intensity and are not in complete control of the weight.

Employing the Slow Continuous-Tension Principle, you would use a weight heavy enough to challenge the biceps but not so heavy that you couldn't begin the lift smoothly and in full control, with very little cheating. Throughout the range of motion, you would concentrate on keeping the weight under full control and lifting as much as possible with the biceps in complete isolation. At the top of the movement, you would squeeze and contract the biceps, achieving a full peak contraction, and then you would lower the weight slowly back to the starting position, again making sure that the weight was under the full control of the muscles.

Paul Dillett doing preacher bench curls, using this technique, is an awesome sight. As he slowly curls the weight, his biceps start to build into mounds of muscle, and at the completion seem to explode into mountains with peaks and valleys. Paul loves this principle and uses it with almost every exercise he does.

ISOLATION & CONTROL

You should always keep the weight under control when you're training for bodybuilding, but in certain exercises strictness and full isolation are not essential. For example, bodybuilders intent on full pectoral development should not bounce the weight off their chest at the bottom of a bench press. They will get certain mass and strength benefits, however, by driving the weight upward in a ballistic rather than slow-and-steady movement.

But using this ballistic approach makes no sense when performing exercises that are primarily isolation movements, such as the biceps curl or the dumbbell lateral raise. In exercises like these, the real gains are realized by making the muscle control the weight at all times, through the entire range of motion, from a position of full extension to full peak contraction.

Training like this requires a lot of discipline and concentration. You must be highly aware of how the muscles feel at all times during the movement. You have to keep the "mind in the muscle." Remember, in bodybuilding, you are training muscles, not merely lifting weights, so it's imperative to focus on the muscles, how they feel and what they're doing, rather than thinking about what the weight is doing.

VISUALIZATION

Many bodybuilders use visualization techniques to help them concentrate during workouts. When I was working out with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I could see that he went into a trance watching his biceps curling into mountains to help him focus and add to the intensity of his arm training. Chris Dickerson would walk around the gym picturing himself as Genghis Khan laying waste to everything in his path. Teachers of Zen will tell you that you cannot achieve 100% intensity until your mind and your muscle become the same thing, completely indistinguishable, another way of telling you to keep your mind in the muscle.

EQUIPMENT

Certain types of equipment are very helpful in achieving greater control, isolation and continuous tension. A preacher bench, for example, helps create a stricter movement by holding the elbows steady. Years ago, I developed the Weider Arm Blaster to produce a similar effect. Certain machines are designed so that momentum is not a factor in the exercise, and you get the same kind of result when you do strict cable movements such as cable curls or cable laterals.

THE WEIDER SLOW CONTINUOUS-TENSION PRINCIPLE

1. DEFINITION
Train with a slow, deliberate movement, concentrating on keeping the muscle under tension throughout the entire range of motion and not jerking or bouncing at the beginning nor allowing momentum to take over at any point during the movement.

2. REASON FOR USING
Weightlifters don't use this technique because they want to make the lift as easy as possible; bodybuilders have the goal of training muscle, not lifting weight, so they need to use this technique to make the muscles being trained contract as intensely as possible, without being helped by inertia or momentum, and in isolation to prevent secondary muscles from doing too much of the work.

3. WHAT IT DOES
Using the Weider Slow Continuous-Tension Principle allows you to train the maximum number of muscle fibers intensely throughout the entire range of motion, to achieve the maximum peak striations in the muscles and to create the optimum amount of quality and detail, such as muscle shape, definition and separation.

4. TECHNIQUE
From a position of full extension, begin the rep with a slow, deliberate contraction of the muscle or muscles involved, trying not to jerk or cheat in any way to get the weight moving. Continue to lift the weight through the range of motion, concentrating on keeping it fully under the control of your muscles, without any help from momentum. At the top of the movement, "crunch" the muscles deliberately to achieve a full peak contraction, then lower the weight back to the starting position, again keeping it under the full control of the muscles involved.

5. WHICH exercises TO USE IT WITH
Learn to control the weight as much as possible in any exercise . The Slow Continuous-Tension Principle works best for isolation exercises such as biceps curls or dumbbell lateral raises rather than power exercises such as the squat and bench press. However, be aware that cheating, bouncing or jerking too much (for example, bouncing the weight off your chest doing a bench press or bouncing at the bottom of a squat) will also take away from the intensity, which bodybuilders need to build the shape, size and definition they need.

6. MENTAL TECHNIQUE
Training strictly, using techniques like slow continuous tension, requires a lot of concentration and discipline from the beginning to the end of the movement. You have to focus your attention on the muscles being trained rather than the weight. You have to put the "mind in the muscle" so that you feel what the muscles are doing at all times and prevent yourself from getting sloppy and letting momentum take over on the way up or gravity take over on the way down.

SLOW CONTINUOUS-TENSION & ISO-TENSION

Training using the Slow Continuous-Tension Principle also helped a lot of bodybuilders to improve their posing. Years ago, when bodybuilders trained more like weightlifters, they didn't have the muscle control they do today. I can remember seeing bodybuilders swinging their arms up to a double-biceps pose, letting them drop, do a back pose, drop, moving fast from pose to pose. They didn't have as much feel for how to hit each pose to show their physiques to their best advantage.

Once they started using the Slow Continuous-Tension Principle, they gained much more control over their muscles and a lot more feel as well. They learned to hit the poses better, to flex all the muscles involved and to hold their poses better to give the judges a better chance to evaluate their physiques.

One reason that posing got better is that the bodybuilders had more to show. The Slow Continuous-Tension Principle produced a more detailed physique, more quality, definition and separation, so it made sense to work in front of a mirror to learn how to display these newly developed qualities.

This was also the period in which bodybuilders began to realize that posing itself was a kind of exercise closely related to those exercises using the Slow Continuous-Tension Principle As part of this evolution, I developed the Weider Iso-Tension Principle, which advocated flexing and posing the muscles to create additional hardness, separation and definition. In both cases - Slow Continuous-Tension and Iso-Tension - muscle control and mental concentration are the keys to success. Both are examples of how putting the mind into the muscle, being totally aware of what the muscles are doing at all times, helps to create the maximum in training intensity.

- Joe Weider, the Master Blaster