No the former is not a way to get away from the latter. Although I’m not judging you – do whatever you gotta do;)
One of my workout buddies at the gym is being stalked by an older gentleman (ahem) who seems obsessed by how fast she lifts her weights. Despite the fact that she has a bodyfat percentage of 12.5 (!!!), he has decided that she is in need of his tutelage. He waits until she’s all alone and then crankily tells her how she’s working out all wrong. For some reason, it’s her speediness that most bothers him. Sadly, he has never approached me because you all know I would have an earful of stastics for him.
At my gym anyhow, the “slow and steady” mentality rules. I hear personal trainers constantly advising their clients to slooooowwww it down. But if you are looking to increase the effectiveness of your weight-lifting session, check out this little study. According to the researchers, “people who lowered weight slowly (2 seconds down) and then exploded upward as fast as they could burned calories 11.2 percent faster than people who also raised the weight slowly. Furthermore, when these same people were tested an hour after they were done exercising, they were still burning calories 5.2 percent faster than the other group.”
So there you go – lower slowly, lift quickly and you increase your EPOC! Take that, icky old man.
Update: holy crap, this is a hard workout. I tried it this morning at the gym and about died. I had to lower my weight on almost every single exercise. No wonder it burns more calories. It’s haaaarrrrrd. Egads. If any of you try it, let me know how it goes for you. Unless it’s super easy for you, then I don’t want to hear about it ‘kay? 😉
It would be awesome if you left links to the real articles. I’m very curious about the benefits of raising fast vs slow.