How Slow Should You Go?
A divisive topic in the realm of fitness media is whether movement should be taught through rapid, power-driven activities or slow and deliberate actions. We see some professionals spend their entire careers focusing on power and explosivity while others live to slow it down and master deliberate movement. While the best way to learn (and a classic hedge, guess it comes with the job) depends on exactly what you seek to accomplish, I find that a combination of both movement styles is crucial to developing a durable and athletic form.
What’s the Difference Between Moving Fast vs. Slow?
I know some of you are reading that heading and scoffing. Yes, the difference between moving fast vs slow is the rate of speed you do the movement. It is important to recognize that changing our performance speed transforms how our body can prepare for and complete a given objective. Adding workouts that include both high speed work and slow, controlled movements will best train our bodies to do exactly what we want.
When we do fast workouts, our body recruits all available muscles to produce an outcome at speed. We are firing with everything we have to move faster, putting ourselves under high degrees of tension. Think running sprints, jump roping, or doing explosive pushups. Our goal is to put our bodies are under tension and rocket them through the various positions required for a movement. Fast movements are excellent tools for understanding how to produce and control power, condition ourselves, and increase our maximal speed and power.
When we do slow workouts, we increase the time our muscles spend under tension, helping us learn to use and control them throughout a movement. While quick workouts focus on maximum force and intensity, slow workouts force us to feel how our muscles interact across an entire movement.
Consider how both styles would impact an exercise like squats or pull ups. A fast style of training teaches how to build explosivity into each of our repetitions, while a slow focus teaches us exactly which body parts come into play, where, and whether they are in need of more focused training. Slow movements help synchronize the muscles we hope to use harmoniously in our fast movements.
What’s Right for Me?
I find fitness strategies that combine both fast and slow training best prepare me to move. As we see everyday, it is an unusual life that relies only on fast or slow movement. Our different daily needs may require varying movement speeds and techniques, and we should consider as much with our training
When building a workout strategy, it is important that we consider our current level of fitness and past training experience so that we can train sustainably. For example, if we are new to high speed training, we are wise to prioritize rest time and slower tempo training to ensure we build muscles that power themselves properly. At the other end, supplementing a series of slow workouts with fast training can help put all the pieces together, build power, and learn the range of motion more quickly.
I find myself constantly shifting my workout speeds, intensities and durations. We are fortunate to have bodies equipped wide array of tools, and each part benefits from a diverse set of training (that can be built to fit any lifestyle through utilizing micro assessments).
Some people favor one style rather than the other, but I believe that avoiding movements that we struggle with or don’t enjoy is a recipe to amplifying the weakness when we find ourselves in need.
Thoughts, feedback, critiques? Let me know!
-G