Negatives are often advised as an effective way to build strength and muscle mass. Professional bench pressers, bodybuilders and strength athletes all choose negatives for their training.
What are negatives?
Your weight lifting workout can be divided into 3 distinct phases:
1. Positive: Contracting the muscle, for example when you are curling a weight up.
2. Static: When you don't move bracing yourself against the weight.
3. Negative: Muscle extension, when you are lowering the weight. These phases are the same for every exercise. Let's focus on the negative phase of the movement when your muscles extend. When you do a bicep curl this is lowering the weight and in a bench press- bringing the barbell down to your chest.  How Your Strength Varies over The 3 Phases
The weight or resistance which your muscles take changes during these 3 phases. Let's take as an example bench press exercises. Your maximum bench press during the first repetition is 100kg. This is the heaviest possible weight which you can move during the first (positive) phase. Generally guys are about 20% stronger on the static phase. The most amusing is that the amount of weight which you can lower to your chest on the negative phase increases. On average, it is possible to lower between 40% and 50% more weight that you can push up. To make a conclusion, this means that on negative phase you become 50% stronger.
Why You’re Stronger on The Negative Phase
The reason why the strength increases on negative anad static phases is that your body doesn't let you pick up anything you can't handle. Your body simply uses his defence mechanism. For instance, if it were the other way around you’d put up a heavy weight and hold it above your head, but it would be impossible for you to lower the weight without dropping it.
The Principles of Negative Training
Negative training is a great multi-faceted way to build muscle mass. Like the other muscle building workouts, negatives overload, shock the muscles and trick them into thinking that you are lifting a heavier weight on the positive phase.
Negative training makes your body push past its safety limit giving you the opportunity to move the weight which you would normally couldn't lift. This exercise is very beneficial in case if you are plateauing or it is hard for you to increase the weight during your workouts.
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