Sounds strange… what the hell are Active Negatives. Active Negatives stimulate the nervous system control and increase muscle activation.
If you are reading this, then I assume you have already some idea of what negatives are. Often used for building strength or rehab.
In this post I am going describe the crucial mental aspect, how “negatives” are a key opportunity in your overall training, whether for specific sport objectives or for general health.
Often when performing the negative of a movement, it is a passive process. Meaning a “letting go”, allowing gravity, or other resistive force, to take over.
Through an active release, rather than a passive release, there are several benefits. Below are further details how Active Negatives stimulate the nervous system control and increase muscle activation.
1. Increased Muscle stimulation
We get increased muscle activation, by not just “flopping”. However this is more than a “controlled” release. It means activating our mind-body connection and actively telling the muscle to release, to give us the desired movement.
When performed like this, especially with intensity, the muscle activation increases massively. Movements that seemed manageable, or even easy, take on a completely new interpretation. Time under tension increases. This then elevates muscular development as well as conscious control.
Myself for example, I find it extremely difficult to impose control on the negative for deep single leg calf raises. The positives (concentric) is no problem (though super tiring).
2. Nervous system activation
The more we utilise our neural pathways, the stronger they get…. like most things in the human body. Or at the very least, maintain them in optimum health.
Through repetition and focus new neural pathways can be developed, finding optimal routes. In this way we can get greater motor control.
3. Proprioception
All the above culminate in increased proprioception.
- Faster to learn movements
- Better able to fine tune technique; auto-correct errors
- Improved “feel” across all sports/movements
- Optimise recovery from injuries / injury prevention
- Better assess imbalances, and correct them
Summary
So what does all this mean in the end?
As ever this is never a simple discussion. As part of a holistic view, we have to incorporate various different parts to make the whole. This can be for specific sports objectives, or just for general health (as I do myself!)
This focus on Active Negatives, is not something that can be done in every activity. For myself, I incorporate it as part of my program, to increase muscle stimulation, increase control and sensitivity through my nervous system.
From a general health perspective, with age these aspects are only increasingly important. High levels of muscular and neural stimulation are known to prevent age related problems; even “anti-aging” to an extent!
