Jack Up Your Workout Intensity With “Static Holds”
As you should know if you have been reading this blog for a while, the one factor in your workout responsible for stimulating increased muscular size and strength is intensity.
Intensity is defined as the percentage of possible momentary effort being exerted. The closer to 100% you get, the higher the intensity, and the greater the growth stimulation.
What we’re really talking about is a maximum effort. This is usually characterized by training to failure, until you can’t possibly lift the weight any more, no matter how hard you try.
And once you hit that point, you don’t have to do it again. That’s the nature of High Intensity Training: Brief and infrequent. One set to failure.
If you are a beginner, training like this is a whole new ball game for your muscles, and will provide all the muscle stimulation you need for a long time. When you’re first starting out with this type of training, you should be able to increase the number of reps you do, the amount of weight you use, or both, on every exercise every workout for a long time.
But somewhere along the line, you reach a point where you can’t increase how much you can lift any more. That’s where static holds come in.
What the heck is a “Static hold”?
A static hold is holding the weight in the fully contracted position of an exercise against full resistance for as long as you can, and when that is no longer possible, lowering the weight very slowly, inch by inch, fighting the resistance all the way back to the starting position of the exercise.
Why perform static holds?
As discussed previously on this blog, your muscles have strength levels: positive (lifting), the weakest; static (holding), in the middle; and negative (lowering), the strongest.
Once you have lifted a weight until you can’t lift it any more, you will still have enough strength in that muscle to hold, or lower the weight. When you don’t even have the strength to lower it any more, you have exhausted all 3 strength levels, and you’re done. Total failure.
Static holds are a technique you can practically apply on certain exercises to tap into your static and negative strength levels, in a minimal amount of time, to increase the intensity, and therefore the effectiveness, of those exercises.
If you are stuck at a certain number of reps on an exercise, throwing in a static hold at the end of your set may be the new stimulus you need to get you over the hump and get your progress going again.
What exercises can you use static holds with?
Static holds only work on exercises where there is full resistance against gravity in the fully contracted position.
These include:
-Leg Extensions
-Leg Curls
-Pulldowns
-Chin ups
-Lateral Raises
-Pec Deck
-Calf Raises
-Shrugs
-Rear Deltoid Raise
-Rows
-Machine Tricep Extensions (not free weight)
-Machine Bicep Curls (not free weight)
Some exercise do not provide full resistance against gravity in the finish position, and are not good candidates for static holds.
Static holds are not effective on these exercises:
-Any pressing movement (leg press, bench press, shoulder press, etc.)
-Free weight curls
-Free weight tricep extensions
-Dumbell Flyes
How do you utilize static holds in a workout?
Here is the best way I have found to use static holds:
Perform a set in normal High Intensity fashion to positive failure, until you can’t lift the weight any more with good form. Re-rack the weight and rest for about 10 seconds; while you are resting, re-set yourself psychologically for another all-out effort.
Lift the weight to the finish (fully contracted) position, and hold it there for as long as you can. In my experience, this usually turns out to be about 10-15 seconds.
When you can no longer hold the weight in the fully contracted position, don’t just put it all the way down. Instead, as the weight moves an inch or two out of the fully contracted position, try to hold it in this new spot. When it moves again, keep trying to hold it; fight against the force of gravity every inch of the way through the whole range of motion.
When you get back to the start position of the exercise, there should be no doubt in your mind that you have fully stimulated that muscle.
See this technique demonstrated by Java Jon:
Note: Whenever you perform a static hold with an exercise, be sure to record it on your workout card. I usually record the number of regular reps I do, and then write the intials “SH” after it. You want to be able to recall when you used the technique so that when you look back over your training records you can determine what worked and what didn’t.
So if you need your workout intensity jacked, give static holds a try!
Dave Durell
Author of High Intensity Muscle Building
Questions or comments? Post them below–
To add my 3 cents, extending sets with static holds is a great way to amp it up – but should be used with discretion of course. I don’t think people use static work enough in their training. People with limited range of motion or who have difficulty (strength … See Moreor orthopedically related) at certain points in a movement can implement static work instead of abandoning an exercise entirely. If you can’t do a single chin up holding yourself over the bar for as long as you can is a great way to get strong, working statically in a certain weaker position can bring up your strength levels in that range or if you have limited ROM in an exercise you can still stimulate some muscle.
I love using static holds as a way to train “beyond failure.” I agree with Fred’s comment that you have to use it with discretion, however, and find your tolerance level, based upon your recovery needs, for how frequently you use this method.
I just started using static holds in my workouts. I tried it at the end of my leg extensions, and it took everything I had to be able to walk over to the leg press right after! That was Tuesday, and my legs are still feeling it!
Just have a question. After using the statics should I perform immediately / no rest / do another exercise ? some leg press or DB incline press etc.
Or could be some rest between ?
Peter,
The general rule for how much rest to take between sets is this: take as much time
as you need to recover sufficiently so that you can perform your next set
effectively, but no more. For example, after your first exercise you may be a little
out of breath, and it may take 3 minutes before you feel like you can give your best
effort on your second exercise. In that case, take the 3 minutes rest, but no more,
and then begin your second exercise.
Eventually as you get in better condition you will find yourself needing less and
less recovery time between sets. Remember, take all the time you need, but no
more.
If you are in excellent condition, you may only need the time it takes to get to the next machine. Just make sure you don’t allow your workouts to degenerate into a race against the clock; make sure you do take enough rest to get the maximum number of reps on every exercise that your strength will allow.
The exception to this is the advanced technique of pre-exhaustion, where you go from an isolation exercise to a compound exercise for the same muscle group with no rest at all.
Pre-exhaustion will be the subject of a future blog post and video.
Hi Dave,
all you have written is clear for me. My case and the previous question is regarding pre-exhaustion technique I usually perform. May I use statics in isolated exercise and then compound one in way like pre-exhausted ?
Last w´kout I had yesterday I used it and I felt great after.
You mentioned to take max 3 minutes as a rest between exercises/not pre-exhausting way /. Can you tell us some sample what exercise can be used for this training ?
Peter,
Yes, using static holds on the isolation exercise during a pre-exhaustion superset is excellent–very intense! As Fred said, use these with discretion, if you find you are not progressing don’t use the technique as often because you may not be recovering from it sufficiently.
The 3 minute rest I spoke about was just an example, and would usually apply to a beginner who was just starting out with High Intensity Training and wasn’t used to it. However, even advanced trainees may need that much rest after a very metabolically demanding exercise, such as leg press, squat, deadlift, or a pre-exhaustion superset for a large muscle group, such as chest or back.
The main point with rest periods (except for pre-exhaustion) is that you are trying to go to muscular failure on each set, not cardiovascular failure. If you are capable of doing 8 reps on the second exercise of your routine, but you only get 3 because you only rested 15 seconds after your first exercise, you are not going to muscular failure on that second exercise, and therefore you won’t stimulate an increase in muscular size and strength.
Hope that helps.