Muscle and Brawn Forums - Muscle tension

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Found the following quote in a bodybuilding book.

Quote:

I focused on feeling the tension in my muscles and not just moving the weight. Muscles do not know how much weight you are using, they only respond to the tension.

What do you think?

50/50, you can use a really low weight and make the muscles feel tension if you do a movement slow enough but the tension won't be anywhere near enough to affect muscle growth, it will just fatigue the muscle in question more than likely through lactic acid build-up; using a moderate to heavy weight may work with tension added to the mix but it still ends up being a significant load, so the muscle does respond to load and not just tension.

Dynamic tension was all the rage, several decades ago, but it wouldn't have built any muscle (or any significant mass), it may have helped "tone" or solidify muscle that was already present due to the use of constant tension but it wouldn't have been enough to induce growth.

weight is jsut a number. my "heaviest" weights change all the time. it's all relative to your body and your current workout.
its about flexing the muscle and getting blood in it more than just duplicating a motion. that said heavy weight is important, but the idea is to lift as much as possible without breaking solid form. there are times you can cheat a weight but thats the exception not the typical rule.