Epoc and Pavel

Well if I didn’t believe it first, it seems that the whole work harder during your training and burn more calories after the workout has come around to Hard Style Kettlebell man Pavel. It’s time that we start fusing multiple disciplines to continue to see changes we want.

from his newsletter

Mazzetti et al (2007) have compared the effects of slow and explosive squats and discovered that the latter burned 13% more calories during exercise and 7% more one hour after exercise. The scientists have concluded that "by using explosive contractions and moderate exercise intensity, experienced recreational exercisers can increase their energy expenditure during and after resistance exercise, and this could enhance weight-loss adaptations."
It is no rocket science —by pulling harder on your Kettlebell you are working harder and thus burn more calories. If you want to burn fat —go hard style!

So let’s look at this. Explosive squats do use more energy than "regular" squats, and what we mean by explosive is a fast positive no pause and then a controlled negative with a rest. Sometimes though, you don’t have to rest at the bottom, but the rest does 2 things:

1. It removes the bounce mechanism in muscle that acts like a trampoline. You neutralize the movement of the weight back to static, therefore actually recruiting more fibers in the next rep.
2. It lets the person safely "start over" and get balanced so they don’t injure themselves or others with a weight flying off the back or popping a piece of connective tissue.

There are times in a training cycle that we want to use both of these. It is not good to always train explosively just like it is never a good idea to always train at the same tempo. It all matters on what your end goal is and how you have your program structured. For example, if you just started out training, there is nothing good going to come out of you explosively doing anything without first "learning" proper mechanics and finding what we call the groove. Doing so invites injury and injury sucks because it is unforeseen rest periods, and unforeseen rest periods wreck havoc on the psyche of the athlete.

At the opposite end of the scale we have the conditioned athlete that needs to overcome a plateau, so instead of doing a 3-3-3 squat (tempo) they will incorporate the explosive variety of an exercise. That being said, I personally do not think you need more than 1-2 explosive exercises per workout. They are metabolically and mentally demanding, and once you break down the mind muscle connection, your coordination wavers and form suffers.

In the next few posts, we will look at an athlete coming back from injury or sickness and examining all the aspects that need to be considered when putting a training program together. Let’s say the doc cleared them and all is ready to go again.

We will start the rebuilding.