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Comment by amelius

20 hours ago

How about making muscles fail by stretching them under load?

Depending on what you mean by "fail" and "stretching", that sounds a lot like eccentric training [0] (a.k.a. "negatives"). It's effective but notorious for causing delayed onset muscle soreness.

I trained myself to do pull-ups using this method, repeatedly lowering myself in a controlled motion from the top position while I was too weak to actually pull myself up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentric_training

akshually theres quite some interesting data on this. it has been shown that stretching alone can indeed produce hypertrophy (in birds and humans), but the required protocols are so intense that you wont want to do them (i think its hours in incredibly uncomfortable positions), so dynamic exercise still wins.

One would also expect it not to do as much for strenght, since adaptations are somewhat specific to the training.

There has been a lot of "long length training/partials" information/research in the past couple of years. A very useful information, you should research more (or ask more specific questions).

  • thats a different thing tho. the term "stretch mediated hypertrophy" is used loosely in many places and i think originally refers to really just hypertrophy caused by the stretch. iirc the lengthened partial gains are not thought to be caused by this mechanism.