Negative reps: how to train the eccentric phase

Negative rep key numbers

Four ways to do negative reps

A negative rep is a rep where you do only the eccentric phase: you lower the weight or your body over 3-5 s and get back up with help. The eccentric phase is the part of a rep where the muscle lengthens under load, usually the lowering; the concentric phase is where the muscle shortens and you lift the weight. The atlas pages for the Negative Pull-Up and the Negative Push-Up have a video and instructions.

Bodyweight negatives

Bodyweight negatives start at the top position: for pull-ups, stand on a bench placed crosswise under the bar or on a plyo box, so your chin is above the bar without a jump. For push-ups you get back to the top from your knees, and for Dips you step into the support position from a bench.

If you can't hold a 3 s descent in the pull-up, start with a 10-20 s hang with your chin above the bar or with the Assisted Pull-Up. Go slowest where your arms straighten, and at the bottom step onto the bench with your shoulder blades set instead of dropping into a dead hang.

The Nordic Hamstring Curl is a negative by nature: you kneel with your heels locked under a machine pad, under a loaded barbell or in a partner's hands, and lower your torso forward as slowly as you can control.

Two up, one down (2/1)

In the 2/1 method you lift the weight with both legs or arms and lower it with one over 3-5 s, alternating sides. The Suchomel et al. 2019 review gives 70-80% of 1RM but notes that there is little evidence for this method. Single-lever machines fit: the Seated Leg Extension Machine, Seated Leg Curl, Prone Lying Leg Curl or the Machine Preacher Curl with connected handles; on a machine with two independent levers, 2/1 won't work.

Partner negatives heavier than your 1RM

In partner negatives you take more weight than your 1RM: your partner helps lift the bar and you lower it over 3-5 s. The same review reserves such loads for advanced lifters who squat at least twice their body weight; beginners do fine with slow lowering at a 4010 tempo. Do them right after your warm-up sets, and do one fewer working set in that session.

Bench in a power rack with the safety pins set just below your chest, and with a bar heavier than your 1RM have two spotters, one at each end of the bar. Studies of heavier lowering usually used weight releasers, hooks that fall off the bar at the bottom of the rep (Zhang et al. 2026); few gyms have them.

Negatives at the end of a regular set

You do negatives at the end of a set after the last rep you can no longer lift on your own, at muscular failure: your partner helps on the way up and you lower the weight 1-2 more times. They mostly add fatigue: more forced reps after failure didn't build more strength (Drinkwater et al. 2007). These lowerings belong to the same set, like the drops in a drop set, because there is no rest between them (how to count sets).

When negative reps are worth it

Negatives, like other intensity techniques, don't build more muscle than regular sets and cost more fatigue. In a meta-analysis of 49 studies, heavier lowering in full reps gave strength gains similar to regular sets, with clearly higher perceived effort; only 3 studies measured muscle cross-sectional area (Zhang et al. 2026). Almost nobody has compared negatives alone with regular sets, so this is the closest evidence for both hypertrophy and strength.

How to do negative reps step by step

1. Warm up the muscle group with sets of rising weight, and do the negatives before your working sets.
2. Set the weight: with a partner start at 105% of 1RM; in 2/1 take 70-80% of your two-limb 1RM.
3. Lower over 3-5 s through the full range of motion; count in your head or run a 60 bpm metronome on your phone.
4. End the set at RIR 1, when you have one 3 s descent left; in negatives, RIR is the number of 3 s descents you could still do. If a descent took less than 3 s, the set was one rep too long.
5. In the first week do 1 set per exercise, from the second week 2-3.
6. Rest 90-120 s on machines and with bodyweight, 2-3 min with a barbell.

Negative rep examples in kg and seconds

The examples assume a 1RM from the calculator; on a machine, round the weight to the nearest plate in the stack.

Negatives on the bar, machines and bench

Negatives are easiest where you get back to the top without load or with help from the other limb.

Negative reps vs slow eccentrics, forced reps and drop sets

Soreness after negatives and how to limit it

Your first session of negatives, like any new exercise with lots of lowering, usually brings strong delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS): lowering under load damages muscle more often and more severely than other work (Cheung et al. 2003). That's normal and doesn't mean your technique was off; the same paper advises introducing such exercises over 1-2 weeks. In trained lifters the difference is small: after heavier lowering, soreness was similar to regular sets (Zhang et al. 2026).

One session protects the muscle from this damage in later sessions (the repeated bout effect) for at least 6 months (Nosaka et al. 2001), so after a six-month break start with one light set. A light session 2 days earlier helps too: in one study, 50 lowerings at 10% of maximal strength cut peak muscle soreness by 36-54% (Huang et al. 2019). In the gym that's, e.g., 3 × 15-20 slow lowerings with the lightest weight.

Common mistakes

1. Too much weight to start. A weight you can't control comes down in 1-2 s. Start at 105% of 1RM and add weight once every descent lasts the full 5 s.
2. Heavy negatives at the end of a workout. With tired muscles it's easier to lose control of the bar at the bottom of the movement, so do them after your warm-up.
3. Negatives in every workout. Heavier lowering raises perceived fatigue and needs longer recovery (Zhang et al. 2026). Keep them to 1-2 exercises once a week per muscle group.
4. Negatives logged as a regular set. 110 kg × 3 lowering only looks the same in your log as 110 kg × 3 full reps and inflates your estimated 1RM. Log them separately, as in the last section.

What the research says

You often read that negatives build more muscle because they damage more fibers. Studies don't show that: eccentric training comes out ahead only when compared with training that only lifts the weight (concentric-only).

It's unknown whether negatives after failure add anything beyond the set to failure itself, or whether they lead to a first pull-up faster than band-assisted pull-ups.

What SmartWorkout logs show

The typical set in the logs falls within the range we recommend to start with, and those who logged a first full pull-up usually did so a few weeks after their first negative. Every number is based on at least 50 people.

How to log negative reps in SmartWorkout

You log negatives in SmartWorkout as working sets or in the exercise note; there is no separate set type for them.

1. Log bodyweight negatives under the “Negative Pull-Up”, “Negative Push-Up” or “Nordic Hamstring Curl” exercises; reps are the number of lowerings.
2. Log barbell negatives as your own exercise: at the end of the exercise list tap “Add new Exercise”, name it e.g. “Negative Bench Press” and select the muscles under “Muscle Groups”. The lowering weight then stays out of your regular bench press records.
3. Write negatives at the end of a regular set in the exercise note (the icon next to “Add Set”), e.g. “+2 negatives”; in the set, keep the reps you lifted on your own and RIR 0.
4. Enter the lowering time as the first digit in the “TEMPO” field (logging tempo), e.g. 5000; if the field isn't there, turn on “Show tempo” in “Workout Settings”.

A set of negatives counts toward your weekly sets like any working set; negatives written in the exercise note add no sets.

You can paste this fragment through plan import (Workout > My Plans > “+” > “Import plan”); a 5000 tempo means lowering only. Import costs 10 AI credits, so the welcome credits cover it.

DAY: Upper A- Negative Pull-Up | 3x3-5 RIR 1 | TEMPO 5000 | REST 120- Dumbbell Bench Press | 3x8-12 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 120- Cable Lat Pulldown | 3x8-12 RIR 2 | TEMPO 2011 | REST 120- Assisted Pull-Up | 2x6-10 RIR 2 | TEMPO 2011 | REST 90