You should know that these can be so challenging and may not be appropriate for people who just started training. Make sure that you learn the proper exercise form and get used to it first and progress from there.
I added an image of training during a personal training session below!
Breakdown training
This training method requires you to train to muscle fatigue, then immediately reduce the resistance by 10% to 20% and perform as many additional repetitions as possible (typically three to five repetitions) to attain a deeper level of muscle fatigue.
Assisted Training
This approach requires you to train to muscle fatigue, then receive manual assistance from someone on the lifting phase (concentric movement) for three to five post fatigue repetitions. Remember that you don’t only train your muscles on concentric phase but also you will train them on eccentric phase.
Example of Concentric and Eccentric
Pull up for instance, going up phase is called concentric and going down phase is called eccentric. The primary mover of muscle always shortens itself to concentric phase (for pullup, lat and biceps are the primary muscles).
That’s because people are about 40% stronger on eccentric muscle actions than on concentric muscle actions, you do not receive assistance on the lowering phase to complete assisted training.
Assisted Training during Personal Training session
We worked on bench press that day with weights that he could do maximum 8 – 10 repetitions with, and then added 2 – 3 repetitions after he hit failure on concentric phase. I only helped him on the concentric phase but he has to do it by himself on the eccentric phase. We completed 2 sets of assisted bench press.
Just because your muscle feels fatigued, doesn’t mean you lose all strength in the concentric phase. Make sure that you spot him/her a little for the lifter (just around 5 – 15lb of help) and let the lifter work in order to get the optimal result.
Go check the part 1 of hypertrophy training here