Lengthened Partials: The Key to Spectacular Muscle Growth, or Just Another Overblown Gym Fad?

What the research shows about the latest lifting craze.

For the longest time, prevailing wisdom has held that resistance exercises should be performed through their full range of motion. Short choppy movements were seen as cheating, while lifting ungodly weights in the top few inches of a movement was seen as a misguided ego-boosting endeavor.

Every now and then, of course, the prevailing wisdom is challenged. If you read or watch even a smattering of online training content, you'll have noticed that “lengthened” partials are currently the hot topic in the world of weight training.

When lengthened partials first became a thing, proponents were claiming they would accelerate muscle growth when compared to full range of motion training. More recently, the gushing claims have been tempered somewhat. Currently, the reigning consensus among commentators is that research shows lengthened partials are at least equal to, and in some cases superior to full ROM training.

But is that even true?