Excerpt from The Stack e-zine
If you've been training for a while, you'll reach a point when adding more resistance to certain movements just isn't going to happen.
You might just be dealing with the natural challenge of plateaus, or your body may be telling you that adding more weight simply isn't a good idea at that time. It's important to listen to your body during these periods, and you can respond in one of two ways. You can be stubborn and try to add resistance anyway, which many times will lead to burnout and/or injury. Or you can be smart and utilize progressions that still increase the challenge of your training but do not increase the weight load.
When adding more weight is your only method and measurement of progression, your progression will inevitably come to a screeching halt at some point. You will also miss out on equally (or even greater) strength and hypertrophy adaptations that come when implementing other methods of progression to an exercise. Below are strategies that smart trainees can utilize to progress their training when adding more weight just isn't an option. After using them, you'll likely find you're bigger, stronger and in less pain than before.
1). Pump Up the Volume: To grow stronger and build more muscle, the body (including the muscles, tendons and nervous system) must experience an overall greater workload over time. Although adding more weight is the most simple and common way to do this, you can also adjust the volume, or the amount of your training in some way. Here we are talking about increasing your reps and/or sets to drive adaptation. Simple, right? Yes, it is.
You can simply perform more reps per set at the same resistance (10 reps of 25 pounds versus 8 reps of 25 pounds), or you can tack on an extra set or two of the same movement at the same resistance (4 sets of squats for 10 reps at 75 versus 3 sets of 10 at 75). But an even more powerful way to increase your volume is to utilize intensity-boosting methods that result in more volume. These methods include rest pauses, drop sets and partial range of motion reps.
a). Rest/Pause: You can utilize the Rest Pause technique following the last scheduled set of an exercise. When you reach that final set, perform the target number of reps as you would with a normal set (let's say it was 6 reps in this case). After completing your 6th rep, rack the weight and rest for 15-20 seconds. Immediately following that brief rest, perform as many clean reps as possible using the same resistance. For most people, this is usually 2-5 reps. After those additional reps, you can even take another 15- to 20-second break and see if you can then squeeze out a few more reps. This is known as a double rest pause. Rest pauses allow you to increase your volume and workload without a big additional time commitment.
b). Drop Sets: Drop sets are a variation of rest pause sets. During the final scheduled set of an exercise, complete the target number of reps and rack the weight. Now you are going to reduce the resistance used by 10-20% before completing another set of as many good reps as possible. Again, you can do this twice for a double drop set. An example might look like this: Last set of front squats = 75 pounds for 6 reps Drop set 1 = 65 pounds for as many good reps as possible Drop set 2 = 55 pounds for as many good reps as possible.
c). Partial Range of Motion Reps: When you can no longer move a resistance through a full range of motion, you can still add to your workload by completing partial range of motion reps (also known as "partials.")
No, this isn't "cheating"—it's simply performing more work than you otherwise would have.
There are two ways you can use partials. The first is to complete the target number of reps with a certain load and then immediately complete as many good partial reps as possible. The other method is a form of a rest pause where you would complete the target number of reps and then rack the weight, rest for 15-20 seconds, and then complete as many good partials as possible.
Unless you have a spotter to help keep you safe, you want to perform your partial reps in the strongest range of movement during a given exercise. Let's use the front squat as an example again. You would complete the target number of reps through a full range of motion. When it's time for your partials, you would complete as many reps as possible through just the top half segment of the squat (so you'd only get about half as deep as you would on a normal rep). You could do the same for the bench press, using the top half of the range of motion for the partials.
2). Alter Your Tempo for More Time Under Tension: Going Slower or Faster Provide Different Challenges
a). Slow Down for More Time Under Tension: Intentionally slowing the eccentric (muscle lengthening) and/or concentric (muscle shortening) component of a movement creates an overall greater time under tension (muscular contraction).
This greater time under tension creates a metabolic environment that is conducive to muscle growth and adaptation. When a movement is taken from roughly 3-5 seconds of total contraction time to 6-10-plus seconds of total contraction time, there is a blood flow exclusion effect that creates a hormonal cascade. This helps trigger greater hypertrophic adaptations. Translation: bigger and better gains.
Throw in strategic isometric pauses during the most challenging segment of the movement and you are now enhancing your strength endurance as well as explosive strength at that specific point in the movement. Gaining strength and confidence in the hardest part of the movement will invariably allow you to move more weight throughout the entire movement when you go back to regular tempo / non-pause reps.
Along with this, the fact that you will be utilizing the same (or less) resistance when compared to regular tempo reps means the joints and working musculature experience less overall force and stress. Less stress allows the tissues to recover and stay healthy for the long term.
Utilize slower tempo and isometric work with your primary compound movements for a four- to six-week block to see significant improvement. Perform a movement with a 3- to 5-second eccentric phase (lengthening) and a 3- to 5-second concentric (shortening) phase. Or you can perform a movement with a 2- to 5-second pause at the most difficult point of the movement (think the bottom of a squat or bench press, or at the top of a chin-up or row).
If you really want to up the intensity, perform a slower tempo movement and an isometric pause at the toughest part of said movement. You will really hate life when training with this method, but the strength and size it can bring about will more than make up for it.
b). Work Faster to Boost Density: The opposite strategy. decreasing your rest time or challenging yourself to complete more work in less time is another method of smart progression. Known as EDT (escalated density training), this technique simply means you are doing more work in a given period of time than you were before.
This can happen in two ways. First, you can either complete the same amount of work in a shorter duration (4 sets in 6 minutes versus 4 sets in 7 minutes, for example). Second, you can increase the work completed in the same duration of time (5 sets in 7 minutes versus 4 sets in 7 minutes, for example).
Less recovery time per given amount of work creates greater systemic stress on the body. This stimulus creates an environment for the body to respond by releasing hormones conducive to growth and adaptation, namely growth hormone.
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