Extend Your Sets
March 24th 2007 11:30
Today I address directly a subject I have mentioned many times in discussing other topics: how to extend a set.By this I mean techniques that will help you get the utmost out of each individual set. Effective weight training is after all about forcing the muscles in your body to do the most work in the briefest time. They find this experience so disturbing that they make adaptations to limit another episode of such duress. You as a trainer are well served to remember this fact in every workout and attempt to elicit this response as often as you can. My list of set extenders-neither exhaustive nor in order of importance- is:
1. Forced Repetitions: you do as many reps as come easily and naturally. At that point you bear down and force the muscle to do more reps when it is progressively beginning to fail. This may involve just gritting your teeth and working and it may involve using momentum generated by the hips etc to make the forced reps easier. You will probably know what to do to "cheat" out a few last reps. If you cheat before you reach failure, you are wasting a set.
2. Rest-Pause: When the easy and natural reps stop and you have forced a few extras, cheating on the last couple, you can stop altogether for a second or so and then try some more reps. I think about two or three seconds will be just right. The body's recovery reaction restores a significant portion of original strength after three seconds. That means that your brief pause will allow you to begin again to do reps. These reps won't last very long,but your muscle will be forced past its comfort zone.
3. Assisted Reps: Grab a gym buddy or nice person and ask them to "spot" you. "Spot" is gym lingo for help! Do your easy reps and then let them help you with your forced reps. Certain movements have sticking points-points in the movement when the muscle is unable to continue. If your spotter helps you ever so slightly, you will be able to overcome these sticking points and add valuable reps to the set.
4.Partial Reps: If you have done any/all of the above and your muscle cannot do another complete movement, you can ramp up the workload by doing whatever part of the rep your body is capable of doing. You can do the top of a movement or the bottom. It doesn't matter. In a curl, for instance, you can raise the weight a couple of inches or at the top of the movement you can lower the weight a few inches and bring it to the apex of the movement again.
5. Isometric Contraction: If you have reached a point where you cannot budge the weight, you can increase the stimulation by simply trying to do another rep. The muscle will contract but no movement will occur. This is still beneficial,because the contraction adds to the workload. When you are doing a shoulder press, for example, and can no longer get even a partial up movement, just push against the bar even though its not moving. You'll understand.
The best thing about set extenders is that you can use all or any on any set. The point is to put the muscle on notice. Your servant, as always.
Don't extend your sets here!
1. Forced Repetitions: you do as many reps as come easily and naturally. At that point you bear down and force the muscle to do more reps when it is progressively beginning to fail. This may involve just gritting your teeth and working and it may involve using momentum generated by the hips etc to make the forced reps easier. You will probably know what to do to "cheat" out a few last reps. If you cheat before you reach failure, you are wasting a set.
2. Rest-Pause: When the easy and natural reps stop and you have forced a few extras, cheating on the last couple, you can stop altogether for a second or so and then try some more reps. I think about two or three seconds will be just right. The body's recovery reaction restores a significant portion of original strength after three seconds. That means that your brief pause will allow you to begin again to do reps. These reps won't last very long,but your muscle will be forced past its comfort zone.
3. Assisted Reps: Grab a gym buddy or nice person and ask them to "spot" you. "Spot" is gym lingo for help! Do your easy reps and then let them help you with your forced reps. Certain movements have sticking points-points in the movement when the muscle is unable to continue. If your spotter helps you ever so slightly, you will be able to overcome these sticking points and add valuable reps to the set.
Extend your sets here!
4.Partial Reps: If you have done any/all of the above and your muscle cannot do another complete movement, you can ramp up the workload by doing whatever part of the rep your body is capable of doing. You can do the top of a movement or the bottom. It doesn't matter. In a curl, for instance, you can raise the weight a couple of inches or at the top of the movement you can lower the weight a few inches and bring it to the apex of the movement again.
5. Isometric Contraction: If you have reached a point where you cannot budge the weight, you can increase the stimulation by simply trying to do another rep. The muscle will contract but no movement will occur. This is still beneficial,because the contraction adds to the workload. When you are doing a shoulder press, for example, and can no longer get even a partial up movement, just push against the bar even though its not moving. You'll understand.
The best thing about set extenders is that you can use all or any on any set. The point is to put the muscle on notice. Your servant, as always.
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