The Proper Way To Lift For The Most Muscle Gains
There's a lot of ways to lift correctly. And there's a lot of ways to lift wrong.
Too often I see people in the gym throwing weight around, without any control, intent, or purpose.
They're "weightlifting" not "bodybuilding."
Don't just go into the gym to move weight.
MOVE WEIGHT WITH A PURPOSE.
You can't just swing the weights around with no control, and you can't speed through a set and think it's going to be effective.
Training the body requires FOCUS.
Focus on the task at hand, and SLOW DOWN YOUR REPS.
If you watch me lifting in the gym, you'll notice that I'm not lifting like most other people in the room.
Nearly everyone else lifts with a constant tempo, and it's usually rushed. Think 1 second UP and 1 second DOWN on every rep of a movement. Just fast and choppy. Damn near pointless.
You'll notice the positive and negative phases of MY movements will typically have different tempos. And it's typically a FAST & EXPLOSIVE positive... and a SLOW & CONTROLLED negative. That looks like 1 second UP and 2-5 seconds DOWN. This tempo is fantastic for adding more time under tension and building muscle.
Implementing this one change alone will completely alter your training.
Everything will be MORE EFFECTIVE & you'll make FASTER PROGRESS.
The point of training is to actually train the body, and that requires discomfort in the short-term to realize a long-term goal. You can't just sling weight around & never actually concentrate stress onto the muscles in a targeted way.
In the words of Chris Jones, "No swingin'. No jerkin'. Let the muscles do the workin.'"
Embrace the discomfort & enjoy the results.
Every time you want to rush a set, force yourself to slow down.
Drop the weight if you have to, just complete QUALITY sets with an intelligent tempo.
Resist the urge to speed up your reps. Slow down those negatives. And stay explosive, but controlled, on the positives.
It will take time to get adjusted to, and yes, it's going to feel harder, but that's the point.
We're here to WORK, not screw around.
Talk to you soon,
Nick Hagood
Spartan Training & Coaching