BY EBENEZER SAMUEL, CSCS
In one venerable study on unilateral strength training, 585 people trained on the exact same 12-week workout program. Some subjects saw major muscle size increases (as much as 59%), while others lost 2% of their muscle size.
Why the dramatic variance? The study didn’t guess at the reasons. But it did serve as a reminder that your workout program isn’t the sole key to gains. Very often, the separator between well-spent workout time and counterproductive training is your attention to training detail. Your goal in any workout program is simple: Get maximum training stimulus from every rep and every set.
And to do that, you need to avoid these three common workout mistakes.
MISTAKE 1: Skipping Full Range of Motion
(partial room incline press)
(full-room incline press)
The most challenging phase of any exercise occurs when your muscles are at their most stretched. That happens at the bottom of, say, a dumbbell press. And this also happens to be the part of a rep that people often cut short, much as I’m doing during this rep.
By skipping this moment, I’m missing the most muscle-building portion of the movement, when in reality, I want to spend more time here. Your goal on every rep: Spend at least one second with your muscles as lengthened as possible. That means lingering at the bottom of a squat or bench press, too. These stretched moments are key for growth. (Fun fact: During presses, you’ll often find deeper ranges with dumbbells than barbells, so, for at least a few weeks out of the year, train your dumbbell presses).
MISTAKE 2: Speeding Through the Eccentric
(overly fast bicep curl)
(proper-speed bicep curl)
Your muscles naturally have to work hard to lift a heavy load on any exercise. But as you lower the weight back to the start during, say, a biceps curl, are you in control, or is the load in control? During this curl, the load is controlling me, leading to a very quick lower to the bottom.
By doing this, I’m letting my muscles off the hook. Yes, they created mechanical tension (a key driver of strength gains) on the way up – but they do none of that when I rush the lowering portion of the rep. And that’s wasted workout time.
Whenever you lower a weight on a classic strength lift like a curl or bench press or squat, focus on lowering for at least two seconds, fighting the weight on the way down. This added mechanical tension is key for gains (even if it may lead you to use lighter weights).
MISTAKE 3: Not Tracking Your Lifts
This one seems basic, but very often, it’s forgotten – especially in this era of Instagram experts telling you to focus on “reps in reserve” and take your sets to failure. This advice can often lead you to train on “feel”. Does a rep “feel” like failure because your muscles are burning? Then maybe it is.
Tracking your lifts (either in a notebook, or simply in a notes file on your phone) will force more accountability, and it’ll instantly let you know whether you’re progressing or not. If you did 8 reps of 100-pound goblet squats last week, then you know you should push for 9 (or at least fight to get 8 again) this week. And you know that if you only do 6 reps this week, you’re not progressing.
This hard data should be the backbone of your training, and it’s the key to consistent gains, even if it is tedious. So for at least two workouts every week, track the weights and reps of your first two exercises. It’s an underrated key to faster gains.
And that’s what we all want.