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At times our workouts can start to feel stale or we hit plateaus where we seem to stall out on making progress. If you’re not ready to change your workout yet, you can try adding a temporary workout intensity modifier instead. This post is dedicated to workout intensity modifiers you can add to your existing resistance workouts in order to remedy stale workouts or to add a little kick and shock the muscles. I recommend not using more than one of these modifiers per body part per week, and to also have that exercise at the end of your workout.
Drop Sets
Drop sets will kill your muscles and you will feel the burn (all in a good way). The basic principle of a drop set is to use a heavier weight to start, lift to failure and gradually decrease the weight (thus increasing the reps). This is done in concession (meaning there is very little rest between “sets”). This can be done with dumbbells or by stripping plates off of whatever bar you’re using. For example, you have 4x 25 pound plates on each side of a barbell and you bench this for a certain amount of reps. You then strip a single 25 pound plate off of each side (or, more efficiently, have a workout partner/spotter do so to minimize the interruption), then quickly crank out reps until failure again, strip off another 25 pound plate and repeat until you’re done (you can even bench the empty bar if you want). Drop sets not only work because of the metabolic load they create on the muscles, but they also promote development of the multiple different types of muscle fibers (as detailed in a past post) by utilizing high and low rep ranges.
Pyramids
Basically the opposite of drop sets. You start with a light weight and high reps and add weight gradually until you are in the 1-5 rep range. I DON”T recommend going for your one rep max (ORM) on these, in fact, I don’t recommend attempting ORM at all due to the prevalence of injuries when lifting this heavy.
Supersets
I have mentioned these before because they are a regular part of my workouts. Supersets don’t necessarily HAVE to be a workout intensity modifier if you are using different or opposing muscle groups in your workout (like a superset with triceps and hamstrings for instance). However, if you superset with complimentary body parts or the same body part this becomes an intensity modifier. For instance if you do one set of preacher curls (biceps) and then superset with hammer curls (biceps) then you are adding intensity to your biceps workouts. I don’t prefer supersets with the same body part because I feel like people end up doing cheat reps or not getting the proper volume from your workout due to increased muscle fatigue.
Eccentric Lifting or Time Under Tension (TUT)
These are two similar intensity modifiers. Eccentric lifting is simply placing a focus on the the eccentric (or the lowering phase) of the lift or ONLY lifting eccentrically and having a partner help/perform the concentric (lifting/contracting/flexing/raising) phase of the lift. With eccentric ONLY training you would usually use a much higher weight since most people are quite a bit stronger on the eccentric phase of the lift. For example, you would load up a barbell with more weight than usual (but be safe) and have a spotter/partner do MOST of the work raising the barbell for your, then you lower the barbell all by yourself. You would then have the partner/spotter repeat the assistance with the raise and continue in this pattern.
TUT training is more of a training method that has an exaggerated/longer eccentric phase of the lift and keeps you in the active lifting phase (never lock your joints out or lower/raise to the point that the muscle isn’t working). This usually requires lighter weight to achieve this since the muscle fibers are constantly under tension. Most people who practice TUT use it for their WHOLE workout, not just a few sets, but it can be used either way. An example; take a simple biceps dumbbell curl. You would lift/raise the weight as you normally would and then SLOWLY lower the weight back down (usually 4-8 seconds). You would NOT pause at the top of the lift (dumbbell raised all the way) and you would not lower the dumbbell all the way to the point where the bicep isn’t under tension anymore.
High Volume or Finisher/Flush Sets
Finisher/flush sets (or high volume sets) are a great finisher for a body part. It is used as sort of a cool down and also promotes increased blood/nutrient delivery to the muscle, which is something you want at the end of your workout in order to maximize muscle growth/repair. These sets also place a tremendous amount of metabolic stress on the muscle (which is a good thing). To do this technique you simply choose a pretty light weight and do a few (2-4) high rep sets at the end of your workout. I will sometimes go up to 20 reps with these finishers. You also will walk out of the gym with a great “pump” which not only looks good, but is also physical evidence that you have increased blood supply to the area.
Partial Range of Motion (PROM) Training
Partial range of motion (PROM) lifts are simply where you aren’t taking the exercise/muscle through the full range of motion (ROM). There are even PROM Pyramids, which I will explain in a second. An example of a PROM lift is only lowering a dumbbell bicep curl until your arm is perpendicular to the ground and then raising it again (only 50% ROM). You can do 25%, 50%, 75% ROM for these lifts. I don’t recommend PROM training routinely, but it can be used to finish off a muscle or added on occasion for an exercise or two in order to change things up.
PROM Pyramids are similar to pyramid/drop set training, but changing the ROM instead of changing the weight. A good example would be starting a bicep curl with your arms relaxed at your side, curling up through only 25% ROM, lowering the weight back down, curling to 50% (arms perpendicular to the ground as above), lowering the weight back down, curling to 75% range of motion, lowering the weight and then 100% and lowering. You can even start going back down once you hit 100% (75%, 50% then 25% again) if you have the tenacity.
I recommend that all my readers utilize full ROM with the majority of your lifts. Partial lifts or partial ROM will not hit all the muscles fibers and can be detrimental to your joint health if done improperly or too often. PROM or PROM pyramids will definitely be a good occasional finisher or occasional addition to add some metabolic stress to your muscle though.
Isometrics
There are actually two different types of isometric exercises. A “yielding isometric exercise” is where you are holding a weight at the point of maximal contraction. An “overcoming isomeric exercise” is where you are trying to move an immovable object. I think both have their place for occasional intensity modifiers. An example of a yielding isometric exercise is to hold a side lateral deltoid raise at its highest point and try to not let the weights fall back down. An example of an overcoming isometric exercise is to increase the weight on a cable machine to a weight you can’t curl (bicep curl) and work your hardest to attempt to curl the weight (you are trying to OVERCOME the weight – that’s where it gets its name). This puts the muscle under a tremendous and continuous amount of tension and tension is key for muscle development. However, by not putting the muscle through its full range of motion, you are not working all the muscle fibers. Both are good methods to add to your workouts on occasion.
Summary
As you can see I don’t recommend using any of these workout intensity modifiers on a regular basis, but they can be very useful to mix up a stale workout or to shock a stubborn muscle group. I do, however, recommend that you use supersets with different or opposing muscle groups as often as you please (this will make your workouts quicker and get your heart rate up more) and you can use finisher exercises as often as you like as well, as long as you aren’t overdoing it for any particular muscle group.