It’s the same 5lbs in both cases, but it just represents a much larger increase in terms of percentages when going from 25lbs to 30lbs than 200lbs to 205lbs. You’ll still be able to lift it for good reps, maybe just not 10 of them.īut with an exercise like lateral raises, going up those same 5lbs to 30lb dumbbells ( a 20% jump!) won’t just cause you to fall a rep or two short of 10… there’s a good chance you may not be able to do a single rep with equally good form. Now let’s say you increased your bench press by 5lbs ( a 2.5% jump) and tried to bench 205. Let’s say you can bench press 200lbs for 10 good reps and do lateral raises with 25lb dumbbells for 10 good reps. The percentage of weight that has been added is just WAY more for the lighter isolation exercise than it is for the heavier compound. So even though you may bench press or deadlift hundreds of pounds and do lateral raises with just light dumbbells, it’s the lateral raises that are going to feel the biggest difference when you add 5lbs to it. The Increase Is MUCH More Noticeableīecause of what I just mentioned, you’ll always be lifting significantly more weight (and progressing much more often) on compound exercises than isolation exercises. Isolation exercises such as bicep curls, tricep extensions and lateral raises are just these little single-joint exercises that mainly target one muscle group, often a small one. The Mechanics Of The ExerciseĬompound exercises are big multi-joint movements requiring various muscle groups to play significant roles in moving and stabilizing the weight throughout the lift. lateral raises), you’ll often find that the smallest weight increase can sometimes make it impossible to keep good form intact. BUT, your good form will (or at least should) still remain exactly the same.īut if you do the same thing with certain isolation exercises (e.g. What I mean is, adding slightly more weight to a compound exercise will usually just cause you to get slightly fewer reps than you were getting with the previous weight. Not just on the bench press, but with most compound exercises (various presses, rows, pull-ups/pull-downs, squats, deadlifts, etc.).īut with isolation exercises, things don’t usually go as smoothly. And in my experience, this is pretty typical of how successful progression often goes. The above scenario used the bench press as the example exercise. However… It’s Not Quite The Same With Isolation Exercises Once again, if you’re a regular reader of mine, you know this already. Then 8, 7, 6 after that at which point you’d go up to 210lbs the time after that and repeat this process. This is perfectly fine and normal of course. Your form was still good, you just couldn’t do as many reps. And when that time comes around, it’s pretty normal for you to get something like 7, 6, 4. Hooray! Your set/rep goal in this case (3×6-8) has been met and you’re ready to up the weight to 205lbs next time you bench. Now let’s say you got 8 reps in the first, 7 in the second, and 6 in the third. Let’s say you bench press 200lbs for 3 sets of 6-8 reps. What SHOULD happen instead is that the same good form that was being used with the previous weight remains intact, only now it’s with a weight that’s a bit heavier and maybe harder to lift. Now they’re using too much momentum, or no longer going all the way up or down, or they’re swinging the weight up and/or just letting it drop back down, bouncing the weight, lifting their back/ass/whatever off the bench/seat or any number of other things people do when their form goes to crap.
You don’t want to end up sacrificing your form in order to add weight.īecause what you’ll often see are people who think they’ve gotten stronger, but in reality their form has just gotten slightly worse to compensate for the slightly heavier weight. However, you may have noticed my use of the phrase “ while keeping good form intact.” This is crucial.
If you’ve been a reader of mine long enough, this was already obvious information to you (and that alone instantly makes you smarter than half the people in your gym). Or at least for as long as we need to for our desired results to be achieved. This then continues as often as we can ( while keeping good form intact) and for as long as we can. So once we’re capable of lifting 100lbs on some exercise, we go up to 105lbs. With weight training, the most basic and common way of increasing those demands is by increasing the amount of weight we lift. If you’re not increasing the demands being placed on your body in some form over time, your body won’t be improving. The key to getting results from your workout is progressive overload.
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