About 10 to 12 years ago, I strongly suspected that my mentality towards strength training had always been wrong. During the first two to three decades of regular workouts with weights, I believed that the only way to experience an increase in strength was to increase the training stress. My focus was purely on increase, increase, increase. However, when I would ask myself why a muscle would actually want to get stronger when lifting a heavy weight, the only reason I could come up with was that getting stronger would make it easier to lift the same weight. If this is what the body is trying to accomplish when it gets stronger, then my workouts should reflect this concept. The question is, how is it possible to train in a progressive manner while the workouts get easier? It seemed to be a horrible contradiction.
Transition Points = Training Thresholds
After much thought, I finally saw that there was a transition point towards the end of a set where there is a sudden increase in the difficulty of the reps. There is also a transition point when repeating sets where the sets suddenly start to get harder. Likewise, there is a transition point when increasing weight from set to set where it suddenly gets harder to maintain good form and lift with decent force and speed. I often call these transition points, training thresholds or a precision points. In my opinion, they are strategic points that you can use as a focal point of training to determine how hard to push a set of multiple reps. These points can also help you determine how many sets to perform, and how heavy to lift if you are doing single reps.
Transition Points Advance as You Gain Strength
Any time you get stronger, the transition point advances to a different point. In other words, if you gain strength, you can do more reps before the reps suddenly start to get harder. This means if you are bench pressing 185 pounds and it suddenly starts to get harder when you hit your 7th rep, an increase in strength will allow you to do 8 reps before it suddenly starts to get harder. In this case, you may be able to do 9 or 10 reps if you push to failure, but you can start out by stopping your sets at the 7th rep since it is the point in this example where the reps suddenly get harder. As you gain strength, the sudden increase in the difficulty of the 7th rep will dissipate until it vanishes because the sudden increase in difficulty will advance to the 8th rep. However, you won’t be doing an 8th rep, because the goal is to gain strength by allowing the same amount of weight and reps to become easier. After the same training gets easier for a while, you can increase the weight so that it gets harder, and repeat the same process of allowing it to get easier again.
This same principle can be applied to the number of sets. In other words, if you can remain at full strength for three sets, but the fourth set suddenly feels harder because of fatigue from the first three sets, then you can push to your fourth set with the same amount of weight and reps from workout to workout until you can do all four sets at full strength. In the process, the same weight, reps, and sets become easier to perform, which is exactly what your body wants to happen. You can then add a little weight so that the workouts will get harder, and repeat the process of allowing the same weight, sets, and reps to become easier again.
If you only focus on trying to increase the weight, reps, and set, and you never allow the same training to become easier, then your body will eventually rebel against the constant increase in stress. This is because your body is actually trying to decrease the amount of stress it takes to lift the same weight when it gets stronger. A sticking point will be the result because constant increase, increase, increase, without ever allowing the same training to become easier is what causes what I refer to as the training pattern that kills progress.
Maybe I’m Crazy and Clueless
Allowing the same workouts to become easier gave me better results and proved to be a much better strength gaining strategy in my own experience than to apply constant overload and to focus on increase, increase, increase. What mystified me, was that for years, I couldn’t find anyone else who had this perspective. I was beginning to wonder if I was crazy and considered the possibility that I had lost my ability to reason objectively in regard to how strength training works after decades of experience. But finally, an amazing thing happened.
It Finally Happened
This past week, I found a high level coach who thinks the same way I think. He actually believes that you should keep doing the same training until it gets easier over time. He happens to be a gymnastics coach, but his gymnasts are known for being immensely strong, so he specializes in strength training through the use of exercises that he has used for years to help his athletes get super strong. These exercises are not just for competitive gymnasts, the strength training program is also for adults, even older adults who just want to get stronger and gain a greater range of functional mobility. The coach’s name is Christopher Sommer. His belief that training should start out hard and grow easier over time is explained in a discussion when doing an interview with Tim Ferriss. Take the time to read what Christopher Sommer says by reading the following excerpt from this conversation with Tim Ferris:
“We want people to go through training…..we want them to be super simplistic. We want their training to go through a period of overload, where whatever they’re doing is kicking their butt. It’s hard, it’s intense. And then without changing reps or sets, we want the body to go into a period of load, where that same amount of work, that same load, same exercise, same reps, same sets, feels moderately difficult. It’s feeling easier because the body has gotten stronger. Where people always cut it short, where they undermine themselves, is they don’t go into underload. To be super simplistic, underload is where you say, ‘Man, I’m just not feeling like I’m working very hard.’ You’re moving the same weight, you’re doing the same reps, you’re doing the same sets, right? But you feel like you’re just cutting it short. What people tend to do is they want to ride that razors edge. I did this much today, I’m going to do more next week.”
Coach Sommer says that he had one of his top gymnasts do the same strength training workout for a year. No changes in sets, reps, or weight. The only thing that changed was that the workout got easier, and as it got easier, he was able to do the same workout in a shorter amount of time.
If you are interested in Coach Sommers strength training program, go to gymnasticbodies.com or click on the following links.
Conclusion
When starting out as a beginner, you may be able to focus a lot more on increasing the weight because most people can gain faster in the first three to six months of training than a lifter who has been training consistently for a couple of years or more. However, when you reach the point where it becomes hard to keep making progress, think about allowing the same weight, sets, and reps to become easier for quite a while before adding weight. Best of training to you.
Related Resources
The following books will go into more explanation of how you can set up your workouts so that you gain strength by allowing the same workload to get easier over time. Click on the covers to read for free.
