Two Goals
Your body has two basic goals that it is trying to accomplish when it gains strength.
Goal #1:
If you make your workout hard enough, your body gets stronger in order to make it easier to lift the same weight.
Goal #2:
Your body becomes stronger to keep additions of weight from become harder (or to minimize the degree to which the workouts increase in difficulty). This assumes that you are not starting out with a severe training stress in your first workout and trying to add weight on top of it.
When to Use Goal #1 or Goal #2
The main question to consider in regard to these two goals is this: When do you use the first goal of allowing the same weight to become easier to lift, and when do you use the second goal of adding weight to your workouts?
I suggest using precision point principles to determine when to add weight and when to let the same weight become easier to lift. The bottom line is that if you push a set to the point of your marker rep or beyond, your goal should be to allow the same workouts, weights and reps to become easier. If you don’t push to the point of your marker rep, then you can add on weight or reps from workout to workout until you reach the point of hitting your marker rep. More explanation is needed.
Allow the Marker Rep to Become Easier
I believe the best situation in which to allow the same weight to become easier is when you push to your marker rep in a set. Your marker rep is the initial point in a set where your rep pace starts to decrease. You can generally perform reps using a steady even rep pace early in a set. As you continue to do reps, you will reach a point where you cannot maintain a steady even rep pace. This is the point where there will be a noticeable decrease in the pace at which you can repeat reps. The first rep where this becomes noticeable is your marker rep.
The marker rep is a precision point or a threshold that marks the point in a set where a sudden escalation in the difficulty of your reps occurs. We’ll imagine that you reach your marker rep on the eighth rep when using 185 pounds in the bench press. You may be able to do ten or eleven reps with 185 pounds, but if your marker rep is the eighth rep, stop on your eighth rep. Keep stopping on your eighth rep in future workouts any time you are using 185 pounds for the bench press.
Since the eighth rep is the point at which reps suddenly escalate in difficulty, it will make your body more uncomfortable than the previous reps. Because of the difficulty of the marker rep, your body will try to find a way to get rid of it. How can it do this? By becoming stronger.
If you gain enough strength, the marker rep will shift form the eighth rep to the ninth rep. However, you will still only do eight reps. In doing so, your body will avoid the point at which the set suddenly escalates in difficulty which occurs at the marker rep. This is exactly what your body wants to happen when it gains strength, so let it accomplish its goal.
What happens when your body accomplishes its goal and the set becomes easier? You will find that you no longer have to slow down on your eighth rep and you will be able to use an even rep pace for all eight reps. Once you have used the same weight long enough to accomplish this, you can add a little weight and repeat the process.
Using Different Weights
In this imaginary scenario of doing eight reps with 185 pounds, would you have to use 185 pounds and do eight reps in every workout? No. You could do the following
Workout 1: Use 175 pounds for 10 reps. Hit your marker rep on your tenth rep.
Workout 2: Use 185 pounds for 8 reps. Hit your marker rep on your eighth rep.
Workout 3: Use 200 pounds for 5 reps. Hit your marker rep on your fifth rep.
You could even use these three amounts of weight in the same workout for your work sets. The main point is that if you are doing a set with for eight reps for 185 pounds, keep doing eight reps anytime you are using 185 pounds in future workouts. Don’t try to add weight or reps when using 185 pounds until the eighth rep transitions into an even paced rep that doesn’t slow down at the end of a set. The same thing would be done if you were doing 175 pounds for 10 reps or 200 pounds for 5 reps. Add weight when you can do an entire set using a steady even rep pace without slowing down at the end of the set.
There is a time to make a workout harder, and a time to allow it to become easier. You allow it to become easier when pushing to your marker rep. You can add weight to your workouts when starting below your marker rep. This shall be discussed more in the next article. Until then, best of training to you.