There are highly motivated lifters who can’t resist the temptation of trying to break a record every time they work out. Of course this is a great way to gain rapidly when you first begin lifting, but it generally backfires with a monumental sticking point after a few months training. There are ways that lifters try to get around this problem. One way is to use different rep ranges from workout to workout so that you don’t burn out on the same rep ranges. A second way is to frequently change exercises. You change exercises every week for six to ten weeks. When you come back to the same exercise six to ten weeks later, hopefully you will be able to break a record by the time you come back to the same exercise.
There is another way to break record. I have never read about this method except when I read my own writing. Likewise, no one has ever recommended this method to me and I don’t know anyone who teaches it , although some may infer it at times. I say all this because I am guessing that many of you will think that this is a rather odd approach to breaking a lifting record. However, I offer it as an option to anyone who cares to try it. The method is this: keep using the same weight and reps for several workouts. The record you are trying to break is to lift the same weight easier for the same amount of reps. Every time the weight becomes easier to lift, you have broken a record for how easy the lift has become. When it becomes easier, it is evidence that you have become stronger. Isn’t that the main idea behind breaking a record? You can then add weight and repeat the process.
Give Your Body What it Wants
What is the purpose of lifting the same amount of weight and reps until it becomes easier to lift? The answer is that it helps your body accomplish exactly what it is trying to accomplish when it gains strength; it is trying to make a heavy weight feel lighter and easier to lift. Your body adapts this way to reduce the amount of lifting stress.
Most people think you should always try to make your training harder, but your body hates that idea. If you keep making your training harder all the time, your body will keep getting stronger in order to keep trying to make the weight easier to lift, but it will only keep trying to do this for a while. After three to six months, your body will give up on getting stronger because it recognizes that instead of making the weight easier to lift, added strength will trigger added weight, added reps, added stress, and a harder workout.
Use the Marker Rep
You can avoid this problem by giving your body time to allow the same weight and reps to become easier. The key is to design your sets in a way that makes it simple to tell whether or not they are becoming easier. This is done by stopping at your marker rep. The marker rep marks the initial point in a set where you can no longer maintain a steady even rep pace during a set. It’s the first rep that is noticeably slower and causes more strain and difficulty than the previous reps of the set.
Let it Get Easier
If your marker rep falls on your tenth rep when using 200 pounds for given lift, then you will be able to do the first nine reps using a steady even rep pace, but the tenth rep will be slower. With this awareness, keep repeating workouts using 200 pounds for ten reps. Eventually the tenth rep will become easier and you will be able to do all ten rep using a steady even rep pace. When using the marker rep method, the record you are trying break is to do all ten reps faster, easier, and with less effort.
Breaking records by allowing your marker rep to become easier is an excellent long term strategy. If you are a beginner or intermediate, you can use more of a short term strategy. This simply means that you don’t necessarily need to take the time to allow your marker rep to become easier; you can just push to near failure on your sets and keep on trying to break previous records by lifting more weight or doing more reps. However, when you stop gaining by simply trying to push yourself to a new record, you have the option of using the marker rep method where you stop at your marker rep and keep repeating workouts with the same weight and reps until it gets easier and easier. It sounds contrary to the way that most people think that progress should be made, but it works. Best of training to you.
Additional resource
A quote from a Danny Padilla interview, “I did the same exercises for 25 years and everybody would say, ‘Oh you got to change the routine.” And I’d say, “Why?” Just get better at that routine. If 225 is light, go up 10 pounds. So I stuck to the basic exercises: bench, inclines, flies, pullovers, I did it all, all the time, and as I got better at it, I just kept raising the weight.”
When Danny says just get better at the routine, I think he is saying to keep on doing it until becomes easier and feels lighter.
Danny trained in what I think of as the sweet spot in regard to using the right level of intensity and effort. When doing a set, he used a steady even rep pace until he needed to pause. After the pause, he would do one, or occasionally two more reps. Most of the time he hoovered around the marker rep as a stopping point for his sets, which you can see in the following video: