Despite what Planet Fitness commercials would have people believe, there is a lot of thought that goes into lifting weights. Just lifting things up and putting them down

How Most People See Lifters

will get you almost nowhere…unless your eventual goal is cortisone injections in your spine.

Today I am going to put out a few methods that I find incredibly helpful. I like to utilize them in all of my workouts, but I also like to pick one of the lifting methods and use it as a burn out and that will be the challenge for this weekend. We will talk about that below, but for now let’s discuss some lifting techniques. Many of you will already know some of them, but it can’t hurt to have a refresher.

Arnold’s 1-10 System (strip Set)

The 1-10 system is one of my absolute favorite burnouts. Essentially, it is a strip set. What you want to do here is pick a lift. I usually do this one with barbell curls, but also like applying it to bench press. At the end of your workout when you are totally shot, grab a weight that you can perform only one rep with. Do that rep and then grab a lighter weight and do 2 reps.

The Oak Knew Biceps

Drop that weight and grab a lighter one for 3 reps. So on and so forth until you hit a set of 10. The blood will totally rush to the muscles creating the always desired “pump” (explained below) and really does wonderful for the muscle.

21’s

I am going to just put this out there: I LOVE 21’s. Not only do you get an intense bicep isolation workout, but if you control your lifts you also will get a killer core workout in the process. Grab a barbell and do half a curl until you are at 90 degrees. Do this 7 times and then stop at 90 degrees and do the top half of the rep 7 times. After that do the full ROM 7 times for a total of 21 lifts. 7 sets of 21’s is one of my favorite post workout burnouts.

All the lactic acid

The fun thing about 21’s is that once you dial in the correct weight they are shockingly thorough. You think of bicep curls and their variations as isolation exercise, but you do 7 sets of 21’s and tell me that the workout was isolated to your bicep…i dare you.

I remember when I first had J.nyx doing 21’s and he sent me a message asking if it was supposed to hurt his abs. This is the kind of thing that makes me happy as a coach.

Eccentric Movement (Negatives)

Dorian Yeats was a huge proponent of eccentric lifts

When you move weight there are three different movements. There is the concentric movement or contraction, eccentric and static. A good example can be seen in the bench press. Moving the weight from the chest to the top position is the concentric movement. Moving the weight back down is the eccentric movement. Holding the weight on top is the static movement. Too many lifters ignore the eccentric or negative motion and this is a bad habit because they are, in essence, skipping part of their lift. When you are doing your bench press (or military press or curl or whatever) really keep that mind locked into the negative motion. You will notice the difference in how you feel and look immediately. If you have a training partner or someone at your gym who you know, you can do this in a forced way. At the top part of your bench press let them push it down to your chest while you fight against it. They will eventually power it to the bottom of the movement. This is called a forced negative and will make your muscles explode.

Rest Pause

You think you are done with your lifts? You think you are at failure. Oh no. There is always more left in the tank. At the static portion of the lift stop. Hold the weight. Get your heart rate under control and then get one or two more reps. If necessary rerack the weight for 10 seconds and then get it moving again. Remember, we aren’t lifting for 1RM so a 10 second rest should be enough for you to send the weight for another ride. Do this AMRAP after your set.

Just hang out down there a bit. Trust me, it will be worth it.

Poliquin Pauses

The great Charles Poliquin suggests that when doing pull-ups you pause every few inches. Think maybe 8 5 second pauses per pull-up at different positions during the rep. Give it a shot and watch how hard you are shaking after a set of 10 pull-ups. I believe that Poliquin’s Pauses can be added to any lift. One of my favorite is the deadlift. Give this a shot: Load the bar with enough weight to do 10 reps at roughly 8 RPE. Then stop and hold for five seconds 8 different times between the starting position and the lock out and then 8 more times on the eccentric movement downwards. Do that 10 times. Those 10 deadlifts are going to destroy your freaking world

What we are chasing here is “The Pump.” A lot of people will, incorrectly, think that working towards the pump is about aesthetics only, but the truth is that what the pump is is simply increased blood flowing to the muscle.

Yours Truly with fresh pump. #teambeater

More blood to the muscle means more muscle and more strength gains. The pump may not last all week, but the positive influence it has on the muscle will. Aside from the magical feeling that you get when you have a full pump and aside from the benefits of the blood rush to the muscles, there is an increase in strength, vitality and overall mental and physical power.

If you have been lifting and chasing 5 pound increments to increase the weight on the bar rather than chasing the pump it is time to stop. As always, I remind you to focus your mind inwards to your body rather than outwards to the weight on the bar. The weight on the bar is merely a tool.

So today’s challenge is to take one of these classic body building tricks and give it a shot. Let me know how it went!  Also, if you have never watched the classic 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, I have posted a youtube link to it below. You really should watch it.

Quote of the Day: “The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is… The Pump. Let’s say you train your biceps. Blood is rushing into your muscles and that’s what we call The Pump. You muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute, and it’s really tight – it’s like somebody blowing air into it, into your muscle. It just blows up, and it feels really different. It feels fantastic.”   -Arnold