One of the major drawbacks of working with free weights is that you’re limited to using only as much weight as you can handle in the weakest point in the range of motion. Because each exercise has it’s own unique strength curve, your muscles are actually subjected to varying amounts of resistance as you perform each repetition.
Although the amount of weight you are lifting does not change per se, it feels different depending on where you are in the range of motion. Add to this the fact that each person has his or her own individual strength curve (based on such factors as body size, limb length, and the point of attachment where his or her tendons insert into the bones) and you can see why it’s so hard to find exercises that sufficiently overload your muscles.
Rather than accept this inherent limitation, there are a couple of ways that you can make the exercises you choose more effective. Instead of just doing standard reps, you can opt to overload strategic points in the range of motion. Two techniques that can help you accomplish this are 21’s and 1-¼ repetitions.
21’s: These have been around since the early days of bodybuilding. Though most commonly associated with biceps curls, they can also be done with a host of other exercises. The idea here is to subject both the top and bottom portions of the range of motion to a greater overload than usual, in addition to performing regular full range repetitions. Using the biceps curl as an example, begin by performing seven reps from the bottom position until your forearms are parallel with the floor. After the seventh rep, lower the bar back down, but this time crank out seven regular, full range curls. Upon completion of the seventh rep, only lower the bar half way down and proceed to do the last seven reps from midpoint position to the top. In addition to biceps curls, these also work well with chest presses, triceps extensions, and calf raises.
1 ¼ Reps: Once again the goal is to subject different points in the range of motion to a greater overload than they would normally encounter. The difference is that with these you add an extra ¼ repetition to the hardest part of the lift. Using the barbell back squat as an example, descend as you normally would to the deepest point in your range of motion. Now, instead of coming back up to the starting position, only come up ¼ of the way. After a slight pause, go back down to the bottom again before coming all the way back up. That counts as 1 repetition. By increasing the time your muscles are kept under continuous tension at one of the most difficult points in the range of motion, you’re effectively creating a more potent stimulus for hypertrophy than you would with standard reps. Besides squats, you might also want to try these with shoulder presses, Romanian deadlifts, and pull-ups.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I’ve done 21’s before, and man do they blast your muscles! I’ll have to give 1 1/4 reps a try sometime, as that sounds like a really good way to work the weaker part of some of my lifts.