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Wasted Reps, Wasted Sets, Wasted Time  
by
LanceSTS
 

 One thing that we all take for granted from time to time is the perfect execution of our workout. Now Im not speaking specifically about having proper form on the exercises, adhering to the template, or keeping focused on the time of the workout and rest intervals as those things are extremely important and should be a rule with no exception. What I am talking about is every single rep in every single set that we perform each and every time we train.

How many times can you say that youve looked back on a workout, and without a doubt, every rep or every set was perfect? Well, if you want to make the most timely and rewarding progress you have ever made, I suggest you start implementing this. Lets say your workout calls for 5 sets of 5 reps on squats with 80 percent of your one rep max. That gives us 25 total repetitions in this particular squat workout. Now, of course you could go through some of the sets, lifting at a decent cadence, and still get your 25 reps in with 80 percent of your max.

So you completed your workout and now youre on to the next exercise, it will be a couple of days before you get to squat again since you have to recover. Did you get the absolute MAXIMAL benefits out of that particular squat workout? Absolutely not. You did just enough work to complete the workout but no more. The way to get the absolute MAXIMAL benefits of every rep of every set in your workout, is to put 100 percent of your bodys ability into each and every single repetition you perform. This means that if you have 220 pounds on the bar and you are capable of putting 320 pounds of force into it, then you absolutely put every ounce of power in every fiber of your body into that bar, on EVERY SINGLE REP you perform. Try to bend the bar on the way up. This type of lifting is extremely conducive to not only vertical jumping gains, but maximal strength gains as well. Implement this mindset on every applicable lift in your workout and watch your gains in both strength and jumping skyrocket. Think about it next time you head to the gym. One wasted rep leads to one wasted set, one wasted set leads to one wasted workout.

Make every single rep in every single set the best rep youve ever done, then when youve finished, look back ask yourself the question, did I push each and every rep in each and every set as explosively and powerfully as possible? If your answer is yes then you are well on the way to a stronger, more athletic body and a higher vertical jump as well.

  Couldn't agree more about the importance of connecting what youre doing in training with competition, I always cue athletes (once they have a solid base form down on the exercise) to visualize a specific moment in competition when performing said exercise and have always seen a big jump in intensity.  For example, working with high jumpers and long jumpers, every time they come up from a squat or squat variation, jump on an olympic variation, bound, etc. I have them visualize toe off on the board, you get a much more aggressive lift or jumping exercise this way as well as practice in turning on more motor units for their event.  For football players it may be visualizing smashing a running back coming through the line during a squat or clean, for basketball players it may be hitting their head on the rim during a jump snatch, the combinations are endless. 

  I recently posted exactly what you are saying about believing 100% in what it is that you are doing, that is a HUGE factor in the success of any program, there are plenty of cases of athletes using a sub optimal program ending up with better results than an athlete using a better program because he believed fully in what it was he was doing.  If someone is always second guessing what it is they are doing and thinking they might need to be doing something else it will definitely hold them back mentally as well as physically, they will not put a true 100% effort into their training. 

Great post btw,  visualization during training and  that mind to muscle connection is one of the most important factors in sport yet usually one of the most neglected. 

amen to this post. Its exactly what i needed. Thx lance

You bet man, glad it helped~!@

Lance - its Steve (szb) from vertfreak101 - finally registered.

I love this post -  you guys have taught me something and I see the benefits even as an 'older' athlete with no competitions left.

Zach has been in two days of tryouts, they face cuts tomorrow and Friday -  I keep walking around saying (to myself and my wife)  Zach made the freshman basketball team (you know positive reflection).  We shall see -  he is doing well and #1 he is trying hard.  I'll update you this weekend.  We'll celebrate either way and keep training. I'm very proud of him -  he has at least 10 friends that love basketball but didn't want to tryout due to the fear of failure -  his ego doesn't get in the way and he knows to NOT try is the failure.

Relative to your post -  I have a few sayings on the wall in the gargae next to our alternate workout spot -  One is a Calvin Coolidge quote regarding "Persistence"  (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Calvin_Coolidge/) and the other is - EVERY REP, EVERY SET, EVERY WORKOUT - or Why are we here?

I incorporated the every rep rule from VF - almost every rep is an explosion.

We made it to Defranco's GYM in NJ and met about 8 NFL prospects - Zach and I loved watching those guys train and felt great about our approach, they just moved more weight.


Thanks for all the help and info.,


steve

Lance - its Steve (szb) from vertfreak101 - finally registered.

I love this post -  you guys have taught me something and I see the benefits even as an 'older' athlete with no competitions left.

Zach has been in two days of tryouts, they face cuts tomorrow and Friday -  I keep walking around saying (to myself and my wife)  Zach made the freshman basketball team (you know positive reflection).  We shall see -  he is doing well and #1 he is trying hard.  I'll update you this weekend.  We'll celebrate either way and keep training. I'm very proud of him -  he has at least 10 friends that love basketball but didn't want to tryout due to the fear of failure -  his ego doesn't get in the way and he knows to NOT try is the failure.

Relative to your post -  I have a few sayings on the wall in the gargae next to our alternate workout spot -  One is a Calvin Coolidge quote regarding "Persistence"  (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Calvin_Coolidge/) and the other is - EVERY REP, EVERY SET, EVERY WORKOUT - or Why are we here?

I incorporated the every rep rule from VF - almost every rep is an explosion.

We made it to Defranco's GYM in NJ and met about 8 NFL prospects - Zach and I loved watching those guys train and felt great about our approach, they just moved more weight.


Thanks for all the help and info.,


steve

Awesome Steve, very glad to hear that!  You guys put in some great work this offseason so I am not surprised at all that he mad it but very happy for you and him.  Love the quotes on your wall, great stuff!  you guys keep up the great work and always glad to help anyway I can, keep me posted!

This may be a late post, but I'm reading this and I have to point out:

Lifting with 100% intensity on every rep is going to kill your CNS. Think about it, 25 maximal reps (not including warm ups! some ppl ramp up the weight with all that intensity too) and then maybe another 50 maximal reps for the rest of your workout. And some people train 3x a week!

BUTTTTTTTT what people don't realize is that the body is highly adaptable. It's not just your muscles that will be able to adapt and recover faster from workouts and be able to put out more force when fatigued than before. It's also the nervous system that will slowly adapt to this new stimulus as well. So make the most of your workouts people. It's literally like fast fowarding through a huge macrocycle in your training because you'll learn to recover faster while making better gains.

Wish I knew this before. Smolov jr taught me a lot.

Quote from: Dreyth on February 09, 2011, 11:44:24 pm

This may be a late post, but I'm reading this and I have to point out:

Lifting with 100% intensity on every rep is going to kill your CNS. Think about it, 25 maximal reps (not including warm ups! some ppl ramp up the weight with all that intensity too) and then maybe another 50 maximal reps for the rest of your workout. And some people train 3x a week!

 This is wrong, and I am not advocating psyching up for all sets and reps, the point is the intent of maximal bar speed.  Lifting with a premium on SPEED of the rep, not grinding out rep after rep, is alot more cns friendly and will give more carryover to athletic performance than lifting a heavy weight slowly, the time under tension alone will be much greater for the latter, causing much more fatigue and cns drain.  Explosive lifting is used by many as a recovery method, and it works very well in that way, in fact, a good way to deload from a heavy, low rep, maximal strength block is to perform an explosvie strength block and let the cns recover.  

 The body will also obviously not be able to maintain max speed or intensity on every rep regardless of intent, so the mere fact that you say "50 maximal reps" sounds like something out of a Schroeder article, makes that impossible, and is bullshit also.  The body is very good at allowing what it can and cant handle, TRYING to move the weight as explosively as possible, will keep the rep speed higher, but it will obviously not be MAXIMAL later on in the workout.  

  Last, there is really no need to go any further into this, but many olympic lifters lift VERY CLOSE TO MAXIMAL, if not maximal, weights several days per week, in multiple sessions per day, at maximum speed, regardless of load.  They do very well with it.  The time under tension on a slow, heavy, lift, is going to cause more overall fatigue and systemic breakdown than accelerating a weight through its entire range of motion, END OF STORY.

 

Quote

BUTTTTTTTT what people don't realize is that the body is highly adaptable. It's not just your muscles that will be able to adapt and recover faster from workouts and be able to put out more force when fatigued than before. It's also the nervous system that will slowly adapt to this new stimulus as well. So make the most of your workouts people. It's literally like fast fowarding through a huge macrocycle in your training because you'll learn to recover faster while making better gains.

Wish I knew this before. Smolov jr taught me a lot.

Thats the goal of ATHLETIC training, to not only stimulate the musculature, but become more powerful and explosive as a whole, a highly trained and hard to fatigue cns.  Football, basketball, track, etc., all require extremely intense burst of speed and power, over and over and over again, throughout game after game, and practice after practice.  This is a quality that can be improved, and one of the best ways to do so is the intent to move loads as quickly and powerfully as possible.

 All that being said, there are times that tempo and slowing down a lift may be of benefit, BUT THIS IS GOING TO BE MORE DRAINING ON THE BODY, AND REQUIRE A LONGER RECOVERY PERIOD, than lifting explosively.  

 

x2.

Lance @ it again:

Quote from: LanceSTS

Here is something to think about that will help every rep you do.  think about your best jump, how it felt, how hard you had to push off the ground to get that high.  Then think about how much harder and more explosively you need to push to get 12 inches higher.  Try to imagine that happening on EVERY REP YOU DO, I have tested that with athletes and myself on the tendo unit and almost 100% of the time, we get a better power score on every rep when the visualization is used.  People wait until they are on the court, then they think, "man i wish i could get a little higher", well think about that shit when youre training, when youre under a bar and can do something about it.  Youll be surprised at the speed and power you can develop when you think about it that way.  Give it a shot man, good luck!

glad you liked that visualization method man, its been something that has worked very well for us in training , thanks for posting.