Getting The Most Out Of Every Rep

When you’re performing an exercise don’t worry about the rep you just did, don’t worry about the rep you’re doing, and don’t worry if you’ll be able to do another. Your goal isn’t to do reps, your goal is to use the resistance to efficiently load the muscles you’re targeting with the exercise. Performing some number of repetitions is not your goal; your rep count is just a record of exercise performance for later evaluation. Intense muscular contraction and effectively stimulating increases in muscular strength and size is your goal (and if you do that, improvements in all the supporting factors of functional ability like cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning and bone and connective tissue strength will follow). Stay focused on the present, focused on making the rep you’re doing as hard as possible and on intensely contracting the target muscles. You’ll get a lot more benefit from the exercise doing this than if you just focus on making weight go up and down.

I’ve said it hundreds if not thousands of times: how you do each rep is more important than how many reps you do.

It’s an easy thing to say or write, but it can be a very hard thing to do consistently. Even after over twenty years of doing and teaching high intensity training I still have to remind myself before workouts and I still slip sometimes and catch myself focusing on what I’m doing to the weight with my muscles instead of what I’m doing to my muscles with the weight.

What exercise is about
It’s difficult when you know doing the exercise correctly makes it so much harder. Especially when your muscles burn and your heart pounds and you’re thinking all it would take to make it easier is to move your body a little to gain some leverage, go a little faster through the harder parts of and a little slower through the easier ones, and offload some of the work to other muscle groups. But that’s when you need to remember why you’re doing it and do the exact opposite: maintain proper positioning and keep the tension where it belongs on the target muscles, don’t rush through the hard parts and don’t slow down through the easier parts or pause to rest. Go towards that pain and embrace it instead of running away from it, because that is what makes you stronger.

Don’t just go through the motions like everyone else in the gym. Keep your mind on your muscles and focus on intensely contracting and trying to empty them out instead of just trying to make the weights move up and down. Don’t just focus on getting each rep, focus on getting the most out of each rep.

Here are a few tips for improving your focus during your workouts:

    1. Meditate regularly. I know it sounds like new-agey nonsense, but it works.
    1. Take a few minutes to relax and visualize your workout before you begin.
    1. Think about your goals and why achieving them is worth the momentary pain of intense exercise.
    1. Think about the muscles you’re going to target before starting an exercise.
    1. Ignore everybody else in the gym. You’re there to work out, not to socialize or compete.
    1. If the gym is noisy, wear noise-cancelling headphones to reduce distractions.
  1. Work out with a good trainer or training partner who understands how to keep you focused.

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  • Neal Teeman Mar 9, 2016 @ 14:34

    Great advice! As usual!

    • Drew Baye Apr 4, 2016 @ 19:55

      Thanks Neal,

      I hope it helps you get more out of your workouts.

  • Bojan Mar 10, 2016 @ 9:44

    As I listened, watched and read your material, I know you expressed this many times before Drew and I still catch myself doing the opposite most of the time. I believe one must be present to the moment to make the most effective exercise. In another words, mediatation, as you said.
    Perhaps reading Eckhart Tolle would help!

    Thank you and keep the valuable info coming!

    • Drew Baye Apr 3, 2016 @ 19:11

      Hey Bojan,

      Meditation definitely helps, and I notice a significant difference in how intensely I’m able to train when I am consistent with my pre-workout meditation, visualization, and auto-suggestion. I’m planning to record a guided meditation for this purpose at the request of some of my clients which you might find helpful.

  • DanC Mar 10, 2016 @ 23:19

    Hi Drew. Great post as usual. This part “It’s an easy thing to say or write, but it can be a very hard thing to do consistently” is so very true. It’s tough to not get caught up in the number of reps at a certain weight because we want to see progress, and progress gets harder to come by the older we get, and the longer we’ve been training. I am beginning a phase of trying to cut some fat by restricting my eating. Assuming I’m pretty diligent, it should take about 2 months and some change. Nothing drastic, I’d just like to drop a dozen pounds. History tells me that I will lose a little bit of strength while doing this, which I HATE. It’s hard to not be able to get quite as many reps as before, even if the mirror is looking better. My solution has been to switch to a negative emphasized rest pause model for a couple of exercises. I like fighting the slow negatives and doing holds, and the results seem to be pretty good. It’s a cheap psychological ploy against myself, but it’s working. The only problem is that I seem to be making some gains that are offsetting the fat loss on the scale, which is not really a problem at all. I haven’t changed exercises, I’ve just changed how I do a couple of them.

    Also on this topic, Trying to teach my 13 year old son to focus on loading the muscles is proving to be a challenge. He wants to jerk the weights, and is (of course) coached to do so in his school’s S&C program. What they do is nothing short of a nightmare, but that’s another story. I’ve found that having him do static holds with bodyweight exercises like pushups, chins, and wall sits forces him to contract those muscles and do nothing else. Wall sits are just awesome. I’m sure his coaches would be horrified, though they seem to think planks are just fine for some reason.

    Thanks for being a voice of reason in such an insane line of work. I don’t know what I’d do without this site as a resource. I gave Project Kratos to my brother for Christmas, and he’s about to get started (about time is more like it).

    • Drew Baye Apr 3, 2016 @ 10:59

      Hey Dan,

      It’s possible to maintain or even increase muscular strength and size while fat is lost if you train and eat correctly for it, but the leaner you are the more carefully you have to balance these.

      It’s great that you’re teaching your son to train properly and one of the best things we can do for our children’s long term health and happiness. Hopefully his coaches don’t undermine the more valuable lesson’s you’re teaching him with all the explosive training nonsense typical of many S&C programs.

      I hope your brother enjoys the results he gets from Project Kratos, and please let him know if he has questions about it he can ask questions here.

  • Al Mar 12, 2016 @ 4:18

    Great article as always. One thing I’ve been meaning to ask you. Appetite has gone up tremendously. Is this normal when doing hit? I don’t mean appetite going up after workout but even on non workout days appetite is high.

    • Drew Baye Mar 25, 2016 @ 13:19

      Hey Al,

      Thanks, and yes, a lot of people have a significant increase in their appetite after their high intensity training workouts, some times lasting a few days. All the more reason to meticulously track your food intake if you’re trying to optimize body composition.

  • Harry Simonis Mar 22, 2016 @ 15:28

    Hi Drew,

    I hope you are well!

    I’m glad I found your blog. I really agree that ‘how you do each rep is more important than how many reps you do.’, its the same as quality over quantity. I also find myself drifting away from the quality of reps, and sometimes end up just going for quantity which I shouldn’t!

    Tip 2 of improving focus on workouts I find really helpful! It’s amazing what you can achieve with the mind!

    All the best,

    Harry

    P.S Please keep up the good content!

    • Drew Baye Mar 25, 2016 @ 13:17

      Hey Harry,

      Thanks for your feedback, and as long as people keep reading them I’ll keep writing them. If you find the information here helpful please recommend it to others and help support the web site by buying my books.

  • Chief Mar 23, 2016 @ 8:22

    Great read Drew!

    For the very first time, I will proceed to train outside for the whole summer! No more “dusty and noisy basements” (gyms), hah! Meditation might help, maybe I should really try, but I think for the most part, sunshine, birds, fresh air (etc.) will do the trick.

    Btw, now that you are doing more YT-videos, I would love your insight on stiff-leg deadlift or deadlifts in general. What I’ve found is to use very slow cadence, and very small movement in stiff-leg deadlift (let’s say knee-high the lowest position and about mid-thigh the highest position) if I want to do it very efficiently and safely.

    TSC-SLDL also interests me, so any articles/videos would be great!

    • Drew Baye Mar 25, 2016 @ 13:06

      Hey Chief,

      I love training outdoors as well, and since we live in Florida we are able to train outside year round and keep all our equipment in a screened-in porch. When my YouTube channel hits one-thousand subscribers and I can start adding paid content I plan to start regularly posting in-depth instructional videos covering a variety of free weight, bodyweight, and machine exercises.

    • Martin Mar 31, 2016 @ 17:53

      Thanks for suggesting the SLDL topic. It’s my primary hamstring exercise. I’ve wondered if adjusting position or range of motion can make it more effective for hamstings.

      • Drew Baye Apr 3, 2016 @ 11:03

        Hey Martin,

        Yes, positioning and ROM do make a difference. I recommend performing the upper turnaround about fifteen to twenty degrees short of full extension to avoid the easier portion of the ROM.

        • Martin Apr 4, 2016 @ 15:56

          I’ll try that.

  • Chief Mar 26, 2016 @ 7:39

    Sounds great!

    I have to subscribe now.

  • Donnie Hunt Apr 9, 2016 @ 0:37

    Excellent!

    Safe, biomechanically sound, high effort, contractions. Focus on the moment by moment tension. The reps are a by product of your concentration and intent. When you’re not trying to “get more reps” or “lift weights” it really change things.

    • Drew Baye Apr 9, 2016 @ 11:33

      Hey Donnie,

      That’s the goal. You want to maximize the difficulty of an exercise while minimizing the risk of injury, and this requires you to focus on how well you lift the weights rather than how much weight you lift or how many times.

  • James Spella Jun 26, 2016 @ 20:12

    Guilty!!! I am definately going to utilize this excellent advice!!!