The goal of an exercise is not to lift and lower a weight, but to use the weight to impose a demand on the targeted muscles to stimulate improvements in strength, size, and other general factors of functional ability, while minimizing the risk of injury. To do this well requires positioning yourself and moving in a manner that causes the weight to provide relatively consistent and balanced resistance to the target muscles, while avoiding moving in a way or into positions where the involved tissues are exposed to potentially harmful levels of force. The better you are at doing this, the harder the exercise will be with a particular weight.
This is an important distinction, so I’m going to repeat it; all else being equal the better you are at an exercise, the harder it will be with a particular weight.
This should not be confused with skill in weight lifting, the point of which is to lift the most weight possible relative to your strength.
The biggest differences between the two have to do with leverage, speed, and time.
Depending on your body position and movement the levers against the target muscles can be longer or shorter, resulting in more or less resistance with the same weight.
Depending on your speed of movement, and more specifically your acceleration when starting or reversing direction, the tension on the target muscles may be more or less consistent. The greater your acceleration, the greater the initial resistance to movement, but the more your muscles will be deloaded over part of the range of motion.
Depending on the relative amount of time you spend in different portions of the range of motion or different phases of an exercise the tension on the muscles or metabolic demand may be higher or lower. Spending more time in positions where the levers against the target muscles are shorter and the resistance is lower makes the exercise less demanding, while spending more time in positions where the levers are longer and the resistance is higher makes the exercise harder. Spending more time performing the less metabolically demanding negative phase of the repetition makes the exercise easier than performing it just slowly enough to be able to maintain proper body position and reverse direction smoothly at the start point.
Why would you want to use less weight? If the resistance is about the same your muscles won’t “know” the difference, but your joints will, and during exercises where the levers increase significantly towards a stretched position a heavier weight increases your risk of injury (e.g. dumbbell and barbell pullovers).
Keep in mind this does not mean training with light weights and high reps, either. You should still be using a heavy enough weight to provide sufficient resistance to achieve momentary muscular failure within a reasonable amount of time (I recommend trying to keep your exercises under ninety seconds in most cases). What it does mean is you should try to use the best form possible to get the most out of every pound on the bar or weight stack, rather than just focusing on moving the weight.
What does this have to do with bodyweight exercise?
The biggest advantage of free weights and machines over bodyweight exercise is the ability to change the resistance by adding or removing weight plates or selecting more or less weight on the weight stack. It also allows people to get away with worse form, because if your form is poor you can still make an exercise demanding by adding more weight, although doing so also increases the stress on your joints and your risk of injury. Focusing on the amount of weight lifted rather than efficiently loading the muscles is what usually causes poor form.
Unless you have a weighted vest or dipping belt or heavy bands there is no practical way to increase or decrease your weight for bodyweight exercises. To change the resistance you have to learn to modify other factors like leverage, speed, and timing. Assuming you are training with the proper mindset – focusing on your muscles instead of the numbers – when you only have your bodyweight to work with you learn to become very good at using it to make exercise as hard as possible.
As part of a project to develop a bodyweight high intensity training protocol and program for use with my UXS bodyweight multi-exercise station I spent over six months (from mid April to the end of October 2013) performing only bodyweight workouts and using them with several clients. My biggest concern starting out was not scaling the exercise difficulty down for weaker clients, but scaling it up for stronger clients. I was worried I would not be able to make certain exercises hard enough, particularly those for the legs and back, but I underestimated how difficult these exercises could be made with proper manipulation of leverage and timing, and turnaround technique.
While proper form involves a lot of factors, I found the following to be the most effective for increasing the difficulty of bodyweight exercises, and they will allow you to make free weight and machine exercises more intense as well.
Focus On Your Muscles, Not The Weight
Everything else depends on this. Don’t think about using your muscles to move the weight; think about using the weight to place a demand on your muscles. If you are focused on moving the weight you will tend to move in a manner that makes it easier to do so, which is the opposite of what you want. If you focus on using the weight – whether it is a barbell, a machine weight stack, or your body – to place a demand on your muscles you will tend to move in a manner that makes the exercise harder, thus more effective.
Slow Down…
Moving in a slow, deliberate manner allows you to better feel the effect of changes in your body position and movement so you can make adjustments to keep the target muscles under consistent tension. It also allows you to better focus on intensely contracting the target muscles throughout the exercise.
…Especially Through The Hardest Parts
Don’t avoid or rush through the hardest parts of the range of motion or slow down too much or pause to rest in the easier parts. Continue to move slowly where the exercise is the hardest, pausing to hold at the start of pushing movements (without setting down the weight) and to squeeze at the end of pulling and simple movements, and reverse direction as slowly as you can in these positions.
Move just slowly enough to maintain strict control of your body positioning and movement, to be able to focus on contracting the target muscles, and to reverse smoothly where an exercise is easier (usually the end of pushing movements and the start of pulling and simple movements, depending on the exercise and equipment used), but try not to rest.
This also means not slowing down too much during the relatively easier negative portion of the exercise, but continuing to move just slowly enough to maintain strict control.
Cut Your Weight in HALF
A good way to learn how to do this with free weights or machines is to cut the weight you would normally use for an exercise in half and apply all of the above, performing the exercise as strictly as possible and trying to achieve momentary muscular failure in under ninety seconds. This may sound easy, but I’ve found most people use free weights and machines so inefficiently that when forced to use strict form this much of a reduction in weight is often required.
This may be hard for many people to do, but unless your primary reason for working out is to impress other people at the gym there is no benefit to using more weight than you are capable of with strict form. Your goal should be to exercise effectively, and exercise effectiveness is more a matter of relative effort than absolute load. Get your priorities straight, check your ego at the door, ignore everybody else in the gym, and focus on making the most out of every pound on the bar or weight stack rather than on just trying to move weight up and down.
By learning to make exercises even harder while using less weight you can get stronger faster and with less risk of injury.
For more on applying these principles to bodyweight exercises, check out the Project: Kratos Bodyweight High Intensity Training handbook.
Carpinelli RN. The size principle and a critical analysis of the unsubstantiated heavier-is-better recommendation for resistance training. J Exerc Sci Fit 2008; 6: 67-86.
Fisher J, Steele J, Bruce-Low S, Smith D. Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations. Med Sport 01/2011; 15:147-162.
Burd NA, West DWD, Staples AW, Atherton PJ, Baker JM, et al. (2010) Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men. PLoS ONE 5(8): e12033.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Project: Kratos just arrived to Europe – very quick delivery compared to Amazon – and it’s awesome, I consider switching to BW training completely. Are TSC bicep curl, TSC pullover inferior choices compared to chin ups and rows, and is it because of the inablitity to use range of motion and timing matrix, or just less effective in general?
Ondrej,
TSC arm curls and pullovers are not inferior to chin ups and rows, and may even be a better option for some people. I experimented with variations of these while determining the most practical way for most people to do them with no equipment, and while subjective, I felt they were just as intense.
Hi Drew,
An very impressing article and the right guidelines for effective and efficient stimulation of the muscles!
Congratulations and thanks,
Andy
Great article Drew… as always! An additional benefit to utilizing the principles you’ve laid out in this article also enables those who choose to employ weights for strength training to do so without having to “break the bank” on weights, considering large scale weight sets are very expensive. Why purchase all that weight if it’s not truly needed. Yes, in time one may improve to a level where it is needed, but it would be a long way down the “road”. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong in my thinking on this point.
Glen,
The requirement for relatively lower weight is definitely an advantage where space and cost is concerned. With strict form most people can get a lot of benefit from much less weight than they think, and spare their joints a lot in the process. The problem is too many people confuse load with intensity, failing to distinguish between the weight they use and the resistance that is created with it.
Drew,
You see a lot of people doing various body weight exercise and for that matter any other exercise and what the trained “eye” tells you is that most rush through the hardest part of the exercise and stay way too long in the easier parts. These types of methods allow trainees to do many more repetitions, place a great amount of force on the ligaments and tendons for very little “long term” health benefits. I quoted long term benefits because in the short term you do see many trainees that do make some gains but most often by the time the reach an older age musculoskeletal injuries take over.
Many in the fitness industry are the masters of these methods of rushing through the hard parts and staying a long time in the easier parts of the repetition. They than train their clients the same way duping them into believing that they are making strength gains.
I can’t believe how many so-called fitness industry experts who have no idea or understanding about basic level “leverage” principles with any type of resistance equipment or in particular with body weight leverage principles that you have mentioned in your article. You than see these so-called fitness industry experts espousing their knowledge as industry leader experts.
Most of the crossfit games events are won by people with shorter levers mechanical advantage than their taller opponents mechanical disadvantage and than you have kettlebell swingers. You can tell they have no idea about leverage principles, they are just following some other idiots advice.
Drew great to see you conduct your experiement and write this article it should be in every fitness text book. But that would put an end to many of the so-called fitness industry experts.
Steven,
A big part of the problem is the belief that bodyweight exercises should be performed at a fast pace with high reps for the sake of power output, when doing so reduces the effectiveness of exercise while increasing the risk of injury. I’ll be writing more about this in upcoming articles and there is a lengthy discussion of it in Elements of Form, which I am still working on.
Is the idea that 1 to 4 reps is for nueromuscular power,5 to 6 reps for complete power, 6 to 8 reps for hyper trophy and 10 to 20 reps for muscular endurance, a complete myth?
Paul,
This is a myth. Read Evidence-Based Resistance Training Recommendations: Part 4
Hi Drew,
Just recalling being on holliday with no gym for miles, I always found a way to train in the hotel room. The suitcase was very handy for doing lateral raises and curls.
Cheers,
Glenn
Glenn,
There is always a way. You can do pull ups on the doors, dips on the chairs, isometrics with the towels, etc.
Drew, great article. I’m curious about the carry-over from your 6 mos. of bodyweight to
some of the weight movements that were regularly a part of your weight workouts prior to
the last half-year. Upon returning to them were they awkward? Were you stronger (allowing
for that “out of the groove” feeling we all experience after having been away from an exercise for a while)? Also, what effect did the bdwt stuff have on muscularity and muscle
mass?
John,
When I repeated the last machine workout I performed before starting the bodyweight experiment (MedX Leg Press, Pulldown, Chest Press, Row, Overhead Press, Heel Raise, and TSC Neck Extension and Flexion) the weights initially felt a little too light and I ended up exceeding my previous rep counts on all of them by a few. It’s hard to say what the actual strength increase was, though, since I think I was also turning around much more slowly and was more conscious about not “sandbagging” in the easier parts of the range of motion. Ideally, to compare I should have done static tests on RenEx iMachines rather than comparing workouts, as there are too many variables in a dynamic workout that can affect performance.
Despite not making a conscious effort to be any stricter with my diet, which would have been misleading, I have gotten a little leaner while staying roughly the same weight. Had I tightened up my diet at the same time I started the bodyweight experiment my body composition would have improved more, but then it would be hard to say which made the bigger difference, the training or the diet.
Thanks, Drew. I’m not surprised that pull-down performance would be enhanced; I’ve always believed that, rep speed and control being equal, chins produce better results than pull-downs. What is more fascinating would be the carryover from a bodyweight exercise that involves the same muscle or muscle groups as a weight exercise but at the same time is markedly different (e.g. the triceps/anterior delt pushing exercise– kind of like a hand- stand press-up — where one beds forward at the waist and the feet remain on the floor vs. an overhead pressing motion with weights). Terrible description, sorry I don’t know its name.
That, of course, would be just one example.
Also . . . your mention of the problems when using any dynamic movement as a yardstick for
measuring TRUE gains in strength, separate from motor learning, use of momentum, etc. is one of the real bugaboos in the physical education world. ALL the testing I was required to do during more than 30 years as a phys. ed. teacher was done with clenched teeth because of this. Most people are absolute morons when it comes to any grasp of what real strength is and what is indicative of same. In fact you and perhaps McGuff are the ONLY people I
know that view the whole topic separate from their own egos and with absolute logic.
I have an idea, Drew, for your next invention, but I’ll address that later today or, lacking time, tomorrow.
John,
This depends a lot on the specific machine and how it is used. The better ones allow for a movement very similar to a properly performed chin-up, with the benefit of an improved resistance curve (the RenEx Pulldown with it’s seat design, angle of pull, adjustable cam timing, and unique handle design is the best available, and the MedX Torso Arm with the newer handle design is pretty good as well).
The pike push-up can be a very effective shoulder exercise when done correctly, but it is much better with raised handles and a foot brace than on the ground. The strength will transfer to any other overhead pressing exercise, but people may initially find it more difficult going back to a standing press due to the differences in balance requirements.
The problems with dynamic testing have been known for a long time, but unfortunately a lot of exercise research still uses it. When you are aware of the problems, you see how questionable things like one rep max testing and isokinetic testing are for comparing changes in strength. Arthur Jones wrote extensively about this in his book Testing And Rehabilitation For The Lumbar Spine, The Cervical Spine, And The Knee. Static testing is not perfect either, and when done incorrectly can be dangerous, but when properly performed using good equipment it eliminates a lot of the confounding variables which plague dynamic tests and is much more reliable.
Drew isnt lifting heavier weights beneficial for ATP, and improving ATP recovery my PDHPE teacher said lifting 1 rep max is beneficial to do once a week, as you will enhance muscle creatine etc.
Paul,
No, it is not necessary to use very heavy weights to stress the ATP-CP system. As long as you are training intensely enough and using enough resistance to achieve momentary muscular failure within a reasonable time frame all of the metabolic systems will be involved.
Not only is one rep max testing not beneficial to perform regularly, it should be avoided by anyone who is not a competitive lifter. For more on this read the section on one repetition maximum testing in Evidence-Based Resistance Training Recommendations: Part 1
Hi Drew!
I came back to trainning BJJ (finally) here just called Jiu-Jitsu! I have 3 trainning sessions per week and the session is very demanding. Since I started (1 month) I stopped doing HIT (1x per week) afraid of overtranning. I overtrainned sometimes and it is very bad for your progress, health and mood.
Buuut… I never been so agile and strong and effective on the ground like I´m now. Even with the 1 year pause that I had to take of BJJ. HIT not only kept my stamina but incresead it and made me more fit to the sport. I don´t wanna stop doing HIT.
How can I continue doing HIT with BJJ without overtrainning?!?!?
Thank you very much for all the information you share!
Vinicius,
Assuming you are already eating well and getting plenty of rest, if you find you are having a difficult time recovering from your workouts and both your workouts and your jiu-jitsu training are negatively affected by it you may want to cut the volume of your workouts slightly or split the exercises between two workouts. I also recommend performing your HIT workouts when you will have as much time afterwards to recover before jiu-jitsu. For example, if you do jiu-jitsu in the evenings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I recommend doing your workouts on Saturday morning.
Hi Drew!
Thank you for your answer.
That´s exactly the case. Jiu-jitsu on M, W and F evenings.
So, I will do as you say. HIT workouts in saturdays mornings and will split my workout in 2. I will easy up a little on the friday jj session too.
Will study a little more about nutrition and expend more time on my sleep schedule.
Your blog is a center of trustful information about exercise, health and well being.
Thank you very much!
Vinicious,
You’re welcome, and I’m glad you find the blog helpful.
Drew,
You’ve mentioned quite a few times that optimal time under load seems to be “under ninety seconds”. I was wondering if you had any opinions on when lower became too low. For instance, I usually try to hit 9 reps using a 5-5 cadence. I figure 10 seconds for a rep at 9 reps is 90 seconds. Once I reach this benchmark, I raise the weight on the next workout. Then I keep the weight the same till I work up to failure in 9 reps.
If, hypothetically, someone bumped weight and only did 3 or 4(or 5 or 6 or 7) reps…would you say the weight increase was too high? Would you still get a strength increase with only 30-40 seconds of work? Does there seem to be a lower threshold of optimal time under load?
Appreciate all your hard work trying to educate us.
-Stephen
Stephen,
While a broad range of repetitions and time can be effective if exercises are performed intensely and progressively, I recommend most people use a load that allows them to achieve momentary muscular failure within ninety seconds for most exercises because while exercise effectiveness appears to have more to do with relative effort than absolute load, there is a point beyond which a further reduction in tension and increase in time appears to reduce this effectiveness.
What is optimal varies between individuals based on a variety of factors and takes some experimentation to determine, but I recommend trying to keep set duration closer to 60 to 90 seconds as a starting point for most people because it is short enough to allow for a relatively high average intensity while being long enough to require a load that can be used for reasonably good form right from the start and to also challenge cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning.
You can effectively stimulate increases in muscular strength with much, much shorter times than that – research on isometrics shows this to be possible with even just a few seconds if the effort is high enough – but for safety I do not recommend performing any kind of all-out effort without first having fatigued the target muscles to significantly reduce the force they are capable of producing to reduce the risk of injury. Also, such short duration would have little effect on cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning.
Drew,
First of all Drew, I would like to say that you have a brilliant website – very informative and your articles have really opened my eyes (and I’m sure many will agree) about how to train PROPERLY.
I have a few questions regarding HIT and although they do not directly link to this article I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide your thoughts and opinions (with reasons).
1. In your interview with Ell Darden, Darden recommends ‘Not-to-Failure (NTF)’ workouts where one would terminate the exercise 2 reps short of MMF. He states ‘The idea is that by stopping short of failure you spare your recovery ability the task of having to overcompensate from a much deeper inroad. In fact, NTF workouts may speed recovery by supplying some of the chemistry to guard against atrophy and to facilitate active rest.’
What are your thoughts on NTF workouts? ie, do you believe they have much benefit? or do you believe it is better (in terms of building mass and strength) to perform ONE set of each exercise until MMF (and then resting the muscle for between 4-7 days)?
2. I think I remember reading somewhere in one of your articles (I can’t seem to find it now) that you do not recommend pre-exhausting a muscle. eg, for chest, one could perform dumbbell flys (less tension on triceps) to MMF and then perform bench press immediately after (theoretically so that the triceps do not reach MMF before the chest).
I would just like to get your thoughts on this (pre-exhausting).
3. With regard to each exercise performed, is it enough (to stimulate the muscle) to perform repetitions until you cannot perform the exercise any longer in good form? or should one continue the exercise until MMF and then rest for a few seconds and continue (so it essentially becomes Rest-Pause at the end of the set)?
For example, with barbell curls, should one perform the exercise until MMF (ie, unable to perform another rep in good form)? or should one perform the exercise until they cannot perform another rep AND THEN wait a few seconds at the start position (to recuperate) and try again to complete the rep (and keep doing this until it is not possible)?
I hope you understand what I am asking with these questions and I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to answer them, providing your thoughts on each with reasons.
Many thanks in advance, I really enjoy reading your articles.
Jim
Hey Jim,
I generally do not recommend stopping an exercise short of momentary muscular failure because although this does reduce the demands on recovery it also significantly reduces the effectiveness of the exercise. If a person really wants to train more frequently they ought to split up their workouts instead, alternating between two or three workouts targeting different muscle groups.
The arms are not as much of a weak link in compound exercises as many believe, and the real benefit of pre-exhaustion is not working around these, but using them to extend the work performed by the target muscle group. This is why I prefer to perform what I call “condensed pre-exhaust”, which involves using a heavier weight than normal for both sets to reduce the rep range of each so the entire rest-pause sequence doesn’t last much longer than a single exercise performed for a person’s normal target repetition range.
If you fall short of your target rep count a few post-failure rest-pause reps will be beneficial, but be careful not to overdo it. If you perform rest-pause as a set-extension technique do so with a specific rest interval and stop when you are unable to continue in strict form after that amount of time. I usually use a five-second interval during rest-pause, and if it is done as a set-extension technique I start within ten seconds of momentary muscular failure.
Drew,
“This also means not slowing down too much during the relatively easier negative portion of the exercise, but continuing to move just slowly enough to maintain strict control.”
I understand that this “sandbagging” offers a bit of recovery during a set, but do you really think that the possible and intended end result – stimulation of muscle size increases – is smaller if the set is carried to true failure in an reasonable TUL.
Andy,
No, but the less efficiently you inroad the target muscles the more weight it takes to achieve momentary muscular failure within a given time frame. To maximize safety and long term joint health you should try to use the least amount of weight necessary to create the required level of resistance.