Opinions on gym methods.

[Chemo]

Hey

I've been having some issues and I was wondering who can actually increase the load /reps on every workout, and who can consistently do this. Basing my question on the advice of "workout guru's" that have this mindset to attack the gym with more weight on every session.

Is this realistic?

What are your gym philosophies, and goals for each session?

I'll start by saying that in my experience I can never really improve on every workout, I have a general trend to progress but I find my energy levels to inconsistent to progressively increase the workload on every session.

[IronHyde]

This is how i think in terms of gym training:

If you want to grow and get stronger you have to exceed the work previously done. This can be done in three ways; Intensity, weight or repetitions. You can up one of those three or a combination of them. You are trying to get your muscles to grow by demand. Hence why if you stop training, there is no demand and your muscles decrease in size. You cannot trick muscles to grow as people like to think as all they know and are suppose to do is expand and contract, they don't have a mind of their own. People think by changing exercises in their routine will trick the muscle, well i feel it doesn't. All it does is change the way the muscles are engaged for that particular exercise and sure it can help them grow and/or get through a plateau but essentially they haven't been "tricked", just the demand has been changed so to adapt to that change the muscles will engage in a different manner.

I'm sure others will disagree but that is how i see it and it's working for me and that's all the proof i need.

[Jigga]

Increase weight or reps if the rep range is getting a bit low.

edit: I try stay between 6-10

[Phedder]

I do it over a week usually. Try to add a little more weight each week, but within the week the work I do really does depend on how I feel that day. I always make sure I do the minimum number of sets and reps in my routine, but if I still don't feel I've done enough i'll chuck in another set for the exercise I felt was lacking.

[tii]

I can't progress every week in str,

I used to progressive overload (60, 85, 90, 100) but now I prefer something different.

I usually drop reps when I'm trying for a new weight.

For instanceim trying to flat press 42.5s for 5, my pb is 40s. Ill do 40x5,40x3,42.5x1 week after 40,40,42.5x3, into 40,42.5x3,45x1 so on and so fourth till I go for 42.5s for 5. This varies depending where i'm at with weight but the principal in essence is I find working at a lower rep rangewith weight heigher than my target is better for me str wise. than progressive overload, or cranking 40s till I'm strong enough to do 42.5s for 5.

[HarryB]

I think most guys at the elite levels train in a cyclical fashion, so their weights increase and decrease depending where they are in their competition cycles? No one expects to increase constantly.. well maybe they expect to but after a while it is difficult to do so.

[Monarchking]

Agh, the downfall of a PR...u gota do it next week!

[severe]

I don't try to go more each session, but do try to push an extra rep out. Eventually I reach my 9, then put weight up and drop back to 6.

Not an exact science, but its working so far.

[TonganTerror]

Chemo I think for those new to the gym will continue to progressively add weight to all exercises with ease, but as you train for a long period of time say 3 years or more you need to forget about adding weight every week but change your training up more often i.e adding intensity i.e dropsets(love these myself) and have had good gains using this method e.g DB shoulder press 35kg til fail straight into 20kg til fail then 10kg or 7.5kg til fail the burn is immense and after a few weeks of this you will find yourself starting the dropset with heavier weights therefore increasing your max :wink: .

Other than that if you really want to make gains weekly then I recommend doing a 8-10week strength training which I just finished but I have minimal experience in this type of training will leave that to the power lifters to explain!!

[BarBrother]

Again, if it comes down to increasing specific strength then using a strength cylce is the way to go and using ur assistance work to create volume and help accumulate fatigue, but you really ahve to evalaute what you want out of your training

[BarBrother]

TT, what sort of strength cycle did you follow?

[Chemo]

Yeah TT i hear ya, I superset and pyramid most things, its killer esp on things like delt raises.

Interesting comments. I feel much better knowing that I'm in the same boat of adding more reps rather than weight \:D/ . It's good to compare with the pros whats possible and sustainable, or theory vs experience.

Cheers to all for the input.

This is how i think in terms of gym training:

If you want to grow and get stronger you have to exceed the work previously done. This can be done in three ways; Intensity, weight or repetitions. You can up one of those three or a combination of them. You are trying to get your muscles to grow by demand. Hence why if you stop training, there is no demand and your muscles decrease in size. You cannot trick muscles to grow as people like to think as all they know and are suppose to do is expand and contract, they don't have a mind of their own. People think by changing exercises in their routine will trick the muscle, well i feel it doesn't. All it does is change the way the muscles are engaged for that particular exercise and sure it can help them grow and/or get through a plateau but essentially they haven't been "tricked", just the demand has been changed so to adapt to that change the muscles will engage in a different manner.

I'm sure others will disagree but that is how i see it and it's working for me and that's all the proof i need.

Yeah for sure, I've always questioned the pre-exhaustion techniques and changing up the order of exercises as intuition tells me to hit the motion I'm having trouble with first with all my energy. If anything id rather do isolates after a compound movement.

[ohjoshua]

I selected other...

I improve consistenly but not weekly. I will have planned routines that are usualy sub maximal. over a 6 -12 week period you should see gains in str/reps or your doing something wrong.