5 Tips for the correct execution of exercises in strength training. These basic tips can be applied to almost every exercise to get more out of your strength training.
Fitsociety App
Since we launched the Fitsociety app, and of course during its development, we’ve spent a long time thinking about how to monitor the execution of exercises. After all, we’re not standing next to you in the gym when you perform the exercises.
Although we can give specific instructions for certain exercises by having you send recordings of your training, there are also a number of general tips that are applicable to almost every exercise. They’ve all been extensively described and supported by dozens of studies in separate articles. Here’s just a practical overview, nicely put into a list.
Tip 1: Leave your ego at the door
I’ve talked about egolifting before: worrying more about impressing others in the gym than about the effect of your training. Although your ego may be a big part of your decision to go to the gym, you should hang it up in the locker room before you start your workout.
Egolifting leads to a number of well-known mistakes in your training:
- Unnecessary cheating. Using poor technique just to be able to throw around heavy weights.
- Too much emphasis on “impressive numbers”. You know them. People who you see doing the same exercises several times a week. Exercises in which they are strong (or think they are strong). It often looks more like a performance than training. Unfortunately, you eventually train more the muscle control from the brain than the muscles themselves. Great if you’re a powerlifter and lifting the weight is your main goal. Not so handy when you want to create more muscle mass. If muscle mass is your goal, you benefit much more from variation, shock therapy for the muscles. When your muscles think: “WTF is this?”, you achieve much more than when they think: “Here we go again”.
- Neglecting the eccentric phase (see below)
Tip 2: Explosive in the concentric phase
The effect of strength training on muscle mass is determined by various factors. One of the most important is mechanical stress. The amount of force exerted on the muscle fibers [1-5].
A logical method to increase this stress/force is to work with heavier weights, and this is indeed a proven method. However, this stress is also determined by the acceleration with which such a weight is moved. This is where Newton’s second law of motion comes into play:
The net force on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the acceleration of the object.
Expressed as the formula F=ma (F=force, m=mass, and a=acceleration). An object that is moved with twice the acceleration generates just as much force as an object twice as heavy moved with an acceleration that is half as slow.
Outside the classroom and in the gym, this means that you should perform every concentric phase of an exercise as explosively as possible to exert as much force on the muscles as possible. The weight you’re working with is literally only half the story.
The concentric phase is the part of the exercise where the muscle shortens. For an extensive explanation, I refer to the article on the eccentric phase, which is a nice segue to the next tip.
Tip 3: Slow down in the eccentric phase
Take bicep curls as an example. You start from an almost extended arm and bring the weight up by bending the arm from the elbow. In this phase, the muscle fibers of the biceps shorten under tension. So, this is the concentric phase which should be performed explosively. When you let the arm lower again, this is the eccentric phase. It’s important that this happens under tension and therefore should be performed slowly.
By letting the arm drop too quickly, you neglect this part of the exercise. The eccentric phase is very important for muscle growth. In fact, specialized training focused on this part of the exercises results in more muscle mass gain than exercises focused on the concentric phase [6-9]. In practice, however, you often need a partner for this because you need more weight than you can handle in the concentric phase. Yet, this doesn’t mean you should neglect the eccentric phase. This often happens, sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes due to egolifting (you save more energy and thus can lift more weight, grrrr, tough).
The easiest way not to neglect the eccentric phase is to force yourself to perform it slowly in 2 to 3 seconds and never just “let it drop”. This also prevents using the momentum of the movement and the elasticity of muscle and attachment to make it lighter.
If you really want to train eccentrically, or “negatively”, but don’t have a partner? Some exercises allow this. Exercises where you can do the concentric phase with two arms or legs and then the eccentric phase with one arm or leg.
Tip 4: Maintain the tension
The range of motion, the path over which you move, is naturally different for every exercise. It should not be too small, but also not too large.
What is too small and what is too large? Take into account the above point about mechanical stress, but also another important variable: Time under Tension. How long a muscle is kept under tension is important for building muscle mass [10]. Strangely enough, most studies looking at the importance of Time under Tension (or TuT) only look at the time of the concentric and eccentric phase. As if they assume that the muscle remains under tension throughout the entire exercise while this depends on your execution. Take bicep curls again, you could fully lower it at the bottom of the movement. The arm is then extended, gravity no longer acts on the elbow joint, and all tension is gone. The same applies at the top of the movement. If you bring the weight too high, it rests on the forearm, and the tension in the biceps disappears (besides the risk of involving the front shoulder to get the weight higher). The same goes for a leg press; you can fully extend until your legs are straight, but it’s more effective to stop a bit earlier so the muscles have to keep working.
The lesson here is, keep the muscles under tension throughout the entire movement. It’s a matter of feeling during the execution of your exercise. Make it harder for yourself, not easier.
Tip 5: Treat every training, every exercise, and every set as a competition
Finally, when you are doing an exercise, think back to the last time you stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom in the morning. This training is the moment you work on the wishes you had in mind then. You want to become stronger, more muscular? Now is the time to make it happen. So don’t get distracted by what’s happening around you. Don’t just count your reps and think at ten: “So that was it”. Was that really it, or could you have squeezed out 3 more repetitions?
Training is also a misleading word. In other sports, you train to prepare for a competition. But even if you participate in bodybuilding competitions, this is the real competition. This “training” and not a later moment. This is the moment to give it your all. You have to go all out in this set and the next.
Of course, it’s good to have a target number of repetitions in mind (for example, 8-12 for muscle mass). But once you start your set, keep going until you can’t anymore. If you end up doing more repetitions than planned, adjust the weight next time.
Of course, you can’t train every exercise and every set to “muscle failure” (until you can’t anymore). Then you would be a machine. However, I see too many people in the gym who never train to failure. Those people who only encounter failure when they stand in front of the mirror again.
Work it!
The most important message to take away is that you really have to work for your goals. Just ticking off exercises on a polished training schedule is not enough. Put yourself and your muscles to work!
References
- Hornberger TA, Stuppard R, Conley KE, Fedele MJ, Fiorotto ML, Chin ER, and Esser KA. Mechanical stimuli regulate rapamycin-sensitive signalling by a phosphoinositide 3-kinase-, protein kinase B- and growth factor-independent mechanism. Biochem J 380: 795–804,2004.
- Miyazaki M, McCarthy JJ, Fedele MJ, and Esser KA. Early activation of mTORC1 signalling in response to mechanical overload is independent of phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt signalling. J Physiol 589: 1831–1846, 2011.
- Spangenburg EE, Le Roith D, Ward CW, and Bodine SC. A functional insulin-like growth factor receptor is not necessary for load-induced skeletal muscle hypertrophy. J Physiol 586: 283–291, 2008.
- Vandenburgh H and Kaufman S. In vitro model for stretch-induced hypertrophy of skeletal muscle. Science 203: 265–268, 1979.
- Witkowski S, Lovering RM, and Spangenburg EE. High-frequency electrically stimulated skeletal muscle contractions increase p70s6k phosphorylation independent of known IGF-I sensitive signaling pathways. FEBS Lett 584: 2891–2895, 2010.
- Farthing, J. P., P. D. Chilibeck. The effects of eccentric and concentric training at different velocities on muscle hypertrophy. Eur. J. Appl. Physiol.89:578-586, 2003.
- Higbie, E. J., K. J Cureton, G. L. Warren III, B. M Prior. Effects of concentric and eccentric training on muscle strength, cross-sectional area, and neural activation. J. Appl. Physiol. 81:2173-2181, 1996.
- Hortobágyi, T., J. P. Hill, J. A. Houmard, D. D. Fraser, N. J. Lambert, R. G. Israel. Adaptive responses to muscle lengthening and shortening in humans. J. Appl. Physiol. 80:765-772, 1996.
- Vikne H. et al. Muscular performance after concentric and eccentric exercise in trained men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2006 Oct;38(10):1770-81.
- Burd NA, Andrews RJ, West DW, et al. Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of Physiology. 2012;590(Pt 2):351-362. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200.
