Why you might be performing all of your exercises wrong - how to fix your lifting

So you are new to the gym,

or maybe you have been training for some time.

You want to learn how to get the most out of your training,

or maybe you feel like you aren’t seeing the progress of your training.

There could be a simple reason for this,

you might just be performing all of your exercises wrong.

Let me explain.

The Average Gym-Goer Experience.

The narrative of the majority of people’s gym experience is,

 they go to the gym,

they just do a random assortment of exercises, 

maybe if they are lucky they even have a proper program to follow, 

but the effort is minimal.

The execution is poor. 

Although the workout itself may be difficult to complete, 

every repetition is executed with a sense of urgency to finish the painful experience altogether. 

Every session follows as a finite stream of metaphorical check boxes to justify to oneself that the physical activity component of their life has been completed. 

Not to say that going in and doing something is not better than sitting around all day, but there is another way.

There is a difference between a high-quality gym session and a low-quality gym session.

Quality Of The Gym Experience.

Often people just go into their session and do the exercises for the sake of moving them towards their goal. 

There is no consideration for the proper execution of the exercises.

Proximity to a place of work does not mean that proper work is being done.

Or it is the young kid who goes into the gym pumped up and excited and decides to curl the heaviest weight possible.

The ego gratification is high, but the reward for which is little.

Little do they realise that in doing so, they are not working the bicep properly at all.

In attempting to lift a weight outside of their capacity,

They have had to engage muscles other than the intended muscle to complete the movement.

This ultimately leads to a failure to develop the actual desired body part.

This fact is then usually paired with poor or no actual exercise programming leading to a lot of time spent in the gym but with little to no return.

This is what would be called a low-quality gym experience.

To demonstrate what was wrong with this example above, and distinguish a good quality training experience, we need to separate exercises into two general categories. 

Performance and Training-Based Activities. 

A performance-based activity is concerned with the execution of an exercise to its highest possible capacity. 

whereas,

a training-based activity is utilised for the developmental process leading up to the execution of the performance.

It is all the work done to prepare for that performance act.

The specific goals we have require specific ways that we utilise training exercises to prepare for the actual performance task. 

When it comes to training or training-based activity,

keeping the training similar to the actual performance conditions is good for the actual development of that performance.

For that reason, 

a powerlifter would often train in high-intensity conditions with a low amount of repetitions because it matches the performance requirements when they would step on stage doing one single maximal lift.

It would be of less benefit for a powerlifter to just ignorantly complete a series of sets at a low intensity and for high repetitions.

The idea is that just doing an exercise does not necessarily mean you receive the benefit of it but rather you need to perform your training a certain way for the specific performance task. 

It is not that you complete reps necessarily, 

it is how you complete the reps to make them work towards the performance outcome.

Ensuring your training matches the specific performative outcomes is what makes the difference between a high and low-quality gym experience.

However, all too often there are necessary training activities or exercises that are vastly different from performance conditions.

This is especially the case in bodybuilding, or even just those who want to just gain a little bit of muscle.

The actual building of muscle is the training and the performance is to demonstrate the end physique to the crowd (or to your mates at the beach on a sunny afternoon).

And these processes are very similar.

This is what I mean when I say you might be performing all of your exercises wrong.

Your training might not utilise the tenets of hypertrophy training, but rather lifting weights for the sake of lifting the weight.

We need to understand that there is a specific way in which the training-based activities need to be executed for hypertrophy to make the end performance physique.

Let's look at what makes a good quality gym experience for hypertrophy.

Introducing a principle known as time under tension. 

Time Under Tension.

Before we can address what time under tension is, we must define what tension is. 

The definition of tension is “the state of being stretched tight”. 

Thus the definition of time under tension is the duration of time that something is held under tension. 

In this case, the muscle.

Not every exercise needs to be held for an incredibly long duration under tension. 

But if you know what you are specifically training for, then it helps to determine how your reps should be performed.

For example, it is not very specific to make the repetitions very long in a powerlifter training regime because it is not specific to the higher velocity lifts that would be executed on the platform.

But for training-based activity with the specific goal of hypertrophy, 

the longer the muscle is under the load, the greater force is being applied to the muscle to tear the muscle fibers apart.

This in turn requires the adaptation to heal the muscle back stronger, thus larger.

It is not that you complete reps necessarily, 

it is how you complete the reps. 

The longer the load that is applied to the muscle (within reason),

the more hypertrophy potential that is possible.

This is really what makes a good quality gym experience if you are seeking to gain muscle.

So what do I do?

So when you train, do you just go into the session and execute every rep perfectly, 

feeling the full tension on the muscle in every repetition for as long as tolerable? 

If you answered yes to the above and your goal is to achieve a better physique, then you are training properly.

If it is not, then you have been performing your exercises wrong…

But,

that's okay though, because now you know how to fix it.

This is going to be the distinguishing difference between a low-quality or good-quality training experience when it comes to training for anything as a whole, but specifically hypertrophy.

It is a painful way to train which is why a majority of people do not train this way. It is through this voluntary suffering that the process of progress occurs.

So keep this in mind whenever you train next and realise that proximity to the place of work is not what is considered doing the work.

Next time you train, really try to drag out the length of the set. 

Let your muscles feel the full load of the weight in the entire range of motion. 

This will be what facilitates optimal growth in terms of muscle hypertrophy and will ensure that you are performing your exercise properly.

If none of this article made sense to you,

you could sit there and struggle on your own for a long time trying to figure out what this all means.

Or, 

you could get the most out of your training as quickly as possible learning from people who have walked the path before you.

If you want to start today to get the most out of your training,

feel free to contact us.

The choice is yours.

Your future awaits.

Start today, For Tomorrow.