Different Ways to Rep

Different Ways to Rep

            Along with the many different ways you can perform your sets, there are also many different ways your can perform you reps in your exercises.  This post is going to discuss all the different variations of doing reps and their benefits to your muscles and working out in general.  It will also discuss the right and wrong ways to perform reps. 

            Sadly many people perform their repetitions wrong causing injury and inadequate results.  The biggest mistake I see is that on an exercise like bench press, people will always take the weight off the rack go down for a rep and lock out their elbows when they finish every rep.  This isn’t the worst thing that you can do but what can happen is that as you get better and better at bench press your weight will go up and eventually locking out your elbows could really injure you elbows and shoulders.  Also you will see much better results from a rep where you go down to your chest and push the weight up about 3/4 to 4/5 of the way up.  what this does, is that as you do your rep down you experience tension and pressure on your muscles making them work, and by not lifting the weight all the way to the top, keeps that pressure down on your chest and other muscles making them continue to work.  By locking out your elbows you take all that weight off of your muscles so for that little bit they aren’t working at all.  I also see problems with the elbows in bicep curls, people tend to bring the bar all the way up and then return it down about half way, but their elbows are still bent quite a ways.  This has the opposite effect as the bench press because this means your arms aren’t getting a full stretch, which is why on curls you do want to extend your elbows all the way out, making so your muscles get the full stretch. 

            Now there are many different variations of reps that you can do to see different results, like on bicep curls.  If you feel pretty good on your form and weight for bicep curls, then one option for you to try is to curl the bar up, but as you curl it up keep the bar against your body the whole rep.  Then as you bring the bar back down still keep it against your body, this hits new peaks in your biceps that you don’t work a lot from regular bicep workouts.  Another way to rep is to take the normal reps and slow them down tremendously.  Like something like squats, instead of just squatting down, take five whole seconds to go down and five seconds to come up, this destroys your muscles making them work very hard.  You can also do a normal rep but as you go down stay down for a few seconds then come up. 

            There are many innovative ways to do reps, like putting weight onto dips, pushups, pull ups, sit ups, or planks.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.