Most people aren’t nearly as advanced as they think they are. When it comes to lifting, most of us can thrive on the basics. Simple progressive overload (adding a bit of weight to the bar and/or a few extra reps each workout) is all most people need for increased muscle growth. Assuming you’re also eating enough calories and protein, you’re going to get bigger.
But if you’ve been training hard for years, progress often comes at a snail’s pace. Lifting weights is like reverse compound interest: the more time and effort you put into it, the lower your return. It’s not fair, but it’s true. And it’s why so many people quit.
Sometimes you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve to keep the gains coming. One way to spark new progress is to use intensity techniques, which are methods that allow you to lift more weight and/or do more reps that what you could otherwise.
Used thoughtfully, intensity techniques can be just what you need for increased muscle growth. But if you use-and-abuse them, you’ll burn yourself out quickly. Remember, “tricking” your body into lifting more than it typically could adds lots of extra fatigue and could lead to injury if done irresponsibly (i.e., without a spotter). Be careful.
Here are 4 intensity techniques and how to use them.
Rest-Pause Method
The rest-pause method involves doing a set for as many reps as possible, resting briefly, and then pumping out a few extra reps. Also known as cluster sets, using these intra-set breaks can help you push closer to failure than normal.
Rest-pause sets work for both strength and hypertrophy. For example:
Rest-Pause for Strength: 3 x AMRAP w/ 20 second breaks
Let’s use the bench press as an example. Say you can bench 225 lbs for a maximum of 5 reps. A rest-pause set would look like this:
- 225 x 4 (just shy of failure)
- Rack the bar and rest 20 seconds
- 225 x 2 (just shy of failure)
- Rack the bar and rest 20 seconds
- 225 x 1 (just shy of failure)
- Set done
So you’ve just taken your 5-rep max and performed it for 7 reps. No doubt this extra stimulus will make you stronger and give you additional practice lifting heavy weights while fatigued. Here’s a video demonstration:
Rest-Pause for Hypertrophy: Reps on the clock
You can use this with just about any single-joint movement. I especially like it for direct arm training such as biceps curls or triceps pushdowns. Set the clock for a specific amount of time, do a certain number of reps, rest briefly, and keep going until time runs out. Make sure you use a light weight so that you can last the entire set. For example:
- Choose a weight you could lift 10-12 times
- Set the clock for 6 minutes
- Perform 6 reps
- Rest 15 seconds
- Repeat for sets of 6 with 15 second breaks until time is up
This might seem easy at first, but by the end you’ll have an unreal pump and accumulate far more reps than you could do for normal sets.
Drop Sets
Perhaps the most common intensity technique of all, a drop set involves performing a set to near-failure with a given weight, then reducing the weight and continuing to do reps until you approach failure again.
For example, say you’re doing lateral raises with 30 lbs in each hand. You do 12 reps, which is just shy of failure. You immediately rack the 30’s, grab the 20’s and do 6 more reps, just shy of failure again. You snuck in a couple more reps and took your shoulders a bit closer to all-out fatigue.
An old school favorite triceps finisher of mine is to set up three bands of varying thickness. Starting with the heaviest band, do as many pushdowns as possible and when you’re about to hit failure, switch to a lighter band.
Drop sets like this are best done on the final set of an exercise. So if you’re doing 3 working sets, only do a drop set on the last one.
Mechanical Drop Sets
Rather than decreasing weight, a mechanical drop set uses two or more variations of the same exercise, switching to an easier movement as you fatigue so you can keep performing more reps at the same weight. For example, dumbbell curls with your palms up, immediately followed by hammer curls. Or close-grip push-ups immediately followed by regular push-ups. Or one of my most recent favorites, doing bent-over rows to the chest, then switching to rows to the stomach mid-set:
Another example of this is overloading the eccentric (lowering) part of a movement. We’re much stronger during the eccentric phase (i.e., you could lower much more weight to your chest on the bench press than you could press back up), and this is also the part of the movement that causes the most muscle damage and soreness. Muscle damage is associated with increased muscle growth, so eccentric overload is a useful-but-torturous method.
A common way to do this is the 2-up, 1-down method where you lift a weight with both arms or legs and lower it down with one limb. This is best done with machines, such as leg curls:
Forced Reps
Forced reps use the assistance of a coach or training partner to help you lift a weight after you’ve hit failure by yourself. This isn’t my favorite intensity technique as it gets abused by many lifters who have no business doing them. We’ve all seen the skinny punk on the bench press getting stapled by 135 lbs, only to have his spotter rowing the bar off his chest screaming, “All you, bro! ALL YOU!”
Ever seen the bench press scene during the movie I Love You Man? That’s your typical poor application of forced reps.
Much like a drop set, forced reps let you squeak out a few extra reps without having to reduce the weight on the bar. And again, we’re stronger during the eccentric, so having a spotter help you during the concentric phase and then lowering it down slowly by yourself is a great way to truly torch your muscles. Soreness isn’t necessarily a perfect indicator of increased muscle growth, but they’re related to a certain degree. And forced reps will make you really, really sore.
Forced reps are best used strategically by advanced lifters. Rookies have no need to do forced reps because:
- They can get stronger and build muscle without going to failure
- They can’t maintain good technique while going to failure (and beyond)
Up the Intensity for Increased Muscle Growth
These four intensity techniques can add muscle to your frame when used sparingly. Start by adding intensity techniques to one or two sets per week per muscle group, and gradually add more from there as long as you can recover.
Remember, nothing replaces basic progressive overload. There are no shortcuts. But if increased muscle growth is the goal, these methods can be your ace in the hole when your gains have stalled.