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Lower the Weight and Increase Your Strength

By Brad Scott

Increasing your strength should always be a major goal. Most people recognize this and work toward this goal. But have you ever just gotten stuck at a certain level? Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try, you just can’t lift anymore weight?

This is called reaching a plateau and it happens to everyone. You exercise and eat right and see steady gains until one day you feel like you just can’t push any more weight. You get stuck. For several years I had a plateau on the bench press. I could not get past 215 pounds. I wanted so badly to be able to bench press 225 pounds, but no matter how hard I tried I could not do even 1 repetition. That is until I started “volume training.” Volume training helped me increase my strength to some of my life time highs.

Volume training is a simple concept that is used to bust through a plateau to increase your strength. I will explain it to you and then give you a good practical example on how to use it.

Lets take my previous self-experience as an example. My goal was to bench press 225 pounds for 1 repetition, but I was stuck on 215 pounds for 1 repetition. Practicing lifting 215 pounds 1 time was not going to increase my strength enough to lift 225 pounds. It just wasn’t going to happen. However, I could lift 205 pounds about 2-3 times and 185, 10-15 times. So by using volume training, I was able to lower the weight and increase my strength. Let’s do the math to illustrate my point.

Weight x Repetitions = Volume

  1. 225 x 0 = 0 pounds
  2. 215 x 1 = 215 pounds
  3. 205 x 2 = 410 pounds
  4. 185 x 10 = 1850 pounds

My goal was to bench press 225 pounds just one time, but I was stuck on 215. And by continually practicing with 215, I could not reach my true potential. Because I had an engineering background, I looked at the situation logically and was able to set new higher goals and achieve them.

I set new a goal of being able to bench press 225 for at least 3 repetitions.

Goal Volume = 225 x 3 = 675 pounds

Now looking back at my past numbers only option “d” got me over goal volume with 1850 pounds. But at 10 repetitions, I new that 185 pounds was too light of a weight to develop the strength that I needed. In order to develop maximum strength, a repetition range of 4-6 should be used. And since I could only do 205 pounds for only 2 repetitions, my exercise weight had to fall between 185 and 205 pounds.

So I started working out with 195 pounds until I was able to do 195 for 6 repetitions which gave me a volume of 1170 pounds. Then I re-tested and my new bench press maximum was 215 pounds for 2 reps and 205 pounds for 5 reps.

Then I started working out with 205 pounds and in a very short time I was able to bench press 205 pounds for 6 reps and 215 for 4-5 reps. And 225 for 2 reps. And by increasing my exercise weight to 215 pounds I reached my goal of 225 pounds for 3 repetitions and more.

Now that you understand the science behind volume training and understand why it works, let’s put it all together in an exercise routine to see how it works.

Plateau Routine:
135 x 15 = 2025
155 x 10 = 1550
185 x 10 = 1850
205 x 2 = 410
215 x 1 = 215
TOTAL VOLUME = 6050

Volume Routine:
135 x 15 = 2025
185 x 10 = 1850
195 x 6 = 1170
195 x 6 = 1170
195 x 6 = 1170
TOTAL VOLUME = 7385

As you can see by lowering the weight you can increase your strength. In both routines I was performing the same number of sets. In the plateau routine, although I was lifting more weight per set, I was lifting less total volume. In the volume routine, I lowered the exercise weight, lifted more total volume and actually increased my maximum strength. In fact, the volume routine is 1335 more pounds. That’s over half a ton!

The concept of volume training can be applied to any exercise and any muscle group. Most people while exercising tend to push the limits constantly but fail to see the results of their labor. By simply throttling back just a little you can increase your strength to new personal highs. These increases will result in more motivation, more motivation results in more increases and the cycle continues.

If you exercise regularly and have reached a plateau, this concept is for you. Lower the weight and increase your strength. Remember to eat well, get plenty of rest and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

About the Author:

Brad Scott is Owner and President of Sport and Life Fitness in Melbourne Florida. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and is a Certified Fitness Trainer and Specialist in Sports Conditioning with the International Sports Sciences Association. With over 20 years of experience, Brad offers a wide variety of fitness solutions for most anyone. Visit him online at www.SportAndLifeFitness.com today and start your fitness journey.