How To Progress Your Workouts Without Adding Weight
Adding weight to exercises is one of the most common ways to track progress when working out. What happens when you need a new way to progress and adding weight is not the option? Luckily there are multiple training option and we got you covered!
1.Tempo Tempo Tempo
You can change up the tempo of your lifts to greatly impact the difficulty. Try doing extremely slow eccentrics bewteen 4-6 seconds. This will increase the time under tension when you are lifting which will help to grow more muscle and you will definitely feel the burn! To really amplify this training method add in pauses. For instance when squatting pause at the bottom for two seconds, then come back up. If this does not further challenge your body you are not counting correctly.
2. Drop Sets
Pick a weight for an exercise, when you are fatigued grab lighter weight and continue the exercise to exhaustion again. You can increase the difficulty of drop sets by adding more drops in weight, and including the tempo method as previously discussed. Make sure to still do proper reps maintaining good form.
3. Time
Decrease your rest time, giving your muscles less time to recover in-between sets. This will force you to work harder and help to progress your workouts. There are two approaches you can take with this method. First, finish the same amount of work that you would regularly do in a workout in a shorter amount of time. The Second approach would be to do more than you usually would in that set amount of time. Both ways will increase the density of the workout.
4. Different Types of Resistance
You can use resistance bands or chains. Here you are not adding more wight or plates but by adding bands or chains you are making the point in the lift where you are strongest harder. For example, when adding resistance bands or chains when squatting it will make the final few inches of standing up harder. Including accommodating resistance generally does not make it harder at your sticking point.
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