Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

HOW TO PERFORM YOUR REPS
gym for a while. You cannot keep whatever gains you have made unless you keep
on training.
Range of motion
11.31 While making an exercise harder usually makes it better, there are many
exceptions. Increasing the depth of squatting and deadlifting, for example,
makes those exercises harder, but for some people that “harder” means
harmful, if not ruinous. Generally speaking, you should use as full a range of
motion as possible so long as it does not hurt you.
11.32 ere are some exercises, however, where the range of motion is intentionally
reduced even when a greater range of motion can be performed safely.
For example, in THE INSIDER’S TELL-ALL HANDBOOK ON WEIGHT-
TRAINING TECHNIQUE the partial deadlift and the overhead lockout are
described and recommended.
11.33 Using a four-post power rack, or the smaller half rack or open rack, it is easy
to break exercises into their component parts—the start, the finish (i.e., the
lockout), and the part in between. e start would go from the very beginning
of the rep—e.g., at the chest in the bench press—until only about the
sticking point, before pausing, and lowering the resistance to the beginning.
e lockout would be just the last few inches of the rep, usually starting
from above the sticking point. But the “part in between” could go from about
a third of the way up till about two thirds of the way up—i.e., the middle
phase only, just through the sticking point—or it could go from at about the
sticking point right to the finish.
11.34 Doing lockouts often enables weights to be used well in excess of what can
be handled for the full rep. On the one hand this can be useful for overloading,
but simultaneously it provides the most dangerous aspect of partial-rep
training—excessive demands upon the skeletal structure of the body. Never
mind that some people can use colossal weights in many partial lifts without
apparent harm. ose people are not role models for you or any other typical
person because most of those strength phenomena are genetically blessed
with unusually robust joints and connective tissue. But even some of these
gifted people suffer damage over the long-term. It is much safer to stick to
working a component of a rep other than the lockout part, if you want to try
partial-rep training.
229