Can’t Lift Heavy? 5 Simple Tricks To Get Results Without Snapping Yo’ Sh!t Up

Throughout my 10+ years of lifting, I’ve been fortunate enough to only injure myself a handful of times.

I remember every single injury:

• Tweaked my lower back deadlifting off the floor twice.
• Tweaked my lower back doing Romanian deadlifts twice.
• Tweaked my left shoulder flat dumbbell bench pressing once.
• Got stuck under the bar bench pressing 135 lbs once (don’t ask).
• Tweaked my lower back doing the leg press once (my butt lifted off the seat).

Luckily all these injuries healed on their own within a few days and I never had to get surgery or go rehab.

Majority of these injuries were to due lifting more than I could handle and poor form.

I am still a HUGE promoter of lifting heavy and think that if you can lift moderately heavy, you should.

Just not too heavy like Ronnie Coleman:

Now when I say you should lift “moderately heavy,” I consider that to be anything that’s 4 reps and up.

Anything lower than 4 reps, and injury risk just shoots up like crazy.

But let’s say you just can’t lift heavy at all.

Let’s say you can’t lift anything lower than 10 reps (whether that’s due to injury or lack of equipment).

Are you doomed?

Not quite….

5 ways to spice up your basic “3 sets of 10 reps”

Most people who don’t lift heavy do something along the lines of “3 sets of 10 reps.”

This isn’t the worst thing in the world but there’s a lot of unfulfilled potential here.

10 reps is relatively easy to recover from since the weight isn’t too heavy, so we have to find a way to make it harder.

Here are the simplest ways to make that happen:

1. Decrease rest periods
2. Superset
3. Dropset
4. Rest-pause training
5. Increase time under tension

Decrease rest periods

Arguably the simplest thing you could do in your next workout.

I see people resting for too damn long in their workouts.

If you’re lifting in the 10+ rep range, you really don’t need to rest that long. In most cases, you need no more than 1 minute of rest.

But no…

I see people do a set of 10-12 reps then take a 2 minute micro porn break on Instagram.

Do me a favor and time your rest periods.

Just rest 1 minute. In some cases, you might need even less.

If you’re doing something like reverse barbell curls or calf raises., you might only need 30 seconds rest because the muscles being worked are so small.

Superset

Chances are you’ve heard of supersets.

It basically involves doing 2 exercises back to back without any rest in between. You only rest once you complete the second exercise.

For example, you could do:

• Dumbbell shoulder presses superset with dumbbell lunges.
• Barbell back rows superset with Romanian deadlifts.
• Incline dumbbell bench press superset with incline dumbbell flyes.

Supersets can be done with the same muscle group or opposing ones (depends on how the rest of the workout is structured).

Dropset

The classic “run the rack” model where you do one set then decrease the weight and immediately do another set. Repeat for however many sets.

For example, take cable rows.

Let’s say you are doing 5 drop sets with the cable row.

• Set 1: Use 150 lbs and you would aim to do 15 reps.
• Set 2: Use 130 lbs and aim to do as many as you can.
• Set 3: Use 110 lbs and aim to do as many as you can.
• Set 4: Use 90 lbs and aim to do as many as you can.
• Set 5: Use 80-70 lbs and aim to do as many as you can.

There is zero rest in between these 5 sets.

Rest-pause training

A more underutilized training method but still effective.

Basically you do the following:

• Pick a weight you can lift for 15 reps (doesn’t have to be 15, but we’ll use it for this example.)
• Rest 10 seconds.
• Lift as many reps as you can with the same weight.
• Rest 10 seconds.
• Lift as many reps as you can with the same weight.
• Rest 10 seconds.
• Repeat a few more times.

Do this for 4-6 rounds and your muscles will be on fire.

Go slower

I think most people would benefit from going slower on their reps, but this is ESPECIALLY true for those lifting lighter weights for higher reps.

So you basically find opportunities to increase the amount of tension placed on the muscle.

For example, if you’re doing curls, that could mean:

• Holding at the top of the curl for 2-3 seconds
• Holding at the mid way point of the curl for 2-3 seconds
• Deliberately going 50% slower on the negative portion of the curl.

If you’re benching, that could mean:

• Holding the rep when the bar is down to your chest.
• Holding the rep when the bar is mid way to your chest.

This can be applied to virtually any exercise and I guarantee you’ll see 10x better muscle growth and definition.

If you want to maximize strength, this probably ain’t for you

Using the methods above work well if your goal is to build muscle and lose fat, but not great for building raw strength and power.

Of course, if you don’t have much lifting experience, you’ll still gain a ton of strength regardless.

But if your goal is to maximize strength, then yeah, you gotta lift heavy at least once in a while.

But if you just want to look good naked…

Then not everything needs to be a hardcore 5 sets of 5 reps workout.

Not everything needs to be focused on increasing your 1 rep max.

There are plenty of ways (as I wrote above) to look good without following conventional heavy lifting programs.

In the end, 90% of people simply want to look good and you can do that without lifting crazy heavy.

Want a 100% customized workout program?

Next Tuesday (Sept 25, 2018) I’m launching a service called Project Sculpt.

In it, I’ll be creating 100% customized 12-week workout programs for both men and women.

When it comes to training, context is key and telling everyone to follow the same 5×5 workout just doesn’t work.

Some people can safely lift heavy, and some can’t.

Some need something more customized to their goals, experience, and body type.

That’s what you’ll get with Project Sculpt, 100% customized training programs tailored to YOU.

Stay tuned.

What is your experience with not lifting heavy? Lemme know in the comments below.