Stop training like a beginner

All right, what's up everybody? So, today I'm going to continue with the theme as of late on the channel. We're going to be talking about progression, and I'm excited for today's video because more specifically, beyond just discussing the anxiety and some of the issues that lifters run into as they progress, today we're going to be talking about how to actually go about this in practice as someone who's really just like an early intermediate lifter or above. So, whether you are just kind of getting past your beginner phase, you're maybe two, three years of either just good lifting or two or three years of lifting in general, and you've been pretty, pretty successful and things are starting to slow down a bit. Once you're kind of at that phase where progress is seemingly stalling and you have to be generally more precise with your training, if you're in this category as a lifter or beyond that, this video is going to help you manage and go about and just navigate progressive overload and progressing your lifts in general, specifically for hypertrophy. So, what I want to compare lifting and overall progression to once you're at this stage is it's almost like making a fire, and you just have to make sure you strategically, slowly, and steadily add some kindling to that fire. If you just want to throw a big fat log on it every time you like have the itch to add a log, you're like, "Oh, the fire's not looking big enough. Let me just toss a big log on that and put it out." Like I just said, that's going to put it out. You have to be strategic, and before you can add that big log, you have to add a little piece of kindling, do it strategically, and when the fire is ready for that log to be added. Same analogy, this applies over to progressive overload. So, when we're talking about adding reps, yes, adding reps is ultimately going to be the end goal, but there's all sorts of steps in the process of being able to add a rep that have to occur, and simply not enough lifters are aware of what these steps are, and most people simply just don't have an eye for the detail that you need to observe in order to see if progress is happening because if you're just only paying attention to the actual reps and the numbers on paper, you're missing a big portion of the progress of progressive overload occurring in your training, and you are going to start to doubt your progression way too soon and way too often. So, this video should relieve some stress and give you a little bit more clarity when you're navigating progressive overload as a lifter. So, the number one thing that I would say here is that the days of muscle growth reflecting in week added reps are over. They come to an end for everybody at a certain point. And I want to frame this as a positive because that means you've built enough muscle, you're big enough and strong enough to where the rate of muscle growth that you have in front of you simply isn't going to be that fast. And that means you already have a good base of muscle. So, in all reality, this is just a good problem to have. And ultimately, it's easy to grow attached to the fast rate of progress, but in reality, all you need to do is maximize the muscle growth that you can from now on, and however that reflects in your training, it is what it is. It doesn't, like, if you're just adding a rep, but you haven't built enough muscle to do that, it doesn't really mean anything. So, all you want to do is just see the right type of progress. It doesn't really matter whether it's a rep, slightly cleaner final rep, better RPE, etc. So, I do want to stress that in order to simply just build enough muscle, enough grams of muscle in the target muscle to add an entire rep to a lift that you're doing, it's going to take multiple bouts of stimulus. The days of it just being one little session, one workout, and then you have an entire another rep available, those days are gone. Those days are over, and it's best to just accept that so you can officially move on. Very good problem to have. So, what I'd say here is that you have to get comfortable getting used to doing one, two, three, four, specifically maybe five or six. Depends on the lifts and the context of the lifter, obviously. But, you have to get used to just accepting the fact that multiple sessions are needed to build enough muscle to see that plus one in your program. And that's okay. That's totally fine. It makes logical sense. If you can add, say, a few grams of muscle every session, and you need 50 to 100 grams of muscle to add a rep for a certain lift, then yeah, you're going to need to do a few sessions in order to make that happen. So, it should bring you a little bit of peace knowing that if you're not adding a rep every session, it doesn't mean you're not making progress. It just means you're continuing to chip away at something that will eventually happen for you. And quick shout-out to Barbell Apparel, $99 pant sale. Any pants, jeans, chinos, joggers, etc. Use my code BASEMENT to get a free top with them. Top and pants for under 100 bucks. Pretty good deal if you ask me. Also want to give a shout-out to the Basement Bodybuilding Hypertrophy App. This is my own coach-in-your-pocket app. Check it out. Link in my description if you want to give that a try. You can also check out Boostcamp and get access to any of my programs, free or paid. Use the code BASEMENT to get two free weeks of any paid programs on Boostcamp. This is what you should focus on, and this is what you should think about in practice. I'm going to go over this now. So, when you're going about your progression, the first thing that you're going to want to focus on before adding a rep, and I should clarify everything I'm about to discuss here, is what you want to think about and focus on before you add a rep or before you add weight. These are all things to make sure that the rep will be able to be added at some point. Number one, you have to clean up your form on your final rep. If your final rep of a given set on a given lift is sloppy, and your technique is breaking down, your posture is deviating from what you want it to be, you have to focus on this before you go for adding another rep. So, let's say a very easy example here. Say you're doing like a cable lateral raise and you get six really good, really clean reps with your ideal technique. And then on your seventh rep, your spine bends a little bit, your rib cage opens up, your scapula elevates, upwardly rotates a little bit, and let's say you go into a little bit more external rotation and your technique deviates, but you technically get the point, the weight from point A to point B. That's fine. You're ultimately the judge of whether you want to count that rep or not, but if you do count that rep, it's a really good idea to note down that you did make it to technical failure and that you should clean up that final rep before you focus on adding another one. So, that doesn't necessarily happen in one session. It might take two, sometimes three sessions to be able to actually match that same amount of reps that you got previously with better technique. And that's a totally fine and totally valid progression to focus on in the short term. I think too many people view technique and form cleanups as very short-term, like rare forms of progressive overload. And I think in the mainstream way that people talk about this, like a full-on technique or form overhaul sense, obviously that is going to be rare and it's going to be very short-term. You just cleaned up your technique once and it's good for as long as you choose to keep it good for. But in this case, oftentimes when you do add a rep, it's going to be a little bit ugly the first time you do it. So, taking some time to kind of marinate, let that rep get a little bit better, let that rep get a bit cleaner, it's just a really good way to go about it and it's very of

issues that lifters run into as they progress, today we're going to be talking about how to actually go about this in practice as someone who's really just like an early intermediate lifter or above. So, whether you are just kind

of getting past your beginner phase, you're maybe two, three years of either just good lifting or two or three years of lifting in general and you've been pretty pretty successful and things are starting to slow down a bit. Once you're

kind of at that phase where progress is seemingly stalling and you have to be generally more precise with your training, if you're in this category as a lifter or beyond that, this video is going to help you manage and go about

and just navigate progressive overload and progressing your lifts in general specifically for hypertrophy. So, what I want to compare lifting and overall progression to once you're at this stage is it's almost like making a fire and you just have to make sure you

strategically, slowly and steadily add some kindling to that fire. If you just want to throw a big fat log on it every time you like have the itch to add a log, you're like, "Oh, the fire's not looking big enough. Let me just toss a

big log on that and put it out." Like I just said, that's going to put it out.

You have to be strategic and before you can add that big log, you have to add a little piece of kindling, do it strategically and when the fire is ready for that log to be added. Same analogy, this this applies over to progressive

overload. So, when we're talking about adding reps, yes, adding reps is ultimately going to be the end goal, but there's all sorts of steps in the process of being able to add a rep that have to occur and simply not enough

lifters are aware of what these steps are and most people simply just don't have an eye for the detail uh that you need to observe in order to see if progress is happening because if you're just only paying attention to the

actual reps and the numbers on paper, you're missing a big portion of the progress of progressive overload occurring in your in your training, and you are going to start to doubt your progression way too soon and way too

often. So, this video should relieve some stress and give you a little bit more clarity when you're navigating progressive overload as a lifter. So, the number one thing that I would say here is that the days of muscle growth

reflecting in week added reps are over. They come to an end for everybody at a certain point. And I want to frame this as a positive because that means you've built enough muscle, you're big enough and strong enough to where the rate of

muscle growth that you have in front of you simply isn't going to be that fast.

And that means you already have a good base of muscle. So, in all reality, this is just a good problem to have. And ultimately, it's easy to grow attached to the fast rate of progress, but in reality, all you need to do is maximize

the muscle growth that you can from now on, and however that reflects in your training, it is what it is. It doesn't like if you're just adding a rep, but you haven't built enough muscle to do that, it doesn't really mean

anything. So, all you want to do is just see the right type of progress. It doesn't really matter whether it's a rep, slightly cleaner final rep, better RPE, etc. So, I do want to stress that in order to simply just build enough

muscle, enough grams of muscle in the target muscle to add an entire rep to a lift that you're doing, it's going to take multiple bouts of stimulus. The days of it just being one little session, one workout, and then

you have an entire another rep available, those days are gone. Those days are over, and it's best to just accept that so you can officially move on.

Very good problem to have. So, what I'd say here is that you have to get comfortable getting used to doing one, two, three, four specifically, maybe five or six. Depends on the lifts and the contact context of the lifter,

obviously. But, you have to get used to just accepting the fact that multiple sessions are needed to build enough muscle to see that plus one in your program. And that's okay. That's totally fine. It makes logical sense. If you can add,

say, a few grams of muscle every session, and you need uh 50 to 100 g of muscle to add a rep for a certain lift, then yeah, you're going to need to do a few sessions in order to make that

happen. So, it should bring you a little bit of peace knowing that if you're not adding rep every session, it doesn't mean you're not making progress. It just means you're continuing to chip away at something that will eventually happen

for you. And quick shout-out to Barbell Apparel, $99 pant sale. Any pants, jeans, chinos, joggers, etc. Use my code basement to get a free top with them.

Top and pants for under 100 bucks. Pretty good deal if you ask me. Also want to give a shout-out to the Basement Bodybuilding Hypertrophy App. This is my own coach-in-your-pocket app. Check it out. Link in my description if you want

to give that a try. You can also check out Boostcamp and get access to any of my programs, free or paid. Use the code basement to get two free weeks of any paid programs on Boostcamp. This is what

you should focus on, and this is uh this is what you should think about in practice. I'm going to I'm going to go over this now. So, when you're going about your progression, the first thing that you're going to want to focus on before adding

a rep, and I should clarify everything I'm about to discuss here, is what you want to think about and focus on to before you add a rep or before you add weight. These are all things to make sure that the rep will be able to be

added at some point. Number one, you have to clean up your form on your final rep. If your final rep of a given set on a given lift is sloppy, and uh your technique is breaking down, your posture

is deviating from what you want it to be, you have to focus on this before you go for adding another rep. So, let's say a very easy example here.

Say you're doing like a cable lateral raise and you get six really good, really clean reps with your ideal technique. And then on your seventh rep, your spine bends a little bit, your rib cage opens up, your scapula elevates,

upwardly rotates a little bit, and let's say you go into a little bit more external rotation and your technique deviates, but you technically get the point the the weight from point A to point B.

That's fine. You're ultimately the judge of whether you want to count that rep or not, but if you do count that rep, it's a really good idea to note down that you did make it to technical failure and

that you should clean up that final rep before you focus on adding another one.

So, that doesn't necessarily happen in one session. It might take two, sometimes three sessions to be able to actually match that same amount of reps that you got previously with better technique. And that's a totally fine and totally valid progression to focus on in

the short term. I think too many people view like technique and form cleanups as like very short-term like rare forms of progressive overload. And I think in the in like the mainstream way that people talk about this like a full-on technique

or form overhaul sense, obviously that is going to be rare and it's going to be very short-term. You just cleaned up your technique once and it's good for as long as you you choose to keep it good for. But in this case, oftentimes when

you do add a rep, it's going to be a little bit ugly the first time you do it. So, taking some time to kind of marinate, let that rep get a little bit better, let that rep get a bit cleaner,

it's just a really good way to go about it and it's very often going to be necessary. It's a necessary step to be able to add another rep. Like if you can't even get your final rep on your

current set good, you have no business adding another rep. Just simple as that. Uh the next one I would say here, and this is kind of a similar concept, but you want your final rep to actually move a little bit smoother. So, let's say you

clean up your form and your final rep looks clean. It's just slow and grinding, and maybe there are a couple sticking points there. What you should aim for next time is to be able to get that rep without any sticking points or

with much smoother sticking points. So, let's say you're doing like an overhead press and about halfway up you find that you get completely stuck and the weight basically grinds to a halt, but then you have just enough willpower and just

enough effort left in you to push through and grind out and complete the rep. That's a huge step and that's absolutely good progress. But, next time what you should focus on is instead of going for another rep, you should focus

on getting that rep just a tad smoother. You don't want to rush it, you don't want to speed up your eccentrics or let your form break down just for the sake of making it move faster, but you'll notice that if that final rep is moving

a little bit smoother than last time, that's an excellent sign that you have built muscle.

Another one that I would say here is you want to monitor RIR/RPE changes at the end of the set. So, for example, let's say we'll run through these first couple examples and what you can see in an actual progression here.

So, let's say on week one for a given lift, you get five reps on your preacher curl, but the final rep is a little bit ugly. Like, you maybe have your shoulders elevating up a little bit, maybe you kind of lean towards one side,

one arm comes up a little bit sooner. It's just not the prettiest looking rep.

Cool. Next week, if you're able to get that final rep with the exact technique that you want keeping your shoulders a little bit more depressed, things are a little bit more even looking, great sign of progress. Let's say that rep is still

an absolute grinder, you get stuck uh in that more lengthened position, but you find you find a way to break through it.

If that rep looks a little bit smoother the next week, great sign of progress.

Now you have a solid set of five that you're doing. But six, nowhere close. You're just not there yet. Let's say on that next week, you end up completing that same set of five and it moves a little bit a little

bit quicker. You wouldn't be able to do a sixth rep, but let's say you could actually you could attempt it. Like you're not totally cooked by the time you do your fifth. You have an actual You have an honest an honest effort to

try a sixth rep, but it's not even close to happening, but you can at least put an effort there for it. Let's say the next week you finish five reps and you're kind of 50/50 if you can get that

sixth rep. Again, that's a really good sign of progress. You don't just think you could I could attempt it, but I know I couldn't. You're like, you know, I might have an honest shot to get this rep.

And then let's say the following week after that, you do five and you're like, I'm pretty sure I can do six. And then depending on the lift, you can go for that sixth rep if you think you have an

honest shot to get it. And then if you're conservative and you say, "Nope, you know what? I'm I don't want to grindy ugly rep. I just want to take what I'm take what I'm getting already.

Leave it at that. Try again. Next week and say the following week you come back, you do five and then you know you can do six. That's all really good progress. That's exactly how progressing basically any lift, once you're past the

beginner phase of lifting, is going to look like. And I'm not saying that you can't progress faster than that. I'm not I'm not saying that to add a single rep it's going to take 10 weeks for every single lift across the board. But a lot

of the time between adding reps, you have to focus on these little short-term phases. And a lot of the time you don't even have to like intentionally go out of your way to try and like clean up a

rep. It just kind of happens naturally. It's just part of the process. Once you have a little bit more muscle, maybe you have enough to get the rep with cleaner technique. But that's okay. You don't have enough muscle yet to be able to add

a full next rep. So, it's just an important thing to keep in mind. And And this is it's a more peaceful, steady, enjoyable way to train. There's so much less stress, anxiety, and pressure. And this is the sustainable long-term approach

that all of the successful intermediate and advanced lifters take. And ultimately, you can get away with a rushing to add reps in the short term, but you're always going to corner yourself training this way. You're going to end up in a

spot where you just simply run out of technique deviation. You run out of slop with your form. You run out of cheating.

And eventually, it gets to a point where you have to reset. And guess what? Maybe you're back at square one. Maybe you did make some progress, but in reality, if you just kept things consistent and took the slower path on paper, you probably

end up at the same spot. At worst, at worst, you're probably ending up in a much better spot with more muscle. Like over the course of say 10 years, if you add 50 lb to uh a given lift, say your bench press,

and you're already advanced, like that's pretty good, but that's only 5 lb a year, right? So, just a random example.

You can You can kind of apply that to whatever context you want to. You could say the same thing for like say a preacher curl. Like let's say you're advanced, you're doing 100 lb for seven reps, and then you get to like 5 years

later, you're doing 125 for seven reps. Like that's 5 lb a year. It seems like nothing, but it's actually quite a bit.

So, what's that? Like less than a pound every couple months. Like You get what I'm saying here. Just This stuff takes time. So, I would also say I got off on a little tangent here. Shocker, right? Shocker.

Total shocker on this channel. Another little thing to focus on progression-wise, do not rush through the beginning of the set. Those first few reps or so, early middle of the set, don't rush those. It's going to be tempting,

whether you're fully aware of that or if it's just subconscious because you're pressuring yourself to try and get that next rep.

Make sure all of your reps are quality. Standardization is king. Don't forget that. I would also say, just to touch on the whole technique reset thing a little bit more, there's a massive difference between a little technique clean up and

a subtle cue or a subtle change in your training versus a genuine technique overhaul, which I would almost classify as just a lift rotation. So, if you're doing like say high bar squats and your hips are shooting way back or let's say

you're doing T-bar rows and your elbows are sinking way down and it's really just more lats and no elbow flexors.

Like, if you change your technique to where you're staying more upright on your squats or you're flaring your elbows out more keeping up a little bit more upright on your rows, those aren't subtle technique changes.

You're basically changing the variation of the lift that you're doing. That is going to be much less common and and it's going to be very rare, I would say.

So, there's going to be times where you do have to do the inevitable form reset, but you don't want to do that on your bread and butter lifts in your program very often. Uh but if you're like doing

a lift that you've always done with a more cheated style technique and you haven't really noticed how bad it was until you recently filmed it and you have to reset it, go for it. But those are kind of just like one-time

situations. If you're having to do that regularly, that's that's kind of an issue. But a little technique clean up and making sure the last rep looks a little bit a little bit prettier, moves a little bit smoother, really just for the

final couple reps of any set before adding a rep, that's not a technique reset. That's just a little clean up and that's just part of the process of progressive overload. So, from here what I would say, somebody left a comment on my last video

saying he loves uh Jordan Peterson's advice of no 50/50 reps. And I just have to repeat that because it's it's just a simply beautiful phrase to live by. No 50/50 reps. It's so simple, you can always remember that mid

set. You're not overthinking anything. If you get to the end of your set and you are not sure if you can get the next rep or not, just end the set. Save it for next time. Uh there's going to be

certain times where like if you're 3 weeks in a row, 4 weeks in a row on a given lift, sometimes 2 weeks in a row depending on the context, and nothing's really improving, you're not seeing any tangible improvements on your final

reps, whether it's speed, technique, etc., and you've been kind of stuck on the fence about being able to add another rep, like you're good to go for it, so I'm not going to say never go for the 50/50 reps, but use it sparingly. The

vast majority of the time, it's a if it's a 50/50 shot if you have that next rep, just save the energy. Save it for next time, the next set, the next week, whatever it is. No 50/50 reps. Beautiful

piece of advice, and this keeps you training with as many good reps as you know that you can get. Simple as that. I just I love that advice. Shout out to Jordan Peters, he's a legend. Um another thing I want to say here, and this is

what I'm going to finish the video on. Training can fluctuate, so keeping an eye out for higher highs and/or higher lows is very helpful. And what I mean by this is like don't get too caught up in the in the the the high of highs,

performance-wise, when the stars align and you're able to achieve a very good performance on a given lift. So like, if you have kind of like a random one-off, let's say you you're doing an eight-week block on a given lift, and your PR was

like randomly a rep or two higher than pretty much any other week on one of those weeks, odds are that was just the stars aligned, your energy levels were perfect, you had the right amount of motivation that day, maybe you cheated

your technique a little bit, maybe the right song was playing, and that's the exception, not the norm. But over time, let's say next block, you're able to match that same PR, but you do it two or three weeks in a row, and that kind of

becomes the norm for you, now your floor is higher. Your ceiling isn't higher, like you're not having higher highs yet, but higher lows, that's a really good sign of progress, and higher highs obviously a sign of progress, too. So,

if what your exception or your one-off or your perfect session used to be is now becoming the baseline of the norm for you, that's a good sign of progress. That means regardless of how you feel, whether you're motivated, whether it's a

good day, bad day, etc., you can repeat a given performance and it doesn't have to just be that perfect situation where the stars align. So, that's really it for the video. I hope that was helpful for you. If you guys

have any questions on anything that I that I discussed here, please let me know. Uh and with that being said, that's all I've got for today, so I will see you guys in the next one.