Ways to Pump Up the Intensity of Your Workout

So your fitness plan is going great. You’re doing some resistance training, getting your cardio in, eating well and getting your sleep. But after sticking to your program for a few weeks, it seems like the 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise is just taking you through the motions. Sure you’re working hard, but are you really pushing yourself to levels that will help you reach your goals?

Well, there are a number of proven techniques that can and make your workouts even more intense and help you make the fitness gains you deserve.


Pre-Exhaust muscles
When working a bodypart, take an exercise that is not a compound movement and perform a couple of sets with higher reps to failure, really forcing the blood into the muscle. Then perform the key compound exercise that will not only continue to work that bodypart, but others as well. For example, if working chest, do 2 sets of cable crossovers of about 20 reps to failure. With very little rest, start your regular sets of dumbbell bench press. All that blood in your chest will give you a great pump to reward you for your hard work.

Drop Sets
A personal favorite, this technique allows you to push beyond the point of failure. The idea is to perform the reps up until failure on a particular exercise, drop to a lesser weight and immediately start the exercise again and rep to failure. Drop the weight once again and repeat the process.

Supersets
There are two ways to perform supersets. One, they can be performed on opposing muscle groups such as quad or hamstrings, or on a single muscle group such as shoulders. The idea for the first is to complete a set of reps for an exercise such as leg extensions and then immediately begin reps on the exercise for the opposing muscle, such as leg curls. For a singular muscle, the idea is the same except you perform 2 exercises for the same muscle, like shoulder press and lateral raises.

Forced Reps
Forced reps require you to have a workout partner who can help you move the weight. Once you’ve reached failure in your set, your partner helps you complete a few extra reps through actively helping you move the weight.

Negatives
Also known as eccentric training, this technique also requires a workout partner. The idea is to lower the weight very slowly the entire rep. Your partner then helps you raise the weight back to the upper position before you slowly lower the weight again. Complete a similar number of reps which will allow longer tension on the muscle.

Rest-Pause
The idea for rest-pause is to complete a number of reps to failure. Rack or set down the weight, wait ten to fifteen seconds, and then begin the reps again completing as many as possible.


You don’t want to add an intensity technique to every exercise in every workout, but it’s a good idea to perform at least a few sets using an intensity boosting technique. Don’t get complacent in your workouts. It’s important to continually push yourself and the above techniques will definitely work if done properly.