How to increase the difficulty of an exercise without increasing your weights
Are the weights you have at home starting to feel too easy for certain exercises? Or maybe the weights you need at the gym are being used by someone else, so you’re forced to use something a little lighter. Wondering how you can still challenge yourself with lighter weights?
Here are 4 ways you can crank it up a notch by increasing time under tension without increasing the load (aka, the weight):
Add a tempo. There are a lot of different ways you can play around with tempo (slowing down a part or parts of the movement). One of my favorites is an eccentric tempo, which usually involves taking 3-5 seconds to complete the “eccentric” or muscle-lengthening phase of the movement (lowering in a squat, lengthening your arms on a row, etc.).
Add a pause. Don’t underestimate the power of a little pause! Trying adding a 1-2 second pause at the bottom of your goblet squat or top of your bent over row … you can thank me later.
Add a quarter or half rep. One-and-a-quarter or one-and-a-half reps are a great way to increase the difficulty of an exercise or to break through a plateau if you feel like you’ve been stuck at the same weight for a long time on a movement. Example: lower all the way down into your squat, come halfway up, go back down, come all the way up.
Increase the range of motion (ROM): Adding a deficit to an exercise increases the range of motion and therefore, time under tension. Try keeping your front foot on an elevated surface for reverse lunges, elevating your back foot for split squats, or elevating your hands on a set of dumbbells or plates for push-ups. Spicy.
Make it a drop set. Immediately after you complete your reps with whatever weights you’re using, drop down to slightly lighter weights and try to complete as many reps as possible of the same exercise using those weights.
Ultimately, there are a lot of ways to progress the same exercise, and increasing the load is just one of them. Using these techniques can help you continue making progress with limited equipment, break through a plateau if you feel like you’ve been stuck at the same weights for awhile, and/or help spice up your training routine and keep it interesting. Happy training!
