Are you a beginner who is too impressed by the advanced pulling methods that the best bodybuilders use? Then this piece is just what you need to learn more about how to lift weights if you are a beginner.
Are you a beginner at lifting weights who often hears things like “you’re a beginner, you need to stick to your reps” or “this is only for advanced lifters, so be careful if you try it” when you’re at the gym?
Well, what the more experienced lifters around you are telling you might be true, but there is a problem with their helpful advice. Even though you are just starting out, you shouldn’t limit yourself to bad movement patterns or try too hard to get your sets going. This kind of bad advice is often given by expert lifters who are always hurt or who have spent many years focusing too much on getting their numbers right.
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No one is saying that newbies don’t need to be careful when they lift, but you don’t have to wait years to get to the intermediate level. Here are some simple advanced pulling methods that any bodybuilder, no matter how much experience they have, can try.
Technique 1: Paused Reps
Paused sets should be a mainstay in the workout plan of any competing powerlifter who is working hard to fix his weak spots. Take your time to stop the movement’s speed, find the lowest range of motion, and squeeze harder to build power at all levels. As a beginner, the force you use to balance the extra weight you’re carrying can help you keep track of how many reps you do. When you take a break while lifting, the safety level goes up a notch, and your lifting will become a real test of your power.
Even though breaks can help with a lot of exercises, the best ones for newbies are different kinds of squats, pullups, and pulldowns. You could also do deadlifts with breaks between each set. Even though deadlifts have stopped reps by default, you can make each move harder to work on any weak spots. Try to stop for a full second at knee level or mid-shin. Adding more time during that moment of stress will only help the muscles grow and help them remember how to do the move correctly in the future.
Technique 2: Forced Eccentrics Or Eccentric Reps
Lifters get two benefits from making the eccentric part, which is also called the “lowering phase,” bigger. First of all, it keeps the muscles under stress for longer, which means that each rep and set will have to do more work. Second, eccentrics work your strangles muscle fibers, which makes you work harder.
The most strength and power that your body can ever give you comes from the muscle fibres that are the strongest and fastest. When you lift heavy weights, these fibre muscles are used, so you can use them more during the concentric part of each move. Most lifters pay attention to the part of the reps where the weight is moving away from the body. So, they need a lot of strength and power.
Once you can handle the heavy weights on the descent, you will gain more power and muscle growth than if you just did random reps without thinking. If you want to get things done, you can even skip the concentric part and go straight to the eccentric reps to get stronger at pull-ups.
Technique 3: Pre-Exhaust Methods
Sometimes, when you try to work on a certain group of muscles, you end up working the bigger ones instead. So, if you hit your strong muscles first, they won’t stop the growth of the muscles you want to use. This is called the “pre-exhaust” method, and it lets you work on the opposite group of muscles first. Before you work on your arms, you can stretch your triceps so that they don’t get as much work.
Beginner lifters can use the pre-exhaust method by doing hamstring curls before squats, bridges, kettlebell swings, or hip thrusts so that they don’t get in the way of working the glutes.
