Forced Reps: The Good and The Bad
Well you just finished your last set on the incline bench. You did 6 reps at 160lbs. You had hoped to knock out 8 or 9 reps, but didn't have a spotter and didn't want to risk it. You were pretty tired after number six and decided to quit instead of having a bar in your lap.
Enter the Forced Rep
This situation is the same. You are hurting on your sixth rep, but powered through. Your friend and spotter pushes you to do a seventh. You lower your weight and push six or seven inches off your chest and are powerless. If you didn't have your spotter you would be up a creek, but you do and he lifts about 15lbs of the weight and you blow through.
Next your spotter thinks you can get an eighth. You slowly lower the bar to your chest, and it is not going back up. You really can't lift the weight by yourself. Your partner barely helps you with the weight, only 10-30lbs of help. You power through with all you have and finally get the bar up. This was a forced rep.
The true definition is: an extension of a particular set of repetitions in which your strength level at the beginning of the set has been reduced to a point of positive failure. This is the point at which you can't possibly move the weight by yourself. Your spotter steps in to barely help and you achieve maximum intensity. He only helps slightly but you are so tired that you feel like he's done all the work and you got nothing out of it. Trust me, you are the one who actually lifted that weight, he only helped.
The Good
The forced rep squeezes out every bit of intensity from your working muscles. When you are faced with a force rep, a physiological reaction occurs. When you are performing a rep and simply can not lift the weight, it's a scary feeling. There are only a few options, drop the weight on yourself or try to tilt the bar to make the weight fall off, or have your spotter help. Those are your mind's options, your body's options are DO or DIE. This releases a surge of adrenaline making you stronger and able to lift the rep. All in all, when one or two forced reps are used in an exercise, you will have no doubt that you have put in maximum intensity. You used all of the force that your muscles could produce at the time.
The Bad
Forced reps are good when used properly, but it's really easy to get carried away. I suggest using one or two forced reps per exercise, not per set. The goal of any size gaining weight training program is to employ maximum intensity. The problem with forced reps can lead to overtraining. When performing a forced rep, your body is lifting a weight that is at its maximum strength capacity, and when intensity increases, duration must decrease. Put simply, the heavier and harder something is, the less you can and should do it. Forced reps are not bad, but doing too many forced reps is bad.
Using forced reps is a wonderful way to get the most out of a set. It's a good way to know for sure that you reached maximum intensity, but only when used properly. That's why I recommend only two at the end of your last set. If you do them for more sets, or reps, this can lead to muscular fatigue quicker and smaller actual muscles.
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