Alright stop! hammer time

avoiding plateaus is not an easy task. No matter how well versed we are in exercise science or how expensive our gym or trainer fees are, we run into plateaus from time to time. Designing programs is a balancing act.

Do it like crossfit and change movements seemingly without thought? Ok, you avoid the worry of getting accustomed to the stimulis BUT you may remain too cognitive in the learning phase, and never really a move well enough to add some appreciable weight.

Do it the opposite way and you get PLENTY of practice in the movement but the stimulis is diminished. The positive is the movement gets perfected, with this you can add more weight than if you changed every exercise every workout. The negative is you get too accustomed to the movement, and diminishing the stimulis which will minimize the adaptation from it.

Exercise selection is nothing more than a variable in program design, to be tweaked, maintained, or let go of for whatever reason we choose. Programming Design is like a science experiment, if i do X what will happen? the only difference is we have a pretty good idea of what will happen. In this science experiment a variable that is sometimes forgetting (usually because it makes the exercise more difficult) is pausing in the eccentric/concentric phase.

I want to think about four distinct phases of a lift, and lets the bench press as the example (since its an easy one) the concentric (the press), eccentric (lowering) phase in between concentric and eccentric (lockout) and the phase between eccentric and concentric (the bottom range of it.

In the bench press (for example) what are the benefits of a pause at the bottom? As we lower the bar we build up energy in our muscles, think a rubber band being pulled back before you flick it a little sibling or cousins head. This energy is recycled to help you in concentric phase, and overused by deuchebags bouncing the weight uncontrollably off their chest. 1 benefit is it minimizes you looking like deuchebag. Another benefit is with resting at the bottom, the potential energy goes away after a few seconds the potentially recycled energy is gone and you are forced to call on MORE MUSCLE fibers to lift the weight off your chest.

Eliminating or diminishing the stretch reflex has some awesome side effect as well. It minimizes our chance of using weights that we have no business dealing but only do so because your ass is a foot off the bench and you're leaving bruises on your chest from the bounce.

This pause isn't a magic bullet and there are some negatives to it as well. Using this energy is natural to our bodies, its on our walk, run, jump etc. another negative is maybe we shouldn't always use a full range of motion and staying at a range of motion that isn't good for you, longer. does some damage. For Example, if at the bottom of the bench our shoulders can't be set right staying there under load will quickly hurt you. An easier example to see is with the squat, if full rom is ass to grass, but you are so tight that slightly above parrallel lumbar flexion occurs then going lower with load and holding that position is a recipe for disaster.

This is yet another balancing act of pro versus con is it worth the negatives for positives? this pause is nothing more than yet another variable which is a part of the tempo of the lift.

Change variables often enough that enough that you do not remain stagnant, but so often that you can't make too many gains from building on that movement.