1.)    Incomplete range of motion on dumbbell pressing. It seems that for many individuals, it is acceptable that Dumbbell Bench Presses do not need a full range of motion, while Bench Presses MUST touch your chest. This is truly stupid. When you are Dumbbell Pressing, you should draw an imaginary line across the dumbbell handles to envision how deep you are working the range of motion. Work the full range of motion in ALL of your lifts, unless joint pain prevents you from doing so. In this case, you probably shouldn’t be doing the lift at all. Sorry if I just crushed your excitement from pressing the 110’s.

 

2.)    Assigning rep ranges without being aware of tempo. Do you think your brain has a little “rep ticker” in it, or even a “contraction ticker” that is programmed to make you stronger when you add reps to your lifts? Sadly, it does not. Your body DOES respond and adapt to increased time under tension with intense resistance training. With that being said, am I advocating ultra slow negatives on every lift? No, I am not, but I do believe that if you are allowing resistance to plummet to the ground like a meteor just so you can get another “rep,” you are limiting your gains. In exercises where tension is never absent (bodyweight exercises, banded movements), rep speed doesn’t matter as much, but at least CONTROL the negative.  MY 12 reps could be very different than YOUR 12 reps if our tempos are very different.

 

3.)    Assigning a “4-2” tempo. Honestly WHO uses a 4 second negative. I think your average lifter is probably lucky to get one FULL second on the negative of each lift. And why even assign a positive tempo? To get stronger, it is well documented that you need to INTEND to move the weight as quickly as possible on every concentric, whether or not that takes you .5 second or 2 seconds.

 

4.)    Training “Movements not Muscles. I really hate this, but it seems like 95% of NCAA strength coaches adhere to this. Basically, what this rule says is that “I, Joe Strength Coach for Jones University, am NOT a bodybuilder. In no way shape or form, do I use bodybuilding in my programs. Those rep ranges of 8-12? Oh well, we are just performing movements in those exercises, so, um, we are NOT bodybuilding…we are working strength by focusing on the movements, not bodybuilding.”

 

It all comes down to muscular contraction initiating movement. These coaches can refute the fact that their program is not a “bodybuilding” program, but in a sense, it is all bodybuilding. The major difference is that the goal is not vanity, but rather injury prevention and improved athletic performance. Many factors come into play when determining the completion of a lift. Lever length, gravity, and momentum/torque just to name a few. If we were to focus SOLELY on the movement and not the muscle, then I think we are in for a rude awakening when we step into an athletic competition. Not ONE of the “movements” we train will be present in competition, but guess what? All of our musculature will be firing on all cylinders! And what about the mighty CNS? If we need to focus on the movement, move each resistance with as much intent as possible, and you will maximize the CNS efficiency that your genetic potential allows.