Follow These 3 Tips To Build The Strength Necessary For Any Exercise You Want!
Hold under tension
If you have trouble with the movement of an exercise and feel like you need some help building up your supporting muscles, isometric exercises (ones where you hold a position rather than flexing your muscles) are a great way to build up your strength and muscular endurance. Planks are one of the most common examples, but you can also hang from a pullup bar with your upper back muscles tightened or go into a pushup and hold yourself in the halfway position. This will quickly give you a great burn when you do it right!
Do the negative portion only
The hardest part of any exercise is typically the concentric or active half, but you still get benefits from the eccentric or negative half. If you’re able to do it in a secure and controlled manner (no taking risks!), doing only the negative portion at first can help you gain enough strength to do the whole motion cleanly. With pushups, this means easing yourself down to the ground slowly and resetting without actually pushing up; with pullups, this might involve pushing off from the ground and “cheating” to the apex, then gradually easing yourself back down to the ground.
Remove resistance
This won’t be possible with every exercise, but another option is counterbalancing some of the strain with a resistance band. For example, say you’re doing tricep dips elevated above the ground on a machine — if you can do it safely, try securing a band to one of the handles and resting your foot in the band (or your knee, if the band is smaller). With the right size and amount of resistance, the dips will become slightly easier, giving you more stable reps so you can work up to a fully unassisted exercise!
If you want a systematic approach to building the strength and body composition you want most with coaching and support every step of the way, I created a program designed to meet your exact needs and help you finally see the results you’ve been working toward for so long…