Comment by samiv
13 hours ago
As a natty bodybuilder for over 30 years for anyone aspiring towards fitness and starting at the gym my most important advice is
"Put the phone away and bust some ass"
I see way too many people (the great majority) completely sabotage their training by putting the weights down when it starts to get hard and get on their phone.
When the weights get hard is when the real set begins. If you don't do the hard reps you deny yourself the stimulus required for adapting to overcome the stress, I.e the growth.
This is why having a buddy/spotter is so important. On every lift my friend spotted me an extra 3-4 reps that I would not be able to do if I went just myself and kept going until the last rep was 95% him and 5% me. First guy to automate spotting is an instant billionaire.
If you're looking at safety, a power cage with the bars set will do the trick. Or swap out BB for DB for presses.
If you're looking at forced reps, you can do drop sets or add bands (assist rather than resist) to continue lifting for extra reps. For quicker drop sets, use some light plates (2.5# or 5#) which you can rapidly strip from the bar and continue a few reps.
For DB moves you can self-assist in some lifts using your other arm, or have lighter DBs to hand for additional reps.
<https://dr-muscle.com/use-drop-sets-build-muscle/>
Depending on the exercise you can also do this without a spotter.
Either do cheat reps and focus on the negative (works with small exercise such as bicep curls) or drop set or super set.
My personal fav is the cheat and negative and I do it a lot for example in cable pulldown. Use a bit of bodyweight to pull it down and then 5s negative.