So I’ve been progressive overload for months.

To be honest, I do see results with this approach. However, there are one thing that keeps me feeling something is off. I definitely make sure I’m progressing with a significant improvement in weight and volume overtime. But sometimes, I found with the same movement I have unstable progress.

What does it mean? The ability for you to complete the same movement did not consistent throughout the sessions.

For this, I spend one session really facing this problem, and I found out the key problem that most of us will stumble in–

FORM.

Why Form Matters

Not just about you should follow everyone to perform the most standard form, because I do not think everyone should follow a standard ‘posture’ for the same exercise. But it’s beyond that, it is how much you are able to target the muscle without putting too much stress on the balancing muscle.

Often, there is an irony that most of us that did not hire a PT had stumbled in. When we started progressive overload, chances are we are doing quite well at the beginning of your muscle-building journey. I means the form. It is because in the beginning, we are more cautious and the load that we use are relatively light. I could say, if not necessarily but probably once we feel great for constantly increasing load. sometimes we did not allow time for us to get used to the new weight.

Drop The Weight

This seems counterproductive, but you have to do so.

If you found you are able to add weight every single week, chances are you might not doing things properly. I found myself get pride in a heavier and heavier weight, but sometimes I forgot to slow down and use the same muscle group for the exercises.

I ended up using the balancing muscle. As result, I feel that I gain my overall strength, but when really sit down and examine whether I can finish the movement with good form, I failed to do so.

Start with the lighter weight that allows you to perform with the perfect form, even if you wish to perform it without weight–it’s fine. The goal here is to let you revise the movement and feel the targeted muscle again.

You will be surprised how much you had been neglected in the previous session when you rushed things. Surprisingly, this is the time you finally feel that muscle group that you intended to train.

If No One Able To Help, Grab a Phone

I usually workout in front of a huge gym mirror. Meanwhile with all the movements, I will constantly check for the form.

From this, you get to know how important form check is in your every training session. In fact, I found that we tend to make mistakes in form no matter how much experience with the same exercise. Even the most common seen movement, the every staple exercise that we know of–squat, we still tend to do it with the wrong form.

Someone is lucky to get a personal trainer, however, for us that had done everything DIY, this is not the case. Then recording your training could help you to have some insight into how you progress.

Drop An Exercise If It Did Not Work For You

Most of the time we did not question whether an exercise is really suitable for us, we just did it because everyone is doing it. I myself included.

For instance, I had once fancied with the suitcase squat. Not saying it is bad but it just did not suitable for me because I had bad flexibility around my hip. I found it difficult to perform the form no matter how I try. I was either tilting myself forward or just ended up doing a cheat squat.

It really makes me feel disheartened with this single exercise and I felt terrible with the remaining exercise.

And the point here is, I don’t know what is it beneficial for.

Then when I finally make the decision to shift it with some more quads dominant exercise–since it’s quads day. I replace it with goblet squat. Then the whole story change.

Slow Down

One of the ways to add intensity without adding more weight or volume is the tempo. Most of the trainers had been highlighting the importance of slowing the movement down.

Don’t be fooled by the surface, to slow down doesn;t means you do everything slow. But, you have to slow down just the movement of your workout and feel the tensing of the muscle.

In this article, is state the benefits of slowing down the movement in your training, and how it could actually help in building muscle.

Often time when we slow down the movement, we eliminate the tendency for us to use any cheat movement, as well as using momentum to finish the workout. Let’s face the truth, when we use all these assisting factors, we are going to be excelled with the cheat movement, not the movement itself.

Don’t be afraid to step back a bit and start building a strong foundation.