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As you go about your workout program, it’s going to become very important at one point or another that you begin looking for small ways that you can use to boost up the overall intensity and progress yourself along.
Remember that unless your body is constantly encountering an overloading stimulus with your workout, it’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll continue to show progress.
This overloading stimulus – that additional stress that the body has never been shown before is what will force it to get stronger, faster, and leaner, all of which is precisely what you’re looking for.
Let’s take a quick look right now at five of the best ways that you can boost up the intensity of your workout program so you can get on track to results.
Add More Reps
One of the most common methods for increasing the intensity during your workout is to simply add more reps to each set that you do. This means that rather than doing six reps like you may have less session, now you’re moving on up and taking it to eight total.
If you do this often enough, eventually your body will be able to handle more volume overall, thus you’ll start showing improvements.
Just do watch with this however as you don’t just increase the reps over and over again without question. Once you get past about twelve to fifteen reps or so you really won’t see any further benefits because of it.
Decrease Your Rest
Second, the next way to boost up the level of intensity in your workout program is to decrease the rest breaks you’re taking. So rather than resting for a full minute between each set, try keeping it to thirty seconds or so.
This will really increase the heart rate as well so you’ll burn more calories total with each workout that you do.
Pair Your Exercises Back To Back
Third, think about pairing two exercises back to back. So rather than say doing your leg extensions and then moving over and doing your hamstring curls once those were all completed, now you’re going to begin with leg extensions and once those are done, immediately move into a set of hamstring curls.
Once those are finished, then you can break and begin again.
Increase The Weight
By far and away, the single best way to increase the intensity and improve your progress is to increase the weight. Usually with most people they will start by increasing the reps at a given weight and once they hit ten or twelve reps, that’s when they move over and increase the weight instead.
However you want to set it up, when you feel as though you could increase the weight on a potential lift, make sure you do so. This will be paramount for success. Don’t let yourself fall for the thinking pattern that light weight means better ‘toning’ because this isn’t the case. You will see far more benefits from actually challenging the body and boosting up that overall rep range.
Drop The Weight
Finally, the last way to boost the intensity is to actually drop the weight. Now you might be feeling confused. First you’re to increase the weight and now you’re dropping it?
The idea here is that you’ll do drop sets. With these you’ll perform one set at your normal given weight and once that’s finished, you’ll immediately decrease the weight by about 5 pounds and then perform a second set.
Once that set is completed, then drop the weight again and go for a third set.
By doing this you’ll really see the metabolism increase and you will get much better overall fat burning results.
So keep these quick tips in mind next time you’re in the gym looking to boost your intensity and reach further towards your goal.
