“Good things come after failure. You only must keep working.” In every other context, this statement reads as banal self-help advice. But relative to lifting, it’s sage wisdom gleaned from bodybuilders and the ever-growing science of muscle hypertrophy.

Forced reps, also often called “assisted reps,” are a well-liked intensification technique performed by lifters to increase an exercise set past muscular failure.(1)(2)

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By forcing you to work past your limit, forced reps have the potential to unlock recent muscle growth. But as with every type of advanced training, this method should be used appropriately. Here, you can see practical and evidence-based recommendations for integrating forced reps into your lifting routine.

Guide to Forced Reps

How Forced Reps Work

Forced reps enable a lifter to perform additional repetitions past the purpose of muscular failure. Anecdotally, they’re amongst essentially the most difficult and motivating methods of coaching. Higher yet, there’s developing mechanistic support for his or her effectiveness.

To perform forced reps, you lift to momentary muscle failure after which use external assistance to instantly proceed performing more repetitions. Unlike drop sets, one other common intensification technique, there’s no must strip plates off the bar, move the pin on the load stack, or exchange your dumbbell for lighter ones.

With forced reps, your training partner simply steps in to help you to perform the extra repetitions. Specifically, your training partner provides simply enough help to let you grind through the “sticking point,” or most difficult portion, of the repetition.

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Forced reps are thought to speed up muscle growth via increased metabolic stress.(2) Moreover, forced reps may let you reap advantages from greater repetition volume, more time under load, and an intensified lifting experience.

Perform Forced Reps

Forced reps require the help of a training partner to enable the set to proceed past failure. An attentive, relatively strong, and highly motivating training partner is value their weight in gold.

When you’ve secured a high quality training partner, it’s essential to communicate before the set of forced reps begins. Discuss the exercise to be performed, how you prefer to your partner to help your forced reps, when your partner should begin assisting, and what number of forced reps you propose to perform past failure. Here’s exactly what that you must cover with each topic.

Exercise Selection

Non-ballistic free weight and machine-based exercises work best for forced reps. The technique will be performed with single-joint or multi-joint exercises. Among the many countless exercises that might be chosen, common exercises used for forced reps include pull-ups, seated overhead press, Smith machine squats, bench press, leg press, leg extensions, biceps curls, and leg curls.(3)(4)

Some exercises, nevertheless, are difficult or downright ridiculous to be used with forced reps. For instance, it could be very awkward in your partner to help you in performance of forced reps for deadlifts. Even many free weight rows will be awkward to help. Machine-based rows, landmine rows, or chest-supported T-bar rows tend are higher options because they permit your partner to keep up favorable body mechanics while assisting the forced reps.

Rigorously consider the exercises you choose for forced reps. Obviously, each exercise should goal a muscle group or movement pattern you would like to overload, but if taking a particular exercise beyond failure seems sketchy, find another movement or skip it.

How Forced Reps Are Assisted

Instruct your partner to offer the minimum amount of assistance obligatory to let you proceed the set.(1)(4) The particular technique for applying assistance varies based on the lift. The technique for assisting forced reps is mostly consistent with technique for spotting, though exercises not traditionally spotted would require some creativity.

Your partner should assist from the barbell during upper body barbell exercises, from the wrists during dumbbell presses, and thru the torso during pull-ups, dips, squats, lunges, and step-ups. Note: assisting (and spotting) the latter two exercises is technically demanding and requires practice to perform safely.

For machine-based forced reps, technique will vary based on the exercise and equipment design. Make certain that your partner is positioned out of harm’s way and doesn’t get their limbs or digits caught in pinch points on the machine.

When Forced Reps Are Assisted

Experienced lifters can pin-point exactly where within the repetition they are going to are inclined to “fail” during common exercises. This a part of the lift is known as the “sticking point.” When your repetition grinds to a halt within the sticking point, your partner will assist you to through it.

Inevitably, the sticking point occurs throughout the concentric (positive or lifting) phase of the lift. It is because muscle contractions are 20-50% stronger throughout the negative (eccentric or lowering phase) than throughout the positive.(5) Assuming fatigue affects each phases of the exercise equally, you would require assistance throughout the concentric phase of the exercise and little to no assistance throughout the eccentric.

The sticking point varies by exercise, but basically it occurs near the underside, stretched position of presses, dips, and squats, and toward the highest, contracted portion of the repetition for rows and pull-ups.

Although your partner should remain attentive to your performance through the complete repetition, it is best to clue them in to the particular point of the repetition they’re more than likely to be needed, to create a smoother and safer forced rep experience.

Determining the Variety of Forced Reps

Finally, before starting your set, inform your partner what number of forced repetitions you might have planned.

Although you could not give you the chance to predict the precise variety of straight, unassisted repetitions you’ll give you the chance to finish before failure, it’s essential to determine what number of forced reps your partner will facilitate when you’ve reached failure. A talented training partner will then fine-tune the quantity of help provided to make sure you are successful yet thoroughly challenged. An unskilled training partner will shout, “Now three more,” when, actually, you simply have another.

A discussion on programming recommendations for forced reps is provided below. But first, let’s explore the physiological demands of forced reps and determine for whom they’re best suited.

Physiological Effects of Forced Reps

As you may expect, forced reps impose considerable demand on the body and increase the necessity for recovery.(6)(7) Additionally they stimulate acute changes in testosterone, growth hormone, and cortisol levels.(7)(8) This section examines the consequences of forced reps and their potential significance to hypertrophy (muscle-building) and performance.

Neuromuscular and Metabolic Effects of Forced Reps

Immediately after working sets, forced reps cause greater reductions in muscle activity in comparison with traditional sets to muscular failure.(7) These changes have been measured experimentally via surface electromyography (sEMG). Although sEMG just isn’t necessarily a measure of recruitment, these reductions may hint to the presence of neural fatigue because the central nervous system becomes progressively less in a position to stimulate motor units.(6)(7)(9)(10)

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Prolonged and repeated muscle contractions occur during forced reps. Due to this fact, they’re thought to exhaust more pools of muscle cells than traditional sets.(8) After performing forced reps, substantial fatigue occurs to the working muscle.(6) Calcium is an ion essential to muscle contraction, and its release could also be impaired during fatiguing muscle contractions. (10)

Metabolites corresponding to hydrogen, lactate, and inorganic phosphate are produced during repeated muscle contractions with minimal rest.(7)(10)(11) Although these metabolites may hasten fatigue, the metabolic stress they induce may enhance hypertrophy.(10)(11)(12)

Mechanical Effects of Forced Reps

Three related studies reported greater short-term reductions in maximum strength following forced repetitions in comparison with traditional sets to failure.(6)(7)(8) The earliest study compared two “leg day” workouts of squats, leg presses, and leg extensions — one used forced reps for each set and the opposite ended sets at muscular failure. (7)

Each workouts resulted in reductions in strength for as much as 72 hours for each forms of training, but forced reps caused greater reductions in strength during, immediately after, and twenty-four hours after the workout.(7) A later study showed decreased force production for the primary 500 milliseconds of muscle contraction following forced reps.(6)

Altogether, these findings illustrate the effectiveness of forced reps for training fast twitch muscle fibers, which are inclined to have great potential for growth but prolonged recovery demands. (6)(13)

Hormonal Effects of Forced Reps

Forced reps are related to robust anabolic hormone responses including increased serum testosterone, free testosterone, and growth hormone.(7)(8) Increased cortisol, a catabolic hormone, has also been reported following forced reps.(7)(8)

Resist the temptation infer any long-term outcomes from these findings. The connection between acute hormone responses and desirable training outcomes (e.g. hypertrophy) stays questionable.(12)(14) Spiking certain hormones, like testosterone, briefly during or after exercise is sort of different than maintaining elevated hormone levels throughout the day or week.

Who Should Perform Forced Reps

For muscle growth, the prevalence of coaching to failure relative to not-to-failure has been questioned, each by gym rats and proverbial lab rats. (3) Forced reps take sets to the purpose of failure and blow throughout it. To be clear, nobody “needs” to perform forced reps to make gains, but it might probably be a useful technique to spark recent muscle growth after stagnating and it might probably reinvigorate a stale period of coaching.

Although there stays a scarcity of research supporting most “advanced training techniques” corresponding to forced reps, there may be loads of anecdotal and physiological support for his or her use.(1)(12) Nonetheless, forced reps may profit some trainees greater than others.

Consider Your Training Goal

You most likely associate forced reps with bodybuilding. Spoiler alert: That’s probably the very best use of this training technique. Individuals training for strength or power are best served focusing prioritizing not-to-failure training.(3)(15)(16)

Interestingly, some research showed small improvements in bench press three-repetition maximum (strength) and bench press throw (power) following six weeks of forced reps. (4) Unfortunately, the forced reps strength-boosting study didn’t measure muscle hypertrophy.

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For those searching for muscle gain, forced reps are more appealing, and there may be a strong case for using forced reps for muscle gain based on volume. Resistance training volume is closely related to hypertrophy. More volume is related to more muscle gain.(17)

While there may be undoubtedly an upper limit on this relationship, a lifter will complete more total repetitions (and thereby, more total volume) using forced repetition sets than an equal variety of traditional sets.

Additional volume also appears to clarify the hypertrophy advantage of to-failure training in comparison with not-to-failure training.(18) Along the identical lines, the extra volume accomplished past failure during forced reps may lead to superior muscle gain for a lifter who would otherwise have stopped at or before failure.

Consider Your Training Status and Experience

Since beginners are extremely attentive to resistance training, it’s not obligatory or prudent to program to-failure resistance training, let alone forced reps.(19)

Alternatively, intermediate and experienced trainees often require more variability of their training.(20) That’s, more frequent changes in volume, intensity, and other resistance training parameters are indicated. Since forced repetitions are an intensification method that also promotes additional repetition volume, they could be appealing for more advanced lifters.

Lifters with longer training histories have been shown to experience greater androgen responses (testosterone and free testosterone) and growth hormone release than novice lifters when training with forced reps.(8) Although we must interpret these acute hormonal effects cautiously, as previously noted, it is usually recommended that well-trained and experienced lifters may preferentially profit from forced reps.

Programming Recommendations for Forced Reps

Forced reps undoubtedly cause high levels of fatigue, but when you’re a sophisticated lifter, you’re probably pondering, “I’ve been training for umpteen years. Pfft, I can handle it.”

While advanced lifters may stand to profit more from forced reps than beginners, research shows in addition they experience more profound neuromuscular fatigue following forced reps.(6) This might be because advanced lifters are higher in a position to tap into high threshold motor units and get more out of their sets. Principally, advanced lifters are higher trained, but additionally higher in a position to bury themselves under fatigue.

When fatigue outpaces recovery for too long, bad things occur. There’s the potential for non-functional overreaching, which ends up in non-productive training and, as a cantankerous soup vendor might say, “No gains for you.”

Much more haunting is the specter of true overtraining, which ends up in decreased performance even after recovery.(21) Informed programming and a well-designed approach helps to avoid these undesirable effects.

Variety of Forced Repetitions

What number of reps must you “force” per set? Even when you complete only one or two forced reps, you’re still doing greater than a standard set to failure. The published research protocols cited throughout this text included a mean of three or 4 forced reps per set.(4)(6)(7)(8)

This looks like an inexpensive suggestion. More forced reps lead to a more intense set and, presumably, greater recovery demand. Diminishing returns will be expected as you add much more forced reps, because your training partner invariably does progressively more of the be just right for you. Don’t let your set of bench press forced reps develop into their set of barbell row forced reps.

So, for the sake of your next training session, gains, recovery, and your lifting partner, limit forced reps to 5 or fewer per set.

Variety of Forced Rep Sets

To mitigate the danger of non-functional overreaching and overtraining, plan your forced reps sessions, and remember, there’s no must get greedy. Previous research on forced reps compared three groups who performed short-duration training cycles of forced reps.

One group performed a mean of 1 set of forced reps per session, one other group hit a mean three forced rep sets per session, and the ultimate group accomplished a mean of 4 forced rep sets per session. Remarkably, all groups improved similarly over the course of the training study.(4)

The take-home message? There doesn’t appear to be an additive profit to multiple sets of forced reps. An intelligent lifter might plan forced reps for only the ultimate set of an exercise during a time-limited intensification block of coaching.

Frequency of Forced Rep Sets

While advanced trainees can thrive during short-term periods of high-intensity and high-frequency training, it actually isn’t the rule.(22) Data from acute studies on forced reps suggest 48-72 hours of recovery must be allocated between workouts including forced reps.(4)(7)(8)

Don’t use the technique every single day of the week. Even when targeting different body parts, the cumulative fatigue (each muscular and neuromuscular) will quickly get to be an excessive amount of to get better from and your performance, and results, will suffer for it.

Training Load for Forced Rep Sets

A crucial consideration for forced reps is load, or training weight. How heavy should your forced rep sets be? Although they’ll actually be effectively performed using very heavy loads, forced reps are best programmed using moderate loads. A general suggestion is to make use of your 6RM to 12RM load. That’s, select a weight you’d normally lift between six and 12 times before failing.

As previously established, forced reps are best for those with hypertrophy goals. Considering that muscle growth occurs across a big selection of repetitions and loads, using very heavy loads unneeded.(16)(23)(24)

Furthermore, assisting forced reps with very heavy loads is more technically demanding in your training partner. Extremely light loads, while easier in your training partner to handle, take more time and are more likely to lead to prolonged fatigue relative to heavier loads.(25)

Periodizing Forced Reps

Throwing an occasional set of forced reps into your normal routine is probably going harmless and good fun. But forced reps, like other intensification techniques, are best programmed judiciously and for brief, focused periods of time.

For instance, you may add forced reps throughout the final week before a deload. Or program forced reps often across a four- to six-week hypertrophy training block intended to provide overreaching. In each cases, gains are made during recovery. Should you’re going to coach hard using forced reps, plan to get better harder with sufficient sleep, high-quality nutrition, and relative rest.

Force Gains with Forced Reps

Forced reps, or assisted reps, are a way well-suited for intermediate and advanced lifters who want to achieve muscle, have a trusted training partner, and are willing to take their recovery as seriously as their training.

References

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