THE FORCED AND PARTIAL REPETITION

The Forced and Partial Repetition

                                                  

I recommend you to do 10 quality reps in each of your sets. However, at the end of the last set of your exercise, when you are no longer able to execute any additional quality reps, you may want to squeeze out the last drop of energy from your muscle by doing some lower quality reps - forced reps and/or partial reps - in order to maximize the intensity of your exercise.

                                                                 

Forced reps are basically reps in which you force up the weight during the up-phase because it is too heavy to lift it in the normal way, often helped by a spotter, followed by slowly lowering the weight in a controlled fashion to the bottom, without the help of a spotter. Many spotters, however, let the forced up-phase take much too long. The up-phase of a forced rep should basically take the same amount of time as the up-phase of a quality rep. Forced reps can be very effective as lots of the growth stimulation actually comes from the down-phase (negative part) of the rep, which is very stressful for the muscle fibers.

When you don't have enough power left to do additional quality reps, partial reps can also be effective to squeeze out the last energy from your muscles. Doing partial reps basically means that you don't follow the principle of full range of motion, but only a fraction (let's say 50%) of the full range that is used for a normal quality rep. Effective partial reps as well as forced reps should always follow the principle of continuous tension.