This is an important article I wish I had written a long time ago.
The topic is one of those things that seems so intuitively obvious that it shouldn’t warrant much discussion – but I no longer think that’s true. I don’t think it’s intuitively obvious to many, and even if it is, I don’t think it’s preventing the mistakes I’m seeing. Truth be told, it’s only recently dawned on me just how pervasive this problem is with trainees and how much it might be slowing peoples progress toward their goals.
Here is what I often see as the issue….
Every exercise we do in the gym has some unique quality about it. In other words, there is some unique aspect (or aspects) of this exercise that make it a superior choice to all other exercises for it’s intended purpose or role.
Instead of unique aspect, perhaps Unique Advantage is a better term in order to hammer home the point that the uniqueness of the lift or exercise isn’t just different – it has value and importance.
This applies to primary exercises, supplemental exercises, and assistance exercises. In the context of today’s article, I’m mainly discussing the role of Unique Advantage of supplemental and assistance movements.
The Unique Advantage can be major or minor, and the Unique Advantage isn’t necessarily an advantage to all trainees in every circumstance.
The “problem” I’m writing about became more apparent to me over the past 5 years or so as I’ve been using more and more of a conjugate style of programming with my clients. Conjugate programming calls for a wide variety of exercises – lots of barbell based variations of the primary lifts and lots and lots of assistance and supplemental type work to build muscle mass.
But the problem isn’t just with trainees doing a Conjugate Program. It’s with trainees following any number of intermediate or advanced programs that call for any exercise variation at all (i.e. most people).
Context is everything when evaluating Unique Advantage. What is an advantage for me, may not be an advantage to you. We have different builds, different weaknesses, different training histories, different injury histories, and different individual responses to different exercises. Context is shaped by individual goals and even where the exercise is slotted into your day, your week, your month, or your year. Training for Power Lifting vs Bodybuilding vs Sport vs General Fitness all require different strategies and tactics. Differing goals place varying levels of importance on different exercises.
The big mistake I see trainees making is not emphasizing the “Unique Advantage” of a lift or exercise when they train that lift or exercise. When the Unique Advantage is not emphasized (or even altogether avoided) it makes that exercise less effective, and in some cases, not effective at all.
The Unique Advantage of a lift or exercise is generally some form of manipulation we make to the mechanics, the load, the tempo, the range of motion, etc that make that exercise HARDER in order to develop a certain muscle group or a portion of the range of motion. Often times, making an exercise harder, means lowering the weight. In fact, lowering the weight may be one of the primary reasons we do the exercise. Variation in loading throughout the week is an important part of overall management of training fatigue.
However, in some cases the EGO of the lifter, doesn’t want to lower the weight. So the manipulation of the exercise that is supposed to make it harder (and more effective) is avoided, rushed, manipulated, or generally half-assed in order to keep more weight on the bar – thus defeating the purpose of doing the variation.
When doing a variation of an exercise, the object isn’t to see how much weight we can lift. It’s to see how much weight we can lift through a very specific range of motion or in a very specific manner. It’s supposed to be harder.
If you are a power-lifter, getting stronger on variations of the Squat, Bench, and Deadlift that are WEAKER THAN THE MAIN LIFT is a very good way to improve your total. In other words – put a legit 20-50 lbs on your best Paused Squat, Close Grip Bench, and Stiff Leg Deadlift and you will put some legit poundage on your competition best Squat, Bench, and Deadlift.
These lift variations are harder / less strong than their competition counterparts. But if we ignore, minimize, avoid, or skirt around the Unique Advantage of each of these lifts, they don’t carry over as well and defeat the purpose of even doing them.
For example, lifters will only pause for a split second in the bottom of the PAUSED SQUAT instead of a legit 2-3 second hold. Or they will barely move their grip in on a close grip bench – perhaps moving their hands in 1 finger width instead of 1 hand width. Or they let their quads come into play way too much on the stiff leg deadlift.
Lifters do this because they don’t like pulling weight off the bar or they don’t like being out of their comfort zone on certain exercises and put into uncomfortable mechanical positions.
But when we ignore the Unique Advantage of a barbell based lift variation , we are really just doing a kind of shitty less efficient version of the Squat, Bench, and Deadlift rather than training a weak point or weak muscle.
Emphasize and exaggerate the aspect of the exercise that makes that exercise unique, beneficial, and HARD!!!!
Keep the knee bend minimal of the stiff leg – make the hamstrings and low back do ALL the work!!!
Assume an actual close grip on the close grip bench – make the triceps do the work!!!!!
Do an actual pause on the pause squat and KILL that stretch reflex and force yourself to hold a strong bottom position in the hole!!!!
In order to make my point more clear, let’s look at some more concrete examples.
Paused Work. There are several benefits of doing paused exercises and several different ways to do it, depending on the lift being trained. But the point of the pause is to actually PAUSE. In doing so you will be forced to use a lighter weight than normal. My entire motivation for writing this article was based on a discussion within my Barbell Club regarding Spoto Presses, which I had assigned to the group for one of their Max Effort Days. The Spoto Press is a variation of a paused bench press in which the lifter will pause the barbell about 1-2 inches above the chest and hold that position for a 2-3 count before returning to lockout. We had an issue with a few lifters really shortchanging that pause. Barely pausing or not pausing at all. The Unique Advantage of the Spoto Press is an ISOMETRIC HOLD right in the sticking point!!!!! Lifters were getting too concerned about the load on the bar and avoiding the isometric hold altogether. At that point you have to ask – what is the point of even doing the exercise??? My answer would be that there isn’t one. You might as well just Bench Press. My suggestion was that the lifters strip some weight off the bar until they can actually hold that isometric pause 1-2 inches above the chest for a solid 2-3 second count……hell even a 5-second count. The point is to get stronger in the sticking point by spending a bunch of time in the sticking point. This can only be accomplished by actually focusing on the Pause & Hold.
The same is true if you are training a Paused Deadlift or a Paused Squat or a regular Paused Bench Press. Pause at the point of the lift where you are weakest and hold it. And I mean fucking hold it. Pause it. Stop moving the bar. Exert a meaningful isometric contraction.
If you blow right through the sticking point with a half-second pause for the sake of more weight on the bar, then just Squat or Deadlift. Don’t even bother with the paused variation.
Romanian Deadlifts. To me, the Unique Advantage of the Romanian Deadlift is the ability to take your hamstrings through the fullest range of motion possible in their role as hip extensors with a fairly significant load. In addition, RDLs also expose the hamstrings to a massive amount of eccentric loading. Both of these qualities should be emphasized during an RDL. However, when I watch lifters perform RDLs, I often see several mistakes……the eccentric is too fast or non-existent, the quads get too involved at the bottom, or the range of motion is too short.
Making any of these mistakes negates the purpose of the exercise. There are maybe 2-3 exercises that can effectively place a heavy eccentric load on the hamstrings and the RDL is probably the best of the bunch. Dropping down into the bottom of the RDL instead of focusing on a controlled eccentric takes away this advantage. And for an athlete looking to prevent injury or a power lifter or bodybuilder looking to GROW their hamstrings, eccentric loading is important and so is a full range of motion.
If you want to maximize loading for the top half of the deadlift – do a rack pull or block pull. Both will allow for more load than an RDL and one could argue that load is the unique aspect of a rack pull or block pull. But if you want to TRAIN THE HAMSTRINGS….then use a full range of motion for the hamstrings which means taking them as DEEP as possible, without rounding the back or excessively bending the knees. Use a slower eccentric, and in combination with the deep bottom end stretch, is a major contributor to hypertrophy. Again, this has positive ramifications for bodybuilders, powerlifters, and athletes.
Following these recommendations (full range of motion, slower eccentric, etc) is also going to lighten the load of the RDL making it fit better in a weekly program that might also call for heavy deadlifts, heavy squats, and other low back draining exercises. You may get a more effective hamstring workout with a correctly performed 225 lb RDL than you will with a bullshit 315 RDL that does little for the hamstrings and a lot for fatigue in the lower back.
Snatch Grip Deadlifts. Get your hands out there!!! A snatch grip is NOT moving your hands out an inch. In most cases it’s going to be between the power rings and the sleeves. Again, way out there. Enough to significantly change your stance and/or the angle of your torso. If your coach has to replay your videos to see if your snatch grip is different than your normal deadlift grip, then it’s not a snatch-grip.
Dumbbell Pressing. This one kills me. Guys load up the 150s in each hand and the proceed to lie down and lower the weights halfway down and then back up for a set of 2 1/2 reps. Great. And not a bit of muscle or strength was built. The Unique Advantage for dumbbells is the range of motion. For chest exercises (flat, incline, decline) you can take the dumbbells far deeper than a barbell. This has the benefit of increasing the eccentric phase of the lift and the bottom end stretch. If you can’t feel the stretch at the bottom, then go down further or even a bit wider. The freedom of the dumbbell allows you to better use the pecs through their primary function which is adduction of the humerus. Take the dumbbells deep and hold the stretch on the pecs for a beat in the bottom. In other words – work the chest!!! This is an exercise, not a lift. If you want to just move heavy ass weight from point A to point B, then use a barbell. But if you want to build the pecs, whether for power lifting or bodybuilding, then do lots of dumbbell pressing, but do them right and use the fullest range of motion possible.
The same thing is true for overhead dumbbell pressing. Lower the weight if needed and use a full range of motion. There is no point in lowering 100 lb dumbbells to the top of your ears and then pressing back up. The front and side delts will do the bulk of their job at the bottom of the lift. So get down there. Doing partial reps from the ears to lockout doesn’t get much shoulder into the movement and is a poor choice for lockout work. If you want to work the lockout on your Press – then do pin presses. “But full range of motion hurts my shoulders!!!” Then pick a different exercise, because partial dumbbell presses aren’t helping.
Barbell Rows. Barbell Rows done correctly have the Unique Advantage of working scapular retraction, shoulder extension, and spinal extension all in a single repetition. In doing so we can work the lats, the upper and midback, and spinal erectors in a single exercise. And all with a heavy load. But almost nobody does them correctly. Instead, I see most people doing some sloppy combination of hip extension and elbow flexion. So while exerting a tremendous amount of energy – there is almost no activation of the musculature of the back. The muscles are neither loaded eccentrically nor concentrically. The “Pendlay Row” has been transformed by the internet into a sloppy low back and forearm exercise. And it’s not even good at that. Simply pulling the barbell from the floor into the chest does not mean you worked your back. Watch this later for an explanation on how to make the Barbell Row an actual back exercise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS7wnh1sy3Q
Chin Ups. A Unique Advantage to the chin up is the ability to take the LATS through a very full range of motion with a significant load. The full range of motion includes the loaded stretch at the bottom of the range of motion. However, time and time again we see trainees loading up a bunch of weight or cranking out a ton of reps with partial range of motion – perhaps just half or 3/4 of the way down. So that’s great that you cranked out 2o reps but not much work was done with the lats. It’s a lot of biceps and forearms in the top half of the range of motion. Failure to go all the way down, means failure to fully engage the lats. Getting heavy on “vertical” pulling movements (i.e. movements that emphasize shoulder extension) can be tough. Lat Pulldowns often turn into a shit show with heavy weights. With intention, the Chin Up can be done very strictly with very heavy weight. And your lats will thank you for it.
High Bar / Front Squats. For a bodybuilder or power lifter, the front squat or high bar squat is used to build the quads. I can’t think of another reason to do them aside from maybe training around certain injuries. For many, exclusively low bar squatting does a fine job of building up the glutes, hamstrings, and adductors but leaves something to be desired in terms of quad development (ask me how I know!). Quads, like any other movement are best stimulated when taken through their fullest range of motion. In this context – that means all the way down. Rock bottom. For a bodybuilder looking for that elusive “tear drop” (the lowest region of the quad just above the knee) this is extremely important. An above parallel high bar squat or above parallel front squat is a silly exercise. Even just to parallel is not usually sufficient. Yes you will have to go significantly lighter than your to-parallel-lowbar-squat. But again – this may be ideal. Significantly lighter but with better range of motion is going to give you (1) better stimulation of the quads (2) less systemic fatigue. Like the RDL example – a 225 rock bottom high bar squat may yield better return than your 315 above parallel high bar squat. So get your ass down there and make your quads do the work.
Leg Presses. Leg Presses have two unique advantages – foot placement and REPS! Even though Leg Presses often allow for tremendous loads to be moved – you maybe surprised how little your 900 pound leg press does for your 300 lb squat!! Just ask the bros at Golds Gym. Instead of hogging every 45 lb plate at the gym to impress the girls (who aren’t impressed anyways) then lighten the load and focus on building the quads. With Leg Presses we can do something with our feet we can’t do on a squat. We can move them in very close and angle our toes fairly straight. Couple this with keeping the feet down low on the platform. Feet high and wide allows for more weight, but less quad activity – again, it would be better just to squat. Feet low, narrow, and straight will hammer the quads and still allow some significant loading. Next – hammer the quads with REPS! Lots of them. Sets of 15, 20, 30 or even 50. The quads respond extremely well to very high rep work. Not every muscle group does, but the quads do. Can you do the same thing with 20-30 rep squats? Yes. But it comes at a cost. The systemic and peripheral fatigue from very high rep squatting is substantial. You’ll be able to hammer the leg press like this more often with better recovery. “But, but, but”……just run the experiment for yourself and you’ll see.
Isolation Movements. There are too many potential movements to run through here to list them all out. But the same basic principle applies to all of them, regardless of whether we’re talking machines, dumbbells, cables, bands, etc. Isolation movements are exercises and not lifts. That is an important distinction for you to make in your training. Exercises work MUSCLES, lifts work MOVEMENTS. Yes, yes, I know that muscles are what produce the movements but your approach and execution should be altogether different. When performing an exercise you cannot think of simply moving a weight up and down or back and forth. There has to be a mental connection with the muscle group you want trained. That muscle group should be trained through the fullest range of motion possible which includes as deep of a stretch as possible at it’s end range (with safety and practicality in mind). The eccentric phase of the lift should be controlled and even emphasized. The leverage should not be manipulated to make the lift easier or simply to employ more load. More load is good, provided you aren’t sacrificing quality, control, and range of motion.
Even as a power lifter, learn to think like a bodybuilder with much of your assistance/isolation work. The goal is muscle growth, not weight lifted. That’s for your lifts.
And in the context of this article – make sure that when you perform an exercise you think about – What is the Unique Advantage of this Movement? What does this exercise offer me that similar exercises do not? And then make sure you are emphasizing that aspect of the movement?
Lastly, let’s briefly discuss the topic of variation for the sake of variation. This is a concept that gets shit on a lot (including by me at times), however there are reasons to vary exercise selection even if somewhat arbitrarily.
One of those is overuse injury. Another is fatigue management via load variation.
Let’s look at Extension based Tricep movements. You may prefer the Lying Tricep Extension as your favorite mass builder for the triceps. But raise your hand if you’ve ever experienced severely inflamed elbows after 8-12 weeks of Lying Tricep Extensions? Should be all of you. Some rotation of movements is good for preventing this sort of thing. So while you may prefer LTE’s with a straight bar or EZ curl bar you can’t do them every week. Rotating them weekly with dumbbell extensions, cable pressdowns, etc may not offer you much in the way of a Unique Advantage – other than that those other movements save you from having to constantly battle over use injury and inflammation. So for me the Unique Advantage of cable pressdowns with the rope attachment is nothing more than the fact that I can do them with zero pain. So I rotate those in as needed when I feel my elbows need a break. This is preferable to just not training my triceps.
A seated cable row may not have a Unique Advantage over a correctly performed barbell row other than the fact that it can spell your lower back for a couple of weeks should you need it.
A Safety Squat bar may not offer you a Unique Advantage over a low bar or high bar squat other than saving your shoulders from weekly traumatic beatings.
In these instances, exercises you may not love in terms of their training effect, have the Unique Advantage of preserving your health for more sustained runs of progress. So don’t be afraid to mix things up from time to time.
With the issue of load variation – squatting, benching, deadlifting can all potentially benefit from increased frequency for the strength athlete. But you simply cannot do these things maximally multiple times per week. The result is burnout and injury. Rotating different variations in and out of the program on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis can prevent this. You might be a 500 lb squatter, 400 lb Safety Bar squatter, and 300 lb front squatter. There are a million ways to do it but some implementation of all three can be an effective way to bump up your squatting frequency, while keeping overall effort higher, but varying the absolute load. This variation in absolute load as well as the variation in movement pattern can, again, go a long way to keeping your healthier.
The above list of exercises was not meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive. There are other exercises that we routinely see bastardized. Just simply apply the thinking to whatever exercises you engage in this week, leave your ego at the door, and your training will immediately improve.
