When in the gym, and lifting weights, one often overlooked aspect of the workout is paying attention to the quality of the movement during an exercise. First of all, all motion involved in an exercise should be full range. Meaning that one can give his/her muscles the best possible workout and involve the maximum number of muscle-fibers by making the extension a full one, going all the way to an outstretched position, then all the way to maximum contraction. This is not everything, however.
When doing an exercise one shouldn’t only look out to make it look like a textbook succession of extensions and contractions, but should also be extra mindful of the quality of the way the muscle contracts. Just lifting heavy weights is nowhere near enough. You need to feel the muscle working every step of the way through every single rep. Weightlifters lift heavy weights too, despite this, they’re generally nowhere near what a bodybuilder would see as a good physique. They’re bulky, store lot of fat and specialize in a type of motion that uses every resource of the entire body in order to maximize strength output.
A bodybuilder however, doesn’t focus as much on sheer strength itself, but more on muscular-mass harmony and definition. In order to attain a true bodybuilder physique one needs to learn the proper technique involved in doing isolation exercises.
Again, the amount of weight used proves crucial in being able to maintain a sound quality of contraction.
In bodybuilding, the weight used for training does not represent a goal, but simply a means of reaching another goal. One should always bear that in mind, when tempted into showing off at the gym.
The perfect amount of weight is the one that one can train to failure with, in a set of about 8-12 reps and feel the targeted muscle solely take the hardship.
If you notice that you can do more reps without reaching failure, that’s a sign that the weight can be increased. Piling too much weight onto the muscle can be in the detriment of the quality of the exercise, as the body’s natural response to overload is to call in other muscles to help.
When one can’t really feel the muscle working during a rep, it means the amount of weight used is too much for the targeted muscle group, so it should be decreased.
Remember, on stage nobody gives a damn how much weight you can lift. It’s the quality of the muscle mass they’re focusing on.