Dr. Bret Contreras

So we're always using progressive overload, but you can't always just go set all-time PRs every week in the gym.

It doesn't work that way.

And that's the hardest thing to instill into people is this topic of progressive overload.

What does that look like over the long haul?

What does it look like over a 30-year lifting career?

Well, I watched you lift yesterday and you do a good job of that.

So there are people who use sloppy technique and you come in and as a coach, you know, oh God, I got to really clean up the way they lift, their form, their tempo.

Then there are people who are really, really strict and you're like, okay, you could benefit from... You typically with women, you'll see this with...

Like people who are real big on yoga and Pilates and then they come to lift weights and they think everything needs to be so slow and controlled.

And this is going to be a shock to the listeners.

Tempo doesn't affect hypertrophy that much.

You can have like a one second repetition.

And an eight-second repetition, and it builds muscle similarly.

Really?

And it blows people's mind because they go, what?

You don't have to control the negative?

You can't just let the weights crash down, but as long as you are controlling the weights on the way down, also the lift matters.

Some lifts are less range of motion.

I used to laugh at it when I'd see people.

This is how you know who's really a coach and who's not.