Seven degrees of difficulty

Here are seven ways to boost the intensity of your training

• Slow down the rep speed: if you’re accustomed to taking 2 to 3 seconds to raise yourself or a weight and another 2 to 3 seconds to lower it, you’ll find it much harder to take a full 10 seconds on the lift and another five seconds on the lowering face.

• Reducing your rest periods between sets: Muscles recover when they’re not working, so cutting down your between sets rest periods makes exercise harder because you won’t fully recover when beginning your next set.

• Eliminate your rest: By doing supersets take away rest intervals altogether when doing two or more exercises to dramatically boost the intensity of your workout. Rest only after you perform both or more exercises.

• Squeeze at the top of the movement: Feel the muscle contract, and consciously tighten it at the point of peak contraction for a second or two instead of quickly reversing direction.

• Add partial rest at the end of your set: Work through a portion of the range of motion to intensify the burn.

• Enlist a training partner: Using your partners bodyweight as a resistance, such as doing Rows or squats. Use your partner to push through each set and rep. FAILURE in the gym is a good thing. MUSCLE failure that is!

• Invest in special equipment: For example, buy a weighted vest to incrementally increase the resistance up to 50 pounds or more and all your bodyweight movements. You can also use specialized equipment such as TRX suspension trainer a device that allows you to perform more than 300 exercises using just your bodyweight.

• Ultimately, using your bodyweight as a resistance offer special distinct advantages over traditional resistance training, and you can easily do it in place of the gym on time or conditions warrant. You could also add bodyweight exercises to your current gym routine, using techniques such as supersets or slow reps to boost intensity. The bottom line is that bodyweight training works and it should be a part of every bodybuilders training arsenal.