The Blowout Workout

Every once in a while I like trying out a new way of working out. It keeps my workouts interesting plus it lets me try new things. As with eating, I believe that variety in exercise has many benefits.  However, variety is not what today’s post is about.  Instead, I’d like to tell you about the workout I tried out on Wednesday and how much I liked it.

The Need For Continuous Improvement

If you’re a long time reader of 60 in 3 and have read some of my past series like the 4 day workout, you’ll know that I prefer to do sets of about 10 reps (repetitions).  That means I do an exercise like squats ten times.  I usually use weights that I know I can lift for those ten reps, but I try to pick something heavy enough to be challenging.  That means picking weights that I don’t think I can do for many reps than those ten.

In the past, I’ve been increasing the weights I use at a slow but steady pace.  This reflected the improvement in my overall fitness level.  For example, when I started working out I could barely bench press the bar on its own, about 45lbs.  These days, I usually bench press around 150lbs for my reps.  Unfortunately, I just haven’t been able to improve any of the weights I do for the past few months.  In fact, I was feeling as though I had reached a sort of plateau and that further improvement was impossible.   In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing.  Everyone has a point past which they cannot go.  Our bodies have limits and it’s good to know that limit.  However, I felt like I should be able to lift more but I simply couldn’t take that next step forward.

The Blowout Workout

I happened to mention this to a friend over the weekend, and he suggested I try out a new kind of workout.  He called it the Blowout Workout but it’s also known by other names.  Essentially, the blowout workout means you do half the repetitions with about 25% to 50% more weight.  So if I normally did ten bench presses with 150lbs, on Wednesday I tried to do 5 bench presses with 180lbs.

At first, this was a bit intimidating.  I was having enough difficulties with 150lbs, did I really want to try out this much more weight?  Yes, it was just five repetitions instead of the my usual 10 but that’s a lot of weight!  But I tried it anyway and I’m really glad I did.

The Results

I was able to do the five reps with the extra weight on each and every exercise I normally do.  In fact, in many cases I kept going and did 8 to 10 reps.  It was like my body had always been capable of this kind of performance but I was holding back for some reason.  All it took was a willingness to try.  I had convinced myself to try out the higher weight by telling myself that I was just going to do five reps instead of 10 and once I tried it, it just wasn’t that bad.

Breaking Through Self Imposed Limits

All this time, I was perfectly capable of exercising at a much higher level than I was.  So why didn’t I?  I’m not sure of the answer but I think it’s because I had convinced myself that I just couldn’t take a little more extra weight before the current weight became easy.  Well guess what, the current weight was never going to become easy until I tried something harder.  It was only when I challenged myself with something more difficult that I noticed how easy my current workout had become.

This is applicable in more than just weight lifting by the way.  If you’re trying to do something that’s a bit challenging, don’t just raise the bar a little, raise it a lot!  Challenge yourself way beyond your comfort level.  Maybe you won’t achieve 100% success, but that big jump in difficulty will make that little jump you were trying to make seem a lot easier.

Try It Out For Yourself

If you’re interested, the Blowout Workout is a very easy idea to implement.  Take every weight you’re using right now and increase it by at least 25%.  Now try to do five reps.  If you can do more, that’s great, but tell yourself that your goal is just the first five reps.  That will keep your focused and make everything seem more doable.  My only warning is that you need to be careful. You may not be used to this much weight and having another person around you to make sure you don’t do something silly is probably a good idea.

###

Trying out new things is great.  Trying out things you think are impossible is even better.  It will make the things you think are possible but difficult seem very easy.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!