The Good and Bad of Forced Reps

You just finished your last set on the incline bench. You did 6 reps at 160lbs. You had hoped to knock out 8 or 9 reps, but didn’t have a spotter and didn’t want to risk it. You were pretty tired after number six and decided to quit instead of having a bar in your lap.

Enter the Forced Rep

This situation is the same. You are hurting on your sixth rep, but powered through. Your friend and spotter pushes you to do a seventh. You lower your weight and push six or seven inches off your chest and are powerless. If you didn’t have your spotter you would be up a creek, but you do and he lifts about 15lbs of the weight and you blow through.

Now he thinks you should go for an eighth. You reluctantly and slowly lower the bar, but realize you can’t get it back up. You simply can’t lift the weight by yourself. Your spotter barely lifts the bar with you, only about 10-30lbs worth. After what feels like an hour you finally get the bar up and the set is over. This is a forced rep.

The true definition is: an extension of a particular set of repetitions in which your strength level at the beginning of the set has been reduced to a point of positive failure. This is the point at which you can’t possibly move the weight by yourself. Your spotter steps in to barely help and you achieve maximum intensity. He only helps slightly but you are so tired that you feel like he’s done all the work and you got nothing out of it. Trust me, you are the one who actually lifted that weight, he only helped.

The Good

This “forced rep” pushes out every ounce of intensity from your working muscles. When faced with a forced rep a physiological reaction occurs. If you are lifting a weight and can’t get through the rep, it’s a scary feeling. There are few options, drop the weight on yourself (ouch), tilt the bar to make the weight fall off, or have a spotter help. This is what goes through your mind, your body on the other hand is thinking sink or swim. This produces a surge of adrenaline making you stronger and able to power through the rep. In the end with one or two forced reps you will know for a fact you have used maximum intensity.

The Bad

When used in the right circumstanced forced reps are a good thing. It is very easy to get carried away. I use only one or two forced reps per exercise, not per set. Forced reps can lead to over training, and with every size gaining program you want to employ maximum intensity. When your body is performing a forced rep it is using it’s maximum strength capacity, and when the intensity increases, duration must decrease. Pretty much if something is heavier and harder, you shouldn’t be able to do more. Forced reps aren’t bad, too many are.

Forced reps are a great way to get the most out of any set. They are a great way of knowing you reached maximum intensity, but within reason. This is why I suggest doing only two forced reps at the end of your last set. If you do more,  or on more sets, it will lead to muscular exhaustion and actually smaller muscles.