5 Smarter Ways to Make an Exercise Harder
Written by Nate Palin
Making exercises more difficult does not always bring you closer to your goal.
However, sometimes we seek the added challenge for the purpose of entertainment, pride and ego, social media attention, personal challenge, or maybe just because sometimes it’s in some of our DNA to say, “Hold my beer!” and throw caution to the wind. Regardless of the reason, it can be helpful for warfighters to have some intelligent options for making their physical training exercises more demanding - besides adding load/speed, increasing volume/time under tension, or turning training into a drinking game (coming from someone who brought a 6-pack into the weightroom more than once in my early twenties).
5 Methods for Upping the Exercise Ante
Reduce Base of Support
Decrease Rest
Pre Fatigue the System
Change the Force Vector
Increase Complexity
Reduce Base of Support
It’s more difficult to stand on one leg than two… “No shit, Nate!”
Well, a High Plank is also tougher on three limbs than four, and even more difficult if you bring the legs closer together than when you keep them spread further apart. Perform a 1-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press with only ½ your upper back and head in contact with the bench and notice the increased need to fighter rotational demands due to the reduction in your base of support.
Remember that “trickier” does not necessarily mean progression toward your goal.
Reducing the base of support makes lighter weights feel heavier; therefore, you won’t be able to lift as much load as you would if you were fully supported. If your goal is to increase your maximum strength, you might be better served by sticking to more stable exercises.
However, less stable exercises often translate well to real world conditions so they can provide a useful option to apply your strength in a more relevant way.
Decrease Rest
A simple way to make an exercise more difficult is to reduce the duration of rest periods between sets.
(This is really just another way to increase volume by way of density - same work in less time or more work in same time)
Decreasing rest obviously means you are performing the following set in an under recovered state so lighter intensities of both weights and/or conditioning bouts require more effort than they do when you are more fully recovered.
This approach to making exercises harder lends itself best to intermittent capacity goals where repeating submaximal output is more important than developing your maximal output. Rather than decreasing rest arbitrarily, work toward work to rest ratios that are relevant to real world demands like reacting to contact or performing urban engagements with a light machine gun.
Pre Fatigue the System
Endure.
Warfighters must have the residual capacity to continue to express strength and power after enduring long, fatiguing events.
I remember still having to kick doors and subdue military aged males after not only long infils but also after all day affairs spent clearing entire city blocks. We were sleep and fuel deprived but still expected to execute with both mental and physical acuity.
^ Coaches love to harp on ideal recovery conditions but this would not have been possible had we not spent time training under a pre fatigued state.
To be clear, I believe in playing by the rules prior to breaking them. Movement, output and capacity should be developed under conditions closer to what the textbook suggests before they are challenged by adding any amount of exhaustion. While coaches might overlook the value of training under fatigue, warfighters tend toward the other extreme - tending to add fatigue before they’ve built a prerequisite foundation of physicality.
Simple examples of what this might look like:
Running 5-miles before a squat session
Reversing a lift so you perform high volume sets before high intensity sets
Skipping a pre workout meal/snack (GASP!)
Conditioning with a sled before a long ruck
Reducing rest between sets (see above section)
Pairing high cognitive demands with physical exercises
Here are a few suggestions for making your approach safer and more purposeful.
Develop sufficient strength and conditioning levels prior to using this approach
Fatigue but don’t deplete yourself
Choose a relevant activity over an arbitrary one
Use volume OR intensity to fatigue yourself before combining them
Increase recovery measures after conducting this type of training
Avoid attempting to learn new skills while fatigued
Implement this approach sparingly
I always consider the risk vs reward of this type of training and manipulate variables to make it as safe as possible without compromising its effectiveness. Let’s say I place a demanding conditioning set before a lift when it typically comes after. I might switch a Snatch to a Low Pull to remove the dynamic overhead component while still challenging the display of power in a fatigued state.
Change the Force Vector
I usually look at force application three basic ways.
Relative to Body Position
Versatility of Implement
Consistency / Variation
Relative to Body Position
What position is the body in?
Upright (standing, kneeling)
Prone (belly down)
Supine (belly up)
Sidelying
What direction is the force applied relative to what part of the body?
…Therefore, what type of stress(es) does the force place on the body?
4 common ones include:
Compression (crushing)
Tension (pulling)
Shear (cutting/shifting)
Torsion (rotational)
These factors determine what movement is needed to meet and resist /match / overcome the force.
Versatility of Implement
All I’m looking at here is the implement and whether it has the ability to apply force in a direction other than vertical.
Cable contraptions, bands, and a variety of machines can accomplish this while free weights are less versatile (meaning you’d have to change your body position instead of the implement’s anchor point). One slight wild card here are sleds and sliders and other implements that introduce a frictional component of force. They can provide a variation from true free weights (barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc.) Inclines and declines, aka hills, change the angle of the ground so they can also provide some variety.
Consistency / Variation throughout Movement
Does the exercise involve overcoming inertia and keeping an object in motion (like free weights and cables attached to pulleys)? Does it entail variable resistance that is more difficult to overcome in some spots than others (like bands and chains), variable resistance that matches your output (like a flywheel or a partner), or consistent resistance (like a pneumatic device)?
While the consistency of force application does not really affect its vector, it’s still something I take into consideration when selecting exercises.
Adjust the Vector to Increase the Difficulty
The vector can be changed relative to the ground or relative to the body, or both. You can also change the consistency/variation of how the force is applied throughout the movement.
Consider a Flat Barbell Bench Press. What happens when you change it to an Incline Barbell Bench Press? The implement is the same and the force is still vertical relative to the ground and mostly compressive (not shear because the bench is supporting us directly below the weight); however, the direction of force has changed relative to your body because your body position changed. Suddenly, it’s considerably more difficult. What if we transitioned to a Decline Barbell Bench Press? Well, our egos inflate because our ability to move load also inflates.
Let’s make a more aggressive adjustment. What if we performed the same movement (horizontal push) but stood upright without support? Now we introduce some shear because we are unsupported so we need to resist that additional variable while we also push the weight away from us. If we are using a cable pulley system, then we still have to overcome inertia and then keep the object in motion; however, maybe we use a band and now the resistance gets higher the further we push away from our bodies.
To take it one final step… What if we flip your body sideways relative to the band’s anchor point and we drop it down to ankle level. You’d have to press diagonally up and across the body with one arm and without any support other than your feet on the ground. Consider how much more difficult that is compared to the original Flat Bench Press.
This feels like a good moment to remind you that “more difficult” does not necessarily move you closer to your goal. In fact, it could even move you further from it. Be sure to be intentional about how and why you make an exercise “harder.”
Increase Complexity
When I say, “Increase complexity,” I typically mean to challenge the brain by increasing movement variability.
Reducing base of support and changing the force vector also both achieve this so within this brief section I focus on adding movement, bells and whistles, or slightly changing the exercise.
Weightlifting type exercises lend themselves extremely well to this since they are inherently very dynamic and often combined into complexes. However, almost any exercise can be made more complex one way or another. Here are some options:
Increase Range of Motion
Reduce Base of Support
Change the Force Vector
Add Secondary and Tertiary Movements
Speed Up or Slow Down
Add Pauses / Holds
Change or Add Implement
Change or Add a Movement Plane
Add a Reactive Element
“We can get SILLY here but we can also get STUPID, quickly. Make sure to pay A-ttention to the IN-tention when adding complexity to avoid ending up turning a training session into a circus tryout.”
Several simple examples of the above options being applied:
Hang Clean Low Pull > Hang Power Clean > Hang Power Clean & Jerk
Box Jump > Box Jump w/ Step Off & Stick > Box Jump + Depth Jump to a Box
Lateral Shuffle > Lateral Shuffle & Return > Lateral Shuffle & Return to Sprint
Push-Up > Close Grip Push-Up > Close Grip Push-Up w/ Chains
Pull-Up > Pull-Up w/ Knees Raised > Pull-Up w/ Leg Raised
Deadlift > Fat Grip Deadlift > Far Grip Deadlift from Deficit
Reverse Lunge > Lateral Lunge > Lunge 3-Ways
Kettlebell Swing > Kettlebell Snatch > Kettlebell Snatch + Waiter Carry
Rotational MB Throw > Shuffle to Rotational MB Throw > Crossover Step to Shuffle to Rotational MB Throw
Sprint > Sprint + Decelerate > Sprint + Decelerate on Cue
Recap
I wrote this because I want to make sure that warfighters realize there are ways to make exercise more difficult beyond just adding reps and weight. Many of these ways add both difficulty and entertainment. They can also challenge mental output and capacity.
The key is to adjust an exercise so that adaptation to the stress it applies actually moves you closer to your training goals.
