If you find yourself bored or stuck with some of your compound lifts, consider the following control technique.

Embracing every phase of a repetition as a distinct opportunity to elicit a compensatory response is a potent means of advancing strength and muscle growth.  Lower the weight with control and constant tension, pause utilizing muscular tension, then drive the weight up with a conscious, explosive squeeze.  Make every aspect of the movement deliberate.

When executing an explosive concentric with heavy weight, starting from a strict pause demands true explosion, without reliance on any bounce or elastic response from muscles, ligaments, or joints, and thus encodes clear input to the nervous system which manifests as a specific adaptation to the imposed demand, namely- strength.  High quality input, high quality output.  A truly explosive rep also of course creates the tension necessary for triggering adaptations to our strongest muscle fibers, thus demanding hypertrophy and additional strength gains.

It takes a mature lifter to adopt such a high technique standard because it generally requires some degree of load reduction on any given movement and rep scheme.  Some lifters crave to lift as heavy as possible with passable form due to work ethic and/or wanting to appear as strong as possible to himself or others.  There is a place in training for passable form in exchange for increased repetitions, but the lifter who can toggle between highly controlled and passable at will stands to gain.

While you don’t need to lift this way all the time, you should certainly employ this technique if you are trying to break a plateau and think critically about the current quality of your efforts.  Fully executing this style of training is akin to the focus of mediation.  There must be constant intentional control in your actions.

A good mindset cue to hone into the control technique is to seek to perform as few reps as possible with a given weight, due to extreme quality of execution of each individual rep.  Each repetition should be extremely demanding.  For example, if you can squat 250 for 5 decent reps, this standard of controlled execution might limit you to 2 or 3 reps.  If you can bench 405 for a single with a quick descent and slight bounce, this method might limit you to 375.  These are approximate examples of the differences you will see if you are executing the technique properly.  Remember that exerting a constant and exacting level of control against heavy weight acts as a highly acute stimulus to the body and thus demands compensation.

Carry on.

A man needs to be able to tap into a militant state of mind for purposes of accomplishing significant tasks and goals.  If he has a significant goal he genuinely seeks to achieve, he must be willing to endure discomfort and even pain.  He needs to reprogram his mind to equate certain levels of discomfort and pain with the positive reward to come, thereby coming to actually enjoy the pain itself and after persistently doing the work, by virtue of repetition, the work ceases to become work.  The work becomes craved and enjoyed and thereby creates a flowing pipeline of success.

One who can immediately draw upon a militant mindset of discipline and apply it to the work necessary for a given goal is likely to achieve his goals because the discipline will morph into habit.  Success is a collection of conscious choices that produce winning habits that beget desired results.

The man who understands he can actively program his subconscious mind to optimize his habits and alter his very nature and embraces his responsibility to do so is destined for success in whatever terms he defines it.  The best way to internalize a winning mindset and the methods of controlling and programming one’s thoughts is to consistently read about these topics.

Leverage external knowledge resources to aid programming of successful thought patterns and habits.  Below are links to two excellent resources:

“The Psychology of Winning” on Amazon

“The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” on Amazon