Why NOT Max ALL the time 

Justin Kauffman • July 11, 2022

Remember in the gym when every day was max out day.  Those days are over and it is time to take a better approach to building strength.  When you max out all the time, you are losing the ability to get GAINZ and more likely to hurt yourself.  You are neglecting hypertrophy adaptation.  Hypertrophy training is training with the intent to increase muscle size or to gain additional muscle mass.  Not training this way prevents you from building more muscle and at the end of the day…getting stronger.  So not only does hypertrophy increase how much weight you can lift, it also means less stress on the joints.

Now that you understand how having bigger muscles helps a lifter, let’s talk about the neurological adaptations needed to use that muscle against a barbell. Those neurological adaptations are the result of deliberate and submaximal strength training.

If you notice we start with a smaller percentage of your max weight with higher reps and then proceed to increase the percentage and decrease reps.  You will see a lot of this over the next few weeks.  This is how you build strength. 

What if you maxed out every week instead? 

You may have found that you were able to do a 435lbs squat after weeks of just maxing out, which is a 10lb PR. But where do you go from there? Do you just keep maxing out until you are so fatigued that you can’t work up to a max? 

Why not take advantage of the neurological adaptations you probably haven’t fully made and be able to add weight to the bar with the abovementioned method without having to spend a needless amount of time just building muscle. 

Of course, this isn’t lighting fast either. It takes a few weeks but it is the fastest way to safely and consistently add weight to the bar (but at some point you will need to just add more muscle) 

Get ready for a great week. 

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