Faster and safer strength gains with “same but different” exercises

Subject: Faster and safer strength gains with “same but different” exercises

Strength is a skill.

Each skilled movement has its invariances, which are fundamental and unchangeable, and surface features, which are adjusted to accommodate to the immediate needs without changing the nature of the movement.

Smart athletes leave the invariances alone and play with surface features. If an exercise was repeated many times, it was a standard Soviet sport practice to modify it as a training session went along. In lifting, it meant minor tweaks such as the grip width, the barbell and the feet placement, the bench incline angle, etc.

In Eastern Europe, such “same but different” moves are called specialized variety. They pack a laundry list of benefits:

Accelerate gains, apparently due to recruitment of previously inactive motor units;
Strengthen weak links;
Improve technique;
Prevent habituation (plateaus);
Promote neuroplasticity;
Reduce fatigue;
Reduce the odds of overuse injuries.

Weightlifting Team USSR had 100 variations of the two competition lifts, the snatch and the clean-and-jerk. On the other end of the spectrum, beginners were prescribed specialized variety sparingly.

For most athletes Soviets considered ~10 exercises optimal. 2-3 of them were trained for about a month and then replaced with another pair or troika.

Prioritize exercise variations that address your weaknesses and/or improve your technique.

E.g., you are lacking tightness in weighted pullups. Instead of attaching weight to a belt, hang a kettlebell on one foot and cross your ankles. Your abs will contract whether they like it or not.

E.g., you tend to lean back when locking out the barbell military press. Press behind the neck.

E.g., you tend to give up when the weight slows down in a heavy military press, barbell or kettlebell. Handstand pushups against a wall will teach you how to “grind.” Extra stability encourages slow reps to keep moving.

But even change for the sake of change works—as long as it stays within the confines of your chosen lift.

The underlying movement pattern must not change. Only surface features do.

E.g., you are not swapping pullups with, say, rows, or bench presses with dips. You are replacing them with different pullups and different horizontal presses.

There are many ways to program specialized variety. The simplest one is to modify your target lift from set to set or after several sets. A classic example from Soviet weightlifting is alternating sets of barbell military presses with a narrow grip and a wide grip.

For a deep dive into specialized variety, attend the Programming Demystified seminar taught by Pavel and Fabio in person in Italy or online on June 28-29. Attendees will have access to a recording of the seminar for fourteen days and StrongFirst Certified Instructors can also perform their recertification as a special benefit of attending.

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Subject: Faster and safer strength gains with “same but different” exercises