iron addict
New member
I am going to talk about an extremely common mistake that a large percentage of lifters make when designing lifting programs--not taking carryover into account. What is carry-over. It is simply how well strength gains from one lift translate into increased poundages when doing another. I will list a couple of examples I see many lifters do and make mistakes on.
Here is an example I have seen many times, and one I have done myself. The trainee burns out on benching and decides to do Hammer Strength Benches for a change. He makes the switch and is jazzed. His Hammer press is going up every week and he is stoked. After a time he has added 50 lbs to his Hammer bench and decides to go back and hit the bench, only to find it’s up a whole 10 lbs!!!!!
Another guy decides his back needs a rest from the heavy squatting he has been doing. So he decides to devote some time to a heavy leg press program. His leg press goes up 75 lbs! And when he hits the squat rack again, he only manages 15 lbs more than the last time he squatted. And I have seen far worse in this instance, I have seen guys squat 25 lbs LESS after putting 75 lbs on their leg-presses. It is a case of a lift having very poor carry-over, and most find this to be true with leg-press to squats.
That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with Hammer Benches and Leg-Presses. It just means that the lifts are dissimilar enough that an increase in one may not necessarily help increase the lift on another. Use of stabilizers and inter and intra-muscular coordination are two primary reasons, along with neural recruitment pattern gains that don’t apply well to the other lift.
While there is a lot of truism that if you get a muscle stronger, it will be stronger doing most tasks, you need to understand that strength is also type and lift specific to a large degree.
Now with all that said, I will have to tell you that it cannot be definitively predicted as to what lifts provide good carry-over. Dips to bench presses are a good example. For MOST people, carry-over is not very good. But…..I know some guys that get a tremendous boost on their bench from dipping. Most machines do NOT translate well to free weight movements. But again that is a generality and some people, using SOME machines get a good boost.
What you don’t want to do is spend a bunch of time doing a lift or lift that doesn’t translate well to the next lift you do next program, have a horrible carry-over, then spend a bunch of time building up the next lift, and start the process all over again. And THAT is exactly what MANY, MANY trainees do. Ask a Powerlifter about what lifts they get good carry-over from and you will likely get a long list of things that work, and things that don’t ask most Bodybuilders about the same topic and they will likely stare at you blankly. And I am not capping on BB’ers, just noting that most PL’ers are much more in tune with what actually works to make the bar weigh a little more each week!
Don’t spend needless time going back and forth ending up back where you began.
Iron Addict
Here is an example I have seen many times, and one I have done myself. The trainee burns out on benching and decides to do Hammer Strength Benches for a change. He makes the switch and is jazzed. His Hammer press is going up every week and he is stoked. After a time he has added 50 lbs to his Hammer bench and decides to go back and hit the bench, only to find it’s up a whole 10 lbs!!!!!
Another guy decides his back needs a rest from the heavy squatting he has been doing. So he decides to devote some time to a heavy leg press program. His leg press goes up 75 lbs! And when he hits the squat rack again, he only manages 15 lbs more than the last time he squatted. And I have seen far worse in this instance, I have seen guys squat 25 lbs LESS after putting 75 lbs on their leg-presses. It is a case of a lift having very poor carry-over, and most find this to be true with leg-press to squats.
That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with Hammer Benches and Leg-Presses. It just means that the lifts are dissimilar enough that an increase in one may not necessarily help increase the lift on another. Use of stabilizers and inter and intra-muscular coordination are two primary reasons, along with neural recruitment pattern gains that don’t apply well to the other lift.
While there is a lot of truism that if you get a muscle stronger, it will be stronger doing most tasks, you need to understand that strength is also type and lift specific to a large degree.
Now with all that said, I will have to tell you that it cannot be definitively predicted as to what lifts provide good carry-over. Dips to bench presses are a good example. For MOST people, carry-over is not very good. But…..I know some guys that get a tremendous boost on their bench from dipping. Most machines do NOT translate well to free weight movements. But again that is a generality and some people, using SOME machines get a good boost.
What you don’t want to do is spend a bunch of time doing a lift or lift that doesn’t translate well to the next lift you do next program, have a horrible carry-over, then spend a bunch of time building up the next lift, and start the process all over again. And THAT is exactly what MANY, MANY trainees do. Ask a Powerlifter about what lifts they get good carry-over from and you will likely get a long list of things that work, and things that don’t ask most Bodybuilders about the same topic and they will likely stare at you blankly. And I am not capping on BB’ers, just noting that most PL’ers are much more in tune with what actually works to make the bar weigh a little more each week!
Don’t spend needless time going back and forth ending up back where you began.
Iron Addict
