Your body needs to continually bump up the intensity in order to avoid adapting to the same stimuli. Increasing the intensity of your workout is as simple as upping the weight, lowering the rest period, increasing the volume, or lifting explosively. Sticking solely with those techniques would be supremely boring It's My Honor Tony..

and eventually cause you to plateau. By occasionally interchanging these techniques into your workout you’ll definitely blast through any plateaus and keep your body growing strong.

#1- Drop Sets – Do a regular set of the exercise then drop the weight about 20%. Perform five more reps and drop the weight again. Do four total drops for a total of five different weight ranges. It’s a great way to flush your muscles with blood to help recovery.

#2 – Forced Reps – Need a lifting partner for this one. Perform your regular set and when your muscles are toast have your partner help you just enough with the weight to get an extra 2-3 reps. Should be a doozie if you’re doing it right but it will help boost your growth hormone levels.

#3 – Negatives – These involve going really slow in the eccentric or downward portion of the lift. Take five to ten seconds to slowly and steadily go through the motion as the resistance moves downward such as in the dip or pull-up. Try to explode in the concentric or upward portion of the lift if you’re feeling real sadistic. Fantastic method to bust through any plateau in your strength gains.

#4 – Partial Reps – Exactly how it sounds – perform a partial rep. You can do them for the entire set such as seated bicep curls with a barbell or as additional reps at the end of a regular set such as only going halfway down on the bench press. Just don’t be the guy who half squats or cheat barbell curls every single workout.

#5 – Rest Pause – My favorite technique – The most gains I’ve seen in a single week. Essentially it’s a bunch of mini sets that add up for much greater volume and gains. For example in a 5×5 strength training program use the same weight you would for the five repetitions but only perform two reps. Wait 15-20 seconds then do two more reps. Repeat for a total of six working sets then rest two minutes. Works best when supplementing with creatine since it helps your energy fire back in that short rest period.

#6 – Supersets, Tri-sets, Giant Sets, & Extended Sets – Consists of doing 2, 3, 4, or 5+ exercises in a row without rest. Works well with opposing muscle groups such as biceps and triceps or back and chest. You could also do the same muscle group such as incline bench press followed by incline flies, dips, and cable crossovers for your chest. Excellent for working out in short amounts of time.

#7 – Static Holds – A form of isometrics. Bruce Lee had a chain attached to the ground with a bar for working his biceps. Perform this by keeping one arm parallel to the ground holding a dumbbell while you are curling with the other for a whole set. You could also keep one arm extended on the dumbbell bench press while the other is lowering and switch the static arm between reps. Helps work all your tiny stabilizer muscles.

Bonus – Twenty One’s - I didn’t count this since it’s technically a combination of partial sets as a superset but it’s still fun to use in the gym, Do seven reps in the bottom portion of the range of motion, seven reps in the top portion, then finally seven final reps using full range of motion. Using the bicep curl as an example it would be seven half curls up to your elbow, seven half curls from your elbow to your shoulder, then seven with the full range of motion. It’s a deep burn.

Don’t forget to keep your workout intelligent by getting creative with these and combing them for some insane new workouts. Try a static hold with one arm while doing twenty ones with the other or perform a negative for the last rep in each of your drop sets. Try a 3 x 3 rep layout for rest pause or do partial forced reps after your original forced reps. Discover which techniques work best for you – your possibilities in the gym are infinite.