When it comes to getting stronger, most of us have a one-track mind: just add more weight to the bar. We’ve all been there, chasing a new personal best, feeling that the only way forward is to slap another plate on each side. While lifting heavier over time is a key part of getting stronger, it's far from the only way to make progress. In fact, some of the most profound strength gains are made when you stop worrying about the number on the bar and start focusing on the quality of every single rep. You can unlock significant strength gains and improve your lifts without ever touching another weight plate.
This guide explores smarter ways to increase your Training intensity. By refining your technique, controlling every movement, and being more creative with your workouts, you can build serious strength, improve your efficiency, and reduce your risk of injury, all with the weights you’re already using.
The Secret to Gains Isn't Just Lifting Heavier
One of the most neglected areas of strength training is mastering the art of the movement itself. Perfecting your form can have a massive impact on your results. It’s the difference between simply moving a weight from A to B and commanding your muscles to work in perfect harmony. Making small tweaks to your proper lifting techniques ensures that the right muscles are doing the work, leading to better, safer strength gains.
Key Adjustments for Better Lifts
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Brace Your Core: A strong, stable core is your foundation. Before any big lift, you should actively brace your midsection as if you’re about to take a punch. This creates intra-abdominal pressure, forming a natural 'lifting belt' that protects your spine and prevents energy from leaking out, transferring power directly where you need it.
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Control Your Breath: Your breathing isn't just for survival; it’s a tool for stability and power. For heavy compound lifts, a sharp intake of air held during the most strenuous part of the movement (the Valsalva manoeuvre) can dramatically increase your stability. Just remember to exhale forcefully as you complete the lift. For lighter work, a steady inhale on the eccentric and exhale on the concentric is perfect.
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Find the Right Path: For any lift, there's an optimal path for the barbell or dumbbell. An inefficient bar path is like taking the scenic route; it wastes energy. For a squat, the bar should travel in a straight vertical line over the middle of your foot. For a bench press, it should follow a slight arc. Filming your lifts from the side is a great way to check your bar path and make corrections.
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Stay in Control: Focus on smooth, deliberate movements. Avoid jerking or using momentum to shift the weight. True strength is about control through the entire range of motion, both on the way up and on the way down.
Develop Your Mind-Muscle Connection
This might sound a bit abstract, but it’s a game-changer. The mind-muscle connection is your conscious ability to feel the target muscle working during an exercise. Instead of just going through the motions, actively think about the muscle you’re trying to train. Visualise it contracting and lengthening. This focus improves neural drive, recruiting more muscle fibres and making every single rep more effective.
Making Lighter Weights Feel Heavy
You can dramatically increase your Training intensity by changing how you lift, not just what you lift. This is where you can really challenge your muscles in new ways and force them to adapt.
Increase Time Under Tension (TUT)
Time under tension is simply how long your muscle is actively working during a set. By slowing things down, you force your muscles to work much harder, stimulating more growth and strength. The muscle damage and metabolic stress caused by extended TUT are powerful drivers of adaptation.
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Focus on the Eccentric: This is the lowering, or 'negative', part of a lift. It's where a lot of muscle micro-trauma occurs, which is essential for rebuilding stronger. Try taking a full 3-5 seconds to lower the weight in a squat or bench press. You'll feel the difference immediately.
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Pause at the Bottom: Holding the weight for a second or two at the most challenging part of the lift (like the bottom of a squat or when the bar is just above your chest in a bench press) eliminates the stretch reflex and momentum, forcing your muscles to work from a dead stop.
Play with Tempo
Varying the speed of your lifts is a fantastic way to break through plateaus. Tempo is usually written as a series of numbers, like 3:1:1:0. This would mean a 3-second eccentric (lowering), a 1-second pause at the bottom, a 1-second concentric (lifting), and no pause at the top. Manipulating the tempo is a powerful tool for increasing the challenge and targeting different muscle fibre types.
Fix Your Weak Links for All-Around Strength
Sometimes, what’s holding your main lifts back isn’t your main muscles, but a smaller, supporting weak link. Identifying and strengthening these areas can lead to immediate improvements in your performance.
Build a Vise-Like Grip
Your hands are the connection to the weight. If your grip gives out, the lift is over, no matter how strong the rest of your body is. A stronger grip allows you to control the weight better and signals to your central nervous system that it’s safe to recruit more muscle fibres.
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Farmer’s Carries: Pick up two heavy dumbbells or kettlebells and walk. It’s simple, brutal, and incredibly effective for building grip endurance.
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Dead Hangs: Simply hanging from a pull-up bar for as long as you can is one of the best ways to build raw grip strength.
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Plate Pinches: Pinch two weight plates together, smooth side out, and hold for as long as you can. This is fantastic for developing thumb strength.
Train One Side at a Time
Unilateral training, or working one limb at a time, is a brilliant way to iron out muscle imbalances. We all have a stronger, more dominant side, and these imbalances can lead to sloppy form and injury over time. Unilateral work forces the weaker side to catch up and also heavily engages your core stabilisers.
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Bulgarian Split Squats: These are fantastic for correcting strength differences between your legs and improving hip stability.
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Single-Arm Presses: Pressing a dumbbell overhead with one arm forces your core to work overtime to keep you stable and prevent you from leaning.
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Single-Arm Rows: These build a strong back while also challenging your anti-rotation core strength.
Advanced Techniques to Boost Intensity
If you really want to increase the challenge without increasing the weight, you can add variable resistance. Using resistance bands or chains on your lifts makes the weight feel heavier at different points of the movement, forcing your muscles to adapt and work harder through the entire range of motion. Bands increase tension towards the top of the lift, while chains get progressively heavier as you lift them off the floor.
Another powerful method is Rest-Pause Training. Perform a set to near failure, then rack the weight and rest for just 15-20 seconds. Then, un-rack it and try to get a few more reps. This technique allows you to cram more high-quality, growth-stimulating reps into a single set than you would normally be able to.
Conclusion
Getting stronger doesn't always mean lifting heavier. By focusing on proper lifting techniques, developing a strong mind-muscle connection, increasing your Training intensity through methods like time under tension and tempo manipulation, and fixing your weak links, you can make incredible progress. It’s about training smarter, not just harder, and building a foundation of quality movement that will serve you for years to come.
Upgrade Your Training with Speediance
The right equipment can help you focus on these techniques safely and effectively. At Speediance NZ, our gear is designed to help you master your movements.
The Speediance Gym Monster 2 is perfect for this style of training. It's customisable digital resistance allows you to precisely control your workouts and implement advanced techniques like slow eccentrics and specific tempos. To make these adjustments on the fly without breaking your rhythm, the Smart Bluetooth Ring Controller is an ideal companion. For mastering form and targeting weak links, the Speediance PowerGrips can help you build that vise-like grip, while the Adjustable Bench provides the stable support you need for a huge range of exercises.