Bodybuilding Burn Reps
Bodybuilding slang is everywhere these days but something that we seldom hear or talk about as bodybuilders or weight trainers trying to gain muscle, is burn reps. Burn reps are not like cheat reps, they are completely different and should not get confused with cheat reps or forced reps.
Burn reps are what you do after completing the set where you have reached the point of failure that will not allow you to complete another rep with full range. Burn reps are partials where you then rep out the remaining movement of the lift until you cannot move the weight.
Training with burn reps needs to be done selectively, no more than once a week as this is intense and needs lots of recuperation time. One should even be more selective about the movements that you should do using burn reps when we consider the indirect force placed on the large body-parts like chest, back and thighs including your arms.
If you are training on a regular basis and can see muscle growth but want to intensify a workout to break through a training plateau, then try burn reps. One should always be weary of too much stimulation of muscle growth resulting in overtraining.
Cheat reps are done by breaking form, burn reps stick to good form at all times and to continue until movement has stopped. Only consider doing these burn reps when you are training at least three times a week and want some help to get stronger and get the muscle bigger.
Although burn reps can be used on every body-part, we will use something easy to understand like training calves, which is how burn reps got their name. After completing a set of standing calf raises you would then do partial reps using good form without bouncing at the end of your last set.
Doing effective isolation movements like the example above of standing calf raises gets the best results when doing burn reps. There are a few other body-parts that respond very well to burn reps. For example, doing burn reps with a movement like bent-over D/B raises for the rear delts.
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