Are You Actually Building Muscle? Why Exercise Execution Matters

When you're trying to build muscle, it's easy to focus solely on the numbers.

More weight.
More reps.
More sets.

And while progressive overload is an important part of building muscle, there's something that comes before all of that:

How you move the weight matters.

You can be adding weight to an exercise and increasing your reps, but if you don't know how to move that weight properly, you may not be getting the muscle-building stimulus you're working so hard for.

It's not just about moving the weight

Building muscle isn't simply about getting a weight from A to B.

It's about creating enough tension in the muscle you're trying to develop.

Take a dumbbell row, for example. You might be lifting a heavier dumbbell and completing more reps, but if you're using lots of body movement to swing the weight up, shortening your range of motion and dropping the dumbbell quickly on the way down, you're changing how the exercise is performed.

The number on the dumbbell has gone up.

But that doesn't automatically mean the stimulus to your back has improved.

Two people can lift the same weight for the same number of reps and get a very different training stimulus.

That's why exercise execution matters.

What am I looking for when I coach you?

When I'm watching you train, I'm not just counting your reps.

I'm watching how you move.

I'm looking at your range of motion, your stability and your control. I'm watching the speed of your concentric, the lifting phase and your eccentric, the lowering phase.

I'm watching how much momentum you're using and, importantly, what happens when the set gets hard.

Does your technique stay consistent?

Or do you start to shorten the movement, rush the eccentric or use other parts of your body to get the weight moving?

These changes can be subtle, and they're often difficult to see when you're the person doing the exercise.

That's one of the benefits of having someone watch you.

Good execution allows you to progress properly

This doesn't mean you should lift light weights forever or perform every rep in slow motion.

I want you to get stronger.

I want you to lift heavier and do more reps.

But I want those numbers to represent true progression.

Sometimes progression means adding weight.

Sometimes it means adding a rep.

Sometimes it means improving your range of motion or controlling the movement better.

And sometimes it means keeping the weight the same because increasing it would mean sacrificing the quality of the exercise.

More weight isn't always better if you're no longer performing the exercise well.

It matters for injury risk too

Good technique isn't a guarantee that you'll never get injured. Injuries are complex and can happen even when you're doing everything right.

But repeatedly using excessive momentum, losing control or allowing your technique to deteriorate as you fatigue isn't something I want you doing without someone noticing.

And that's another reason I watch closely.

You might be concentrating on getting your final few reps completed.

I'm concentrating on how you're completing them.

So, are you really progressing?

If you're working hard in the gym, you want that hard work to produce results.

So don't just ask:

“Am I lifting more?”

Ask:

“Am I moving the weight better?”

Because if nobody is watching what you're doing, you may be unknowingly changing your technique, reducing the stimulus to the muscle you're trying to build and potentially increasing unnecessary stress on your body.

The weight matters.

The reps matter.

But how you perform those reps matters too.

Don't just chase bigger numbers.

Learn to move the weight well, then make those numbers go up x