 The other thing that tends to stop people from pushing as hard or pulling as hard as they possibly can during exercise is physical pain or fear of physical pain for most people The exercise stops when it starts to become uncomfortable if you look at a lot of people in a gym If a person is really going all out by the time they get to the point where they are at their actual physical limits, they will have slowed down considerably a person who can comfortably You know curl at a moderate pace if they're using a heavy enough weight their last repetition is going to look like this They're just going to be barely moving it watch a lot of people Their speed doesn't change too much. They get to a point where it starts to get uncomfortable. They set it down Problem with that is the point where you start to become uncomfortable as those last couple most productive reps Where you reach that point Doug was talking about where you're sending the message to your body that you know It is about to die or it thinks it's about to die If you stop when it starts to burn if you stop when it starts to become uncomfortable you are stopping Right at the point where the real exercise begins Now again keep in mind that You're not going to injure yourself If you're moving in a controlled manner the burn is not an indication that any kind of Actual large-scale physical damage is being done now. There is damage Very very small damage. You have little tears. It's called microtrauma the structural level Galactic acid Doug discusses going to have some effect on that discomfort too, but there is no kind of real injury occurring now something that helps is If you keep in mind the difference between pain which is Informative pain is basically telling you that hey something is wrong and Doing so so that you stop doing whatever is causing the damage and what it's called Exertional discomfort, which is actually what's happening during exercise, which is non informative It doesn't tell you anything you don't already know your muscles are working hard Okay, we already know that but there's nothing again. There's nothing happening there. That's going to cause any damage You can safely ignore that if you also consider as you're getting to that point that The exercise is temporary and what's happening is not suggesting an injury that's going to persist afterwards That helps you be able to push through that But one of the things that seems to be most effective is if you look at it the burn That discomfort that occurs during exercise rather than an Indication that you're getting towards the end of the exercise But as a cue that it's time to start working harder It helps you push through that For example leg extension, which if anybody has done any heavy heavy training anybody here Do leg extensions or has done leg extensions part of workout? Okay, it's one of the worst as far as sensitivity for some reason people tend to feel it in their frontal thighs Some people calves more than anything else and on almost more than any other exercise I see people quitting on the leg extension before they've gotten anywhere near what they're actually physical physically capable of because of that burn it is Well, it's just downright painful People stop because they're worried about hurting themselves people stop because it's extremely uncomfortable but again that burning Means that you're getting towards the most beneficial the most important part of the exercise and rather than stop at that point You should consider it your cue to push even a little bit harder Something else that makes a big difference is having some external motivation Having somebody else there to push you doesn't have to be a trainer, but even if it's just you know Yeah friend somebody else in the gym as most people will push themselves Nowhere near their limits But if you have somebody else there even if it's just you're trying to impress somebody else in the gym Or somebody who is going to push you that makes all the difference in the world But that's as far as the intensity is concerned those last couple repetitions Are the absolute most important in exercise what you're trying to do is? Send a message to your body that its current ability is Inadequate to meet some demand that your environment is placing on it if you're capable of an all-out Effort completing 10 repetitions and you were to stop at seven or eight You're not asking your body to do anything that it already isn't capable of It's less likely to expend any resources to produce an increase in muscle mass which or any other metabolic Adaptation which can be expensive you have to give it a good a reason to do so it's only when you attempt that 10th repetition and Even when you get to a point where it's no longer possible to continue you keep contracting against it that you're really telling your body hate We need to be stronger We need to be better capable of tolerating this so that the next time we encounter it We're able to successfully complete and whatever it is if it's you know in the case of an exercise The exercise or as far as your body knows again, you could be fighting a bear or a tiger or something As far as the amount of exercise We're balancing it against the intensity of exercise You have to train hard for the exercise to be effective But again doing so is going to limit the amount of exercise that you can do now most people Think you got to do you know dozens of sets You know a bunch of the different exercises for all the different muscle groups if you read the muscle magazines Most bodybuilding or fitness books. You'll have routines that will typically involve three to four sets of anywhere from three to sometimes five or six exercises per muscle group Anybody who's capable of completing a routine like that is not working anywhere near as hard as necessary to get the maximal you know benefit from the exercise in fact If a person is training as hard as I'm talking about pushing to your absolute limit And then at that point continuing to attempt to push for a couple seconds You're not going to be able to tolerate a very large amount of exercise at all