Coach Dan King

If you feel silly asking when you're supposed to go heavier, don't. Nobody tells you. Here's the rule.

Hit the top of your rep range with clean form on every set, two sessions in a row. That's it. That's when you go up.

So if your programme says three sets of eight to twelve, and you get twelve on all three sets with good technique, and you do it again next session, the weight goes up.

A few things worth knowing:

Go up in the smallest increment available. Two point five kilos on a dumbbell, one plate on a machine. Small jumps you can hold on to beat big jumps that wreck your form.
Expect your reps to drop when you increase. That's normal and it's supposed to happen. You work back up to the top of the range and then you go again.
Clean form on every set is not negotiable. If the last two reps are a swinging mess, that doesn't count as hitting the range.

The reason most people stall for six months isn't laziness. It's that nobody ever gave them a rule to follow. Now you've got one.

Save this and check it against your log book.

Coach Dan, I got you.

Christian tried this one four or five times and still had no idea what he was meant to be feeling.

Not a strength problem. A position problem. Here's what we changed.

🔹 Bench at 30 to 45 degrees, chest properly on the pad. Higher than that and you're doing a shrug. Lower and your lower back joins in. Chest stays glued to the bench the whole set.
🔹 Let your arms hang and stretch at the bottom. Full relax. Shoulder blades come forward. That stretch is where the range comes from and everyone skips it.
🔹 Elbows to your back pockets. Not hands to chest. Drive the elbows down and back, and let the shoulder blades pull together at the top.
🔹 Pause for one second at the top. No bouncing. If you can't hold it, the weight is too heavy.

The whole point of this variation is that the bench takes your lower back out of it entirely, so there's nowhere to cheat. Once it clicks, it's brutal in the best way.

Cracked it in one session 👏

Coach Dan, I got you

If you're chasing depth on the leg press because someone told you deeper is better, this is the one thing you cannot ignore.

Go too low and your pelvis tucks under, your lower back rounds and lifts away from the pad, and you're now doing that under a genuinely heavy load. That's where the serious injuries happen on this machine. Not from lifting heavy. From lifting heavy in a position your spine can't hold.

The fix:

Only go as deep as you can while keeping your lower back flat against the pad. That's your depth. Not the person's next to you.
The second your hips start to curl under, you've gone past it. Stop there and come back up.

Feet flat, whole foot driving, controlled on the way down.

Depth is earned, not forced. Your range will improve as your mobility does. Until then, work in the range you can actually control.

Save this before your next leg day.

Coach Dan, I got you.

The bicep curl is the most performed exercise in any gym and the one people are most personally invested in. It's also the one with the highest ratio of effort to results, and there's a very simple reason for that.

Your elbows are moving.

Watch anyone curling heavy. As the weight comes up, the elbows creep forward and slightly upward. The moment that happens, your front delts have joined in and taken the load off the bicep. Then there's a small dip and swing to get the weight moving in the first place, and a fast drop on the way back down. Put it together and the bicep is only genuinely working for about a third of the rep.

Here's how to fix it.

Elbows pinned to your sides, glued there for the whole set. Think of them as hinges bolted to your ribs. Only your forearms move.
No swing to start the rep. If you need to dip your knees or rock backwards to get it moving, the weight has already answered the question for you.
Control the way down for three full seconds. Lowering under control is where a huge amount of the growth comes from, and almost nobody does it.
Squeeze at the top rather than just arriving there.

The drill that proves it: stand with your back against a wall, elbows touching the wall too, and curl without letting either come away. Nowhere to hide, no momentum available. Most people need to halve the weight and most people feel their biceps properly for the first time.

Your arms aren't stubborn. They just haven't been asked to do the work yet.

Coach Dan, I got you.

125kg. Not on the first go.

Marnie let me post every attempt, which tells you most of what you need to know about her.

The bar said no. Repeatedly. She kept walking back to it and asking again until it went up like it owed her money.

The PB isn't the impressive part. Returning to a bar that's already beaten you is the impressive part.

Lets show Marnie some love with 👏 in the comments

Rep 8: absolutely thriving
Rep 9: has left the chat

Nobody tells you that the seated row can quietly turn into a lower back exercise.

Watch anyone doing it in a commercial gym and you'll see the same thing. Torso rocking backwards to start the pull, then forwards again to reset. It looks like effort. It feels like work. And the muscles you actually came to train barely get a look in.

Here's why it happens. The moment you lean back, your body has found a way to move the weight without your mid back having to do anything. The shoulder blades stay locked in place the entire set, and those shoulder blades moving is the entire point of a row.

So the fix is simple, and it's uncomfortable in a good way.

Sit tall and lock your torso in one position. It does not move for the whole set. Not to start the rep, not to finish it.
At the stretch, let your shoulder blades travel forwards. Don't hold rigid tension. You need that range.
Pull by driving your elbows down and back towards your back pockets, then finish by squeezing the shoulder blades together.
Hold that squeeze for a full second before you let it back out slowly.

Then the honest part. Once your torso stops helping, the weight you were using will feel far too heavy. That's not a step backwards, that's the first accurate reading you've had of how strong your back actually is.

Lighter stack, still body, moving shoulder blades. That's a row.

Coach Dan, I got you.

Marnie wasn't lifting badly. She was thinking too hard.

Twelve cues in her head at once, and the result was a stiff back, locked hips and a bar that felt twice as heavy as it should. This happens constantly and nobody talks about it.

So we binned everything and kept one cue.

🔹 Push the floor away.

That's it. Not "pull the bar up." Not "brace, hinge, lats, chin tucked, breathe, don't round." Just push the floor away with your legs and let the bar come with you.

The bar goes up either way. The difference is what's doing the work.

🔹 Bar stays against your legs the whole way
🔹 Chest proud, hips and shoulders rise together
🔹 Push through the middle of your foot, not your toes

One cue at a time. Nail it, then add the next one.

Coach Dan, I got you

The vibe was immaculate for approximately nine seconds.

Yes, it looks ridiculous. Do it anyway.

The hip thrust is one of the best glute builders there is, and most people still finish a set feeling absolutely nothing. Usually for three reasons:

🔹 You're arching your back at the top, not squeezing. If your lower back is doing the lifting, your glutes have gone quiet. Ribs down, tuck slightly, finish with the hips not the spine.
🔹 You're pushing through your toes. Drive through your heels. Lift your toes off the floor for a set if you need to feel the difference.
🔹 You're rushing it. Pause and hold for a full second at the top of every rep.

Do all three and you'll feel it on rep four with half the weight you were using.

Just a bit awkward for less than 40 seconds, worth it for the next ten years. Save this one. 💚
Dan