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Focus on the Stretch and Squeeze.
I’ve already convinced myself that you only do close to perfect form on every exercise in its entire full range of motion. And whatever I say next, shouldn’t change that too much. Keep up the good work.
Even though your range of motion (ROM) is basically god-tier, I have some notes. In recent years, especially with the science-based community, focusing on the full stretching portion of the lift has been at the forefront. Mainly due to some research alluding to it. Without turning this into a meta-analysis article, I’ll give a quick gist, and you can investigate further if you wish.
Overall, most of these studies were done well, with the small issues of typically sample size and chosen methods. The small constraint is normal because you can only do so much with so many college students. What we’re highlighting today is the methods. These results came from working the stretch portion of the lift, compared to the squeezing portion, and even having a full ROM group. Sounds airtight, huh?
In their findings, the stretch focus group had better results than the squeezing group, and either the same, or slightly better results than the full ROM group.
The issue is that only a few muscle groups were tested; which were made up of small muscle groups, i.e., the triceps.
Now the researchers suggest that the stretch portion is most likely important in muscle development… but not the whole picture; especially when so few groups were actually analyzed, including mostly single-joint focused.
The push-back here is that this doesn’t give us the whole picture. This might be better for some muscle groups, but worse for others. They don’t know for sure, and neither do I.
What I do know, is that a main focus on full range of motion, with the added stretching or squeezing focus (partial reps) will cover all your bases within isolation (single-joint) and compound (multiple-joint) movements. Play around with it, and figure out where you work best.
Don’t just rely on something that a bunch of science-based lifters took and ran with. I think it’s understandable to follow the research, but you should still be skeptical, and apply real-world experience/understanding.
Quick example and I’ll close out:
Science-based says the stretch is the most important part of a lift. Therefore, if you want bigger and stronger biceps you should be doing loaded preacher curls. I don’t know about you, but my right elbow does not like preacher curls. So I don’t do them. I enjoy doing incline curls. Will I have as great of gains… who knows. At least without doing the preacher curls, I’m able to perform other types of curls more often. Compared to doing preacher curls and having to back off for a week or so afterwards. Losing volume and consistency.
Just my two cents on the matter of range of motion.
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
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MINDSET
At the end of the day, it’s getting in and doing the work.
But shoot for mostly full ROM.
Train smart, but never forget to train hard.