How realistic is it to expect to move up the weight rack every time you work out? Many an earnest lifter has hit the mental wall long before due, because no matter how strong he is, say, doing chest presses with 35-pound dumbbells, he just can't make it with the 40's. And so, his plateau drags on, while he either resigns to his max or goes insane -- well, technically anyway, since insanity means repeating the same action and expecting different results. That's sad and so unnecessary.

Enter microloading -- a great technique to push through a plateau and make real, continual progress. This is the simple and sensible concept of increasing or decreasing resistance by small amounts. Consider this: why is it okay for beginners to increase their poundage by about a pound at a time, while more advanced lifters are forced to face increases of five to ten pounds? Because a person can move big weight, is she imbued with super powers that make her more capable of jumping up the weight rack in bigger leaps than someone who lifts lighter? Microloading makes sense. 

Five pounds is a big leap in load for anybody's muscles and nervous system to handle. Think of the high percentage of weight to the lift that five pounds can amount to. Beginners progress because they gradually increase the demand on their muscles and keep the increments small. This technique works just as well for a seasoned, record-breaking gym rat as it does for someone just starting out.

The industry standard of five to ten-pound increments that you've grown accustomed to seeing in fixed-weight sets has little to do with you and your workout. It's about affordability. Just in order to incorporate weights in 2-1/2 lb. increments, you'd have to buy twice as many dumbbells. Imagine the space needed to house all that iron, and imagine the cost! No, the way weight sets have come to be set up has everything to do with sales.

But you have options -- everyone's favorite kind -- cheap, easy and free.

How it works

Microloading works by increasing resistance by small amounts - two pounds, one pounds, even fractions of a pound. "But that's not much weight," you say. Exactly. It's just enough to coax your system into lifting more than it did the week before. Microloading works by steady increases. Think of it this way: If you add one pound to your overhead press every week, in a year your working weight will up by 52 pounds. Now, that's progress.

So microloading breeds a shift in perspective, changing your mindset to aim for steady, continual progress instead of sudden, big weight jumps, and always full contraction with perfect form.

This technique is important at all levels of lifting. Beginners are more likely to perform exercises properly and safely. Intermediates stay motivated because they experience steady progress. Advanced lifters benefit because microloading helps them break through plateaus to achieve success at the highest level of weight training, boasts the leading microweight company Platemate.

And microloading can be exactly what the physical therapist ordered when it comes to injury rehabilitation. Small increases in workload can help people regain strength in safe and controlled situations. You've heard it before: the biggest foe of healing is patients doing too much, too soon.

Get stronger to get bigger

To start microloading, you have to reassess the muddy discrepancy between training for strength and training for size. When powerlifters and bodybuilders stand on opposite sides of the gym floor, they both lose out on the crux of advanced development: you must strength train to grow. Smehwere along the line, the gym myth spread that a person can get stronger without getting bigger, and get bigger without getting stronger. Let's clear that up right now.

In order to get bigger, you have to move more weight. When you get stronger, you move more weight. When you move more weight, you get bigger. When you get bigger, you get stronger. Get it? You have to get stronger to get bigger.

It's the fine art of tapping both principles that leads to the biggest gains for everybody in the gym.

How to apply it

Think of the straw that broke the camel's back -- or, broke the camel's 495# squat record or 16.5" bicep plateau. When you're pushing for muscle failure, truly maxing out can be a game of microweights. Adding small amounts, even less than a pound, can help you peak.

Perform warm-up sets as usual. Begin microloading with your first working set and maintain the added load through your last. If you are able to maintain perfect form on all of your working sets with the increase, then the following week or two, increase it again. A word of caution: Don't be in a rush to climb the microload ladder. If you try to increase your microload every single time you lift, you'll just plateau in microloading, and plateauing is exactly what correct microloading technique should help you to avoid. Even though the increase is so small that you ideally do not even perceive an increased difficulty, your body needs time to adjust to the added workload. What you're essentially doing is fooling your body into developing. Push too hard, too soon, and it'll catch on and resist. You should always be in complete control of any weight amount before you increase -- that goes for macroloading as well.

While some schools of thought on microloading advise you to adjust your amount of added resistance proportionately to the size of the muscle group, and this is logical, that can go awry when lifters add too much to their major multijoint movements, and blow the concept of microloading. Don't keep adding weight until you feel it. Just because you can add a pound to your bicep curls without any perceived increase in effort does not mean that you should add five pounds to your squat, for instance. Stick to tiny increments for microloading, nothing over 2.5 pounds total at a time. The more you experiment, the more you will get the hang of fidgeting with fractions of a single pound for effective results.

Equipment

While coming up with homemade versions of gym equipment to lift your max can be tough, making your own microloading equipment can be simple and very inexpensive, even free.

One simple tool you can use to microload any free weight or machine apparatus is the band. Made of rubber, some flat, some tubular, some with handles, any style band is highly adaptable to any exercise. For instance, in bicep curls, hold the ends of a band with your hands, hold down the middle with your feet, and then pick up your dumbbell or barbell and curl.

For barbell work specifically, you can use small plates, (the top manufacturer of fractionalized plates is Piedmont Design Associates, or PDA, out of South Carolina. Find them on the Ironhorse website at http://www.fractionalplates.com), strap ankleweights onto a bar, or make your own: buy magnets from the hardware store and glue on small items to make the weight you want -- washers, keys, stones, whatever. Use an adhesive such as hot glue, Super or Krazy glue, or a metal epoxy glue such as PC-7 or JB Weld. You can also fill balloons with sand and suspend them from a bar with thick rubber bands. You may find the equipment already at the gym -- in the collars. Spring, screw-on, Olympic-style collars and Muscle Clamps all weigh marginal amounts. Doubling up and mixing collars or clamps can give you just what you need. Or you may attach items to the collars.

For dumbbell work, the industry leader is Platemate (http://www.theplatemate.com). Platemate makes strong, attractive, rubber-coated magnetic microweights to stick to the ends of dumbbells, barbells, plates and even stack-based machines. They are available in increments from 5/8 lbs to 5 lbs. and come in three shapes - hexagonal, donut, and brick.

Again, you can make your own version with magnets or even simply taping small items to the dumbbells.

Weigh all microweights on a food scale and mark them. Even though you're dealing with small amounts of weight, be precise. Think of what that poor camel's straw did. Keep records of your progress and hone in on what works best for you. By correctly tailoring the microloading technique to your body and goals, you're well on your way to getting over your training hump.

SIDEBAR

Ken Benoit, bringing microloading to the industry

The unofficial father of microloading is the man who coined the phrase for exercise, Ken Benoit, the entrepreneur with a physical education background who has significantly influenced the spread of the concept in the U.S. When he went up five pounds too many on a preacher curl in 1995, he pulled a bicep muscle. The injury forced him to get innovative in order to recover: he duct-taped small weights to dumbbells for curls, and within one year surpassed his pre-injury max. Thus was born Platemates -- small, attractive, rubber-coated magnetic microweights to adhere to standard equipment. Since 1995, his company has mushroomed - demand has doubled every year for the past five years; Platemates are sold worldwide; portions of the military and several professional football and Olympic hockey teams swear by Platemates and the microloading technique.

"The simple, common sense seems to gain people's attention," says Benoit.

Equipment companies are quickly catching on. LifeFitness, Hoist, Vectra, Cybex and Nautilus are all offering selectorized equipment with microloading provisions, generally at 2.5 pound increments. Powerblock offers microloading options and ties in with Platemates.