Intervention

This intervention has to deal with trying to increase my total weight and number of repetitions for weight lifting. The main problem I have been having, mostly with my bench press, has to do with being stuck at one weight at times and not being able to increase the maximum lift or get any more reps out of the workout. I have tried to "shock my system" by increasing the weights to a weight that I could only do one or two times. I have also tried building up my endurance through using less weight for more reps at times. No matter which I have tried, I always seem to get stuck at one point or another.

The reason that I chose this form of intervention was because I have tried to talk to many people about why this occurs, but they all seem to agree that it happens to everyone and there is no way to get around it. If I could find a way to avoid this, it would improve my workout a great deal and I would be able to progress at a quicker rate.

Besides with the bench, I will occasionally run into problems with any of the power exercises that I do. The military press, front and back, and 21's cause the most problems next to the bench presses. Since separating both shoulders in a skiing accident, I tend to have pains in my shoulders if I work them too hard. Hopefully, by using imagery and setting some short-term goals I would be able to increase the weight much easier than without. I believe that when I visually see the weights on the bar, intimidation may set in and there may be some doubt. If I am able to switch that to positive thought, it may effect how well I am able to lift the desired weight.

Besides these exercises, I also chose to track the progress of my push up counts based on sets of three and two other forms of curls. On the bench that I used, I used a bar for one form of curls and I also used the bench curl attachment. I tracked these two not because I was having trouble, but because I wanted to see if either one made a difference in the type of progress that was being made.

Subject

Age: 22

Gender: Male

Major: Sports Management

History of Concerns: I discovered this problem when I first began to train in high school. Once I began I made quick and effective progress, but fell into a sort of "slump" for a few weeks on my bench press when I could...

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...time of lift, the order of the exercises, type of music, and other factors, lifts on one day vary from those on another. If I were to have recorded these factors at the times of the workouts, there could have been a more accurate conclusion. The weight did increase overall, but that could be just do to the fact that I kept a steady workout regimen and I was able to produce more effectively. That happens regardless of the situations. Most articles believe that imagery and setting goals have a strong impact on the final results. I am not convinced, but I feel that with more research and more accurate record keeping, the relationship could be discovered.

Work Cited

1. Schlosberg, Suzanne, "Let's Get Visual", Men's Fitness, August 1998, vol. 14, p. 1-2.

2. www.sover.net/~timw.mental.htm (Strength and Conditioning Coach, Sport Nutrition Consultant, Houston, TX)

3. Buchanan, Dale, "Setting Goals for Fast Results", Lift for Life, September 1, 2000, p.90

4. Lester, Scott, "Weighing the Options", Recreation Resources, November, 1999, p. 17-21