Reverse flies

[yvi]

I have no idea whether this is a rant, a question or a cry for some sympathy. I have been doing reverse flies as part of my strength training regularly for over 6 weeks now. I started with only my dumbbell handles. When I could comfortable do 12 of those, I added half a kilogram of weight to them. And 4 weeks after that, that is still where I am and I can't even do 12 of them all the way up yet. Maybe 8. But 12 without the 0.5 kgs are no challenge.

It makes me want to scream. Is progress for reverse flies always slow like that? Is there any exercise that might help along the way? I hate feeling stuck like that. I don't need to increase weight every week, but I haven't seen any progress for this exercise in weeks now.

Comments

[cereta]

I don't know about reverse flies, but I know that with every free weight exercise I've done, it's been weeks of feeling like I was struggling and struggling with a given weight, and then BOOM, it was easy. I would not despair yet.

[vass]

If you can do eight, with difficulty, then it sounds like this is the right weight for you. It should be difficult but not impossible.

[minxy]

I also wouldn't worry too much. If you're frustrated, though, and want to get stronger, you might want to make sure you're doing several sets. If you're working at the right weight, you should be failing at rep 7-8 on the first set, maybe 6-7 on the next, perhaps 4-5 on the third. You might be able to see progress on how many reps you can do in the third set before you jump weight, and that could help with motivation!

[gchick]

What they all said, plus a reminder that while you're talking about going up a small amount of total weight, the difference is huge as a percentage of what you were lifting before. Don't worry about finishing the same number of reps -- when you go up in weight, expect to do as many as you *can* do, and then build the reps back up from there. (In fact, I'd say that if you were able to knock out the full set at the higher weight, you weren't lifting enough to really train your body before -- this sounds like you're increasing your weights at the right time for you.)

[rydra_wong]

If my info is correct, reverse flyes hit the rear deltoids. Those are pretty small muscles, and so you're going to be working with much lighter weights than you're using in other exercises, and changes are going to be proportionately smaller.