Stop Switching Exercises Until Changing THIS First (Tolerance Analysis) | Ep 240
Are you quick to abandon exercises that don't feel quite right? Maybe bench press bothers your shoulders, rows don't hit your back, or squats just feel unstable.
The typical advice is to "just find another exercise." But before you give up on a movement that could be great for your goals, there's an engineering solution you need to try.
You'll learn how the engineering concept of Tolerance Analysis reveals why small, systematic modifications can transform problematic exercises into some of your best movements - all while maintaining proper form principles.
Discover how to methodically test exercise variations, know exactly which variables you can adjust (and by how much), and determine when modifications will work versus when you truly need a different exercise.
Whether you're dealing with discomfort, poor muscle engagement, or exercises that just don't feel right, this episode gives you a systematic approach to optimize movements for YOUR body.
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Main Takeaways:
Maintain fundamental movement principles while making small adjustments
Use systematic testing to find the right variations for your body
Small, precise modifications often make the biggest difference
Know when to modify versus when to move on to different exercises
How Small Exercise Tweaks Can Transform Your Workouts
Frustrated with an Exercise? Don’t Quit Yet—Try This First
If you've ever found yourself struggling with a lift—like bench presses irritating your shoulders or squats feeling unstable—you might be tempted to swap it out for something else. But before you abandon a valuable exercise, consider an engineering-inspired approach: tolerance analysis. This method helps you systematically adjust movements while maintaining proper form and focusing on your goals, so you can get results without giving up on the exercise itself.
In Episode 240 of Wits & Weights, we explore how tolerance analysis, a precision method engineers use for design adjustments, can enhance your training. Here’s how this approach could be the key to getting more out of movements you thought were off-limits.
What Is Tolerance Analysis, and Why Should You Use It?
Tolerance analysis is a technique from engineering that defines an acceptable range for modifying a design without compromising its function. Think of it as a checklist for making small adjustments that keep the core function intact. In strength training, this applies well because certain elements of a lift, like the movement pattern, need to stay fixed, while others, like grip or stance, can vary slightly. By knowing what to tweak, you’ll find that “sweet spot” where the movement works for you instead of against you.
Fixed Elements vs. Modifiable Adjustments
Start by getting clear on what must remain constant in any lift to maintain its effectiveness:
Movement Pattern: Stick to the fundamental motion, whether it's a squat or press.
Target Muscles: Focus on the correct muscles that should be engaged.
Joint Alignment: Keep joints in safe alignment, like a vertical bar path during squats.
These are the foundation of your lift, so keep them intact. Once these elements are in place, you can move on to adjusting other aspects.
1. Identify the Modifiable Variables
When you need to fine-tune a lift, start by experimenting with one of these variables at a time:
a. Grip Width
For a bench press, adjusting your grip can change which muscles are targeted. A close grip hits the triceps, while a wider grip emphasizes the chest.
b. Hand Angle
Small shifts in hand positioning, like using a neutral grip instead of a pronated one, can reduce strain, especially for those with shoulder issues.
c. Range of Motion
If you experience discomfort at certain points of a lift (like at the bottom of a bench press), consider limiting the range of motion slightly to avoid joint stress.
d. Tempo and Speed
Slowing down the eccentric (lowering) phase or pausing at the bottom can enhance control, prevent injury, and provide better muscle engagement. For example, pausing during a squat or bench can build joint resilience.
2. Test One Adjustment at a Time
Just as an engineer would, focus on changing only one thing at a time:
Try a grip adjustment on the bench press, like narrowing the grip to alleviate shoulder stress.
Observe the impact on comfort, stability, and muscle engagement, and document the outcome.
Isolating one variable allows you to zero in on what works and ensures that the exercise still feels natural without losing the intended benefits.
3. Know When It’s Time to Change Exercises
If you’ve exhausted your adjustment options and the lift still feels uncomfortable or ineffective, it may be time to try a similar but different exercise. For example, if bench pressing continues to aggravate your shoulders despite adjustments, consider switching to an incline press or using dumbbells. Recognizing your limits is crucial to prevent injury and maintain consistent progress.
The Impact of Small Adjustments
Tiny changes, like stance or grip, can have an outsized impact on how a movement feels. With tolerance analysis, you’ll find options you hadn’t considered before, making lifts you once avoided feel accessible and even enjoyable.
So, before scrapping an exercise, give this framework a try. You may find that the right tweaks make it not only doable but effective, letting you keep progressing toward your goals.
Key Takeaway
By using tolerance analysis to make minor but impactful adjustments, you can keep movements effective without compromising technique. When you stay patient, adjust systematically, and track results, you’ll open up new possibilities for each lift, unlocking gains you didn’t know were possible.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to hit follow and leave a review on Wits & Weights. Until next time, keep using your wits, lift those weights, and remember—sometimes, a small tweak makes all the difference.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you're struggling with an exercise that just isn't quite working maybe bench press bothers your shoulders, rows don't engage your back properly or squats don't feel stable and you're thinking about abandoning it completely for a different movement hold up. There's an engineering approach that could save that exercise while maintaining perfect form, and today I'm revealing how engineers use tolerance analysis to make precise adjustments to complex systems, and how you can apply this same method to modify exercises without compromising proper technique. Get ready to learn a systematic approach to exercise modification that will unlock better gains for movements that you thought you couldn could do. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape. Now, when an exercise isn't working perfectly, the easy answer is let's switch to something else. Let me just give up and try something else. But what if you could systematically modify that movement, while maintaining proper form and principles of movement, to make it work exactly as intended, so you don't have to abandon it? Today, we're exploring how engineers use tolerance analysis to make precise adjustments within acceptable ranges. Again, you don't have to be an engineer to understand this stuff. I really try to simplify it for you and show you how to use these frameworks to optimize exercise and exercise selection, even when it's not quite clicking for you right now, as always, before we get into it. If you're enjoying the show, if you want more content on building muscle, losing fat, like today's engineering approach, and you're not gonna find this anywhere else, go ahead and hit the follow button right now. It will help more people find the show, but also ensure that you never miss an episode. All right.
Philip Pape: 1:59
So what is the problem we're talking about today? It's something I see all the time with my clients, but I've experienced it myself, having come through shoulder recovery over the last year and wondering can I even do this movement? And, if so, do I need to modify it? Because we don't want to be in pain, we don't want to feel like we can't make progress, and so when an exercise isn't working perfectly, most people usually fall into one of three traps. They either keep forcing themselves to do it anyway, even though they're not getting results and that could be dangerous if it's even causing pain, for example or they start randomly trying all sorts of modifications. All at once, they change a whole bunch of variables their grip, their stance, their angle and they don't really have a plan for that or, most commonly, they just give up and switch to a different exercise. So the real issue is not the fundamental movement pattern itself.
Philip Pape: 2:52
We're going to assume that your strength training for progressive overload, for progressive loading, and you have a decent understanding of how to lift weights and you understand the value of proper form, proper form principles, like maintaining a vertical bar path when you're squatting, or engaging your back instead of your arms when you're rowing or doing a pull down. These are universal principles. They are not negotiable. The problem is finding the right variation within those principles that works for you and your body right now, at this moment. Don't get frustrated or discouraged.
Philip Pape: 3:23
This is where the approach I'm going to share today is going to come in to help you. It's called tolerance analysis. Now, in engineering, tolerance analysis determines the acceptable range for modifying a product or item or design while maintaining the core principles or core specs, core specifications. Right, think about if you had to make a critical part for an engine. The width might need to be exactly 10 millimeters, because that's an important criteria, but the height could vary within certain limits without affecting performance. So the same concept applies perfectly to exercise modification.
Philip Pape: 3:59
Some aspects of a movement are fixed right, like the vertical bar path in a squat. We want that to be non-negotiable. In fact, even having that midfoot center of gravity, you know, within a tiny tolerance, those are the core specifications that we don't change. But other elements have ranges where you can modify them, and so the key is understanding which is which and then how far you can adjust those, while keeping the exercise true to its intended purpose and getting what you want out of it right. Like when you squat. Chances are you're trying to get bigger legs and it may be a specific muscle group quads, hams, you know, glutes but that's that's the purpose of it. So let's just break down systematically how to modify exercises using this framework.
Philip Pape: 4:42
All right, first, you have to be crystal clear on the parts that don't change what is the movement pattern you're going for? Which muscles should be engaged and triggered and targeted? What say joint alignments have to be maintained, right, if you're doing a hinge, trying to do a deadlift. There's a principle there that is a non-negotiable. So you've got that in place right. Let's say it's a um.
Philip Pape: 5:10
Let's go with a bench press right, because I've had shoulder issues and a lot of you listening probably have issues with your shoulder. When it comes to bench press, what are you trying to do? Well, you're probably trying to target the pecs right, the chest muscles, but also the triceps, and you know it depends on the grip and everything else what you're going to target. But there are a lot of variables that you can adjust and still get incredible growth in those few areas that you're going for with the bench press. And so what can you adjust? That's what we have to identify. So with most exercises, you have a few variables to work with. You have grip width.
Philip Pape: 5:47
So think about let's focus on the bench press. You could go with kind of the standard grip, which is a fairly wide grip but not super wide. It's wide enough where your forearms are vertical at the bottom, all right. But we can go narrow, which you see with a close grip, bench press, hence the name. It's gonna target the triceps. You can go much wider, which is more like a power lifting kind of width which shortens the range of motion. So that that's one thing you could change width, and that applies to presses, that applies to pulls, like you could change width on a lot of exercises.
Philip Pape: 6:17
The next variable is your angle of your hands. So think about we often don't even think about our hands. We were like, okay, it's a bench press, it's a straight bar, so my hands are just going to be facing forward, which is effectively pronated. If you were standing up, that's what it's called facing forward. But what if you used a multi-grip bar that lets you have a neutral grip? Right? What if you use a pull-up bar that lets you have a neutral grip? What if you use a trap bar for your rows instead of a barbell to have a neutral grip and for shoulder issues? That can be a huge difference. Just that slight change. What about a lat pull-down? Slight change. What about a lat pulldown? Look at all the attachments you could have for lat pulldown. You don't have to pull down with a pronated grip. You can have a neutral grip pulldown or even a supine like slightly underhand, slightly angled grip with these special attachments. You know the V grips and such that have different angles. There's a lot of different angles you can work with without changing anything else how far you move through the range of motion.
Philip Pape: 7:15
And I say it that way because there is a full range of motion and if you're going for the normal traditional movement. You want the full range of motion. Get the most muscle group muscle engaged, muscle fibers engaged through the lengthened and shortened parts of the muscle. But you might not find that super comfortable for certain movements. Take bench press again If you've got shoulder issues, the very bottom of the muscle. But you might not find that super comfortable for certain movements. Take bench press again If you've got shoulder issues. The very bottom of the movement might be so much of a rotation on your shoulder, there's too much stress there. And so that's where you can say, okay, should I come down almost to that level, but not quite, by using pins in the rack right, more of a rack press than a full press? Should I use a pause at the bottom? Actually, that's a different variable. Let's hold on that. Should I use a slingshot? So it takes some of the load at the very bottom, knowing that I still get to push through the sticking point and work the pecs.
Philip Pape: 8:06
So think about range of motion. You know something like a what do you call it? A barbell row. You know traditional row is fairly bent over. You pull back with your back, um, but you can come up to a higher angle and do more like, like uh, what is it called Yates row where, um, it kind of changes the range of motion a bit as well in the angle. So that's another variable.
Philip Pape: 8:28
Then we have the speed or the tempo, and here you have tons of options. My two favorite options are pause, okay, pause at the bottom of the movement. So pause at the bottom of a squat, a bench, pause at the bottom of anything. Pause at the bottom of a bicep curl. It actually makes a massive difference. It makes it harder, yes, meaning you're going to have to drop the weight, but don't let your ego get in the way, because it could give you much more growth by doing that. Pause and protect your joints and tendons. So think about that.
Philip Pape: 8:57
We also have another way to modify tempo is slowing down the eccentric and exploding on the concentric, like when you're doing dynamic effort movement or compensatory type acceleration, or just just don't get hung up in all the terms. Let's just say a bench press. You come down nice and easy to the chest, you pause for a good one, two count and then you explode up. You might find that feels great on your shoulder, right? Let's say, doing a seated overhead press using a multi-grip bar, right? See, you can get creative and combine these in any different way, but I would only change one thing at once. What else can you change? Your stance width, you can change your stance width, or, on the squat, you can change the heel raise If you're wearing squat shoes or putting plates under your heel. I was trying to help somebody with a front squat and they were trying to front squat barefoot and I said let's just throw some rise under the heels, either standing on plates or wearing squat shoes. And all of a sudden I was like, oh great, now the bar isn't trying to pull me forward, it feels much more comfortable and now I can do the movement. All right. So it's a lot of different things that you can change without actually changing the fundamental movement pattern. I think that's incredibly powerful. It really is. Those are your modifiable specifications. All right, now, when you have that, instead of being overwhelmed.
Philip Pape: 10:19
This is where the engineering mindset comes in Don't change multiple things at once. You want to isolate one variable Again, just like an engineer would isolate one thing at a time. So, going back to the bench, press right. The core principle here is maintaining that consistent bar path with stable, tight shoulders, a slight arch, feet driven into the ground, right, all of those are going to be fixed. And then you change one thing I'm going to bring my grip closer, or I'm going to keep the grip with the same, but I'm going to switch to a multi-grip bar and have a neutral handle and try that and see how it feels, see what the difference feels like. Do it in your warmup both ways and just see how it feels. And then know that you might have to reset a bit on the load, because it's kind of a new movement to your body, but it's a sort of variety that can actually help quite a bit and might translate to the main movement pattern and make it feel better as well in some cases.
Philip Pape: 11:18
Okay, so this requires a little patience, a little experimentation. You know, starting with a small change and keeping everything else the same, and then paying attention. Is your shoulder discomfort relieved, while you're actually able to get the movement in? What about an incline instead of a flat? What about a steeper incline, right? So there's a lot of things that you can change. Make sure to write it down, make sure to log what's happening. Note it in your notebook or app for your workouts. Find that sweet spot where the movement feels better but still accomplishes its intended purpose.
Philip Pape: 11:51
Now the critical piece here is you need to know when you've reached the limit of that modification. Sometimes, despite your best effort, you've made all these changes, it doesn't solve the root movement problem or it starts to compromise form. That's when you have to admit hey, maybe I just want to switch to a different exercise. Maybe I do, maybe I just do want to have a completely different exercise. And in the case of bench press, like going from a bench to a incline, that's technically a different exercise, right, even though they're kind of different angles of the same thing. But you've got to be open to those kinds of more dramatic changes if needed, right. Sometimes you have to redesign the system rather than just modify the piece.
Philip Pape: 12:31
Now, the fascinating thing about this approach that I've been actually using a lot lately. I've been thinking how do I change my grip width, how do I maybe different straps that I'm using, equipment that I'm using? It reveals that small, precise adjustments actually can make a huge difference. They weren't feeling it and all we did is we. We changed the hand angle right, or we adjust the the shoes or um chain, even changed a cue. We were, that's more of a form issue and that tiny change made the difference, and now something that they dreaded and did not look forward to now becomes potentially a cornerstone of that muscle development group. You know, like back development, whatever it is. Like back development, whatever. It is Not reinventing, but finding the variation that allows you to perform it as intended. And that's it. That's it for today. That's really what I want to tell you is think about the creative ways that you can modify your exercises to keep using the same movement patterns.
Philip Pape: 13:29
And, of course, if you found value in today's episode again and you want more content, please hit the follow button and let other people know. If you want to go an extra step and support me, I would love a five-star rating and review in Apple or Spotify. Not enough people do that, even if they follow the podcast, and if you're a super fan, or even a somewhat fan, and you love it and you think it's worth sharing with others, please go ahead and leave a review. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that sometimes the perfect exercise is just a small modification away. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.
