Listen, buddy — I get it. You never thought that you’d need smaller weight plates than 2.5lbs. After all, change plates cover your bases pretty well already.

But haven’t you wondered why your arm and shoulder strength always lag behind? Sure, these are smaller muscle groups than those in your legs. But their lack of progress mostly boils down to getting pummelled by the same loading scheme used to progress squats and deadlifts, by adding 2.5-5lbs per side.

Instead of forcing 5-10lb jumps on overhead presses and biceps curls, these lifts should be loaded in a more sensible way — by adding weight in smaller increments of 1-4lbs.