Pushing weight maxes

I'm just curious if anybody else has the same problem that I do:

I have serious issues pushing my lifting maxes. I can't start out very high but can end relatively high. If I push myself until my muscles can't lift anymore (like most of my bodybuilding friends do) then I end up injuring myself. I lift with one of my best-friends and he can push himself until he cannot lift more. He's having significant improvement over me and hasn't the slightest clue why I'm having the problems I am having.

Suggestions please? I'll try anything :)

I really wouldn't know, but I never over strain myself anyways. My general rule is that the moment I start doing my exercises wrong I stop for a while. It may start slow but you will get there eventually. I see it a lot that people try chin-ups and complete wreck themselves and by the end of there session they are swinging there body to try get to their quota. It's better to set a goal ad try reach it ever week or few days.

I have only worked out for a month (but I have been at the Gym before) although now I am serrious about it.

It's really important to warm up, so I start out by running for a few minutes just to get warmed up.

I then begin by lifting a very easy weight to lift and do 5 reps.

And then since I am very underweight ectomorph and thin and focus on bulding musclemass fast, and not so much on burning fat or any of that (because of the simple reason that I barely have any fat.. xD), I am low reps focused and choose a weight that I can do atleast 6 reps but not more than 8 reps, with some exercises I go with 8-10 instead. A very important thing that I also do, is to keep a notebook with me where I write down the weight and exercise for each week, so that I (if I feel that I can) I increase the weight each week and force my body to adjust and grow. Remember though that the most important thing for result, is what you do AFTER your training. How you eat, how you sleep and making sure that you are recovered to your next workout.

Since your workout seems to be a very high rep based workout, I guess the best thing you could do in order to make sure that you don't hurt yourself, which is probably the biggest misstake people make, and that is to make sure that you don't overdo some exercise, for example by doing too many reps.
If you want to be able to make 15 or 20 reps that is fine although then stick with that and don't go over that limit. Because if you can do more than 20 reps then you have too low weights and by doing more when your muscles hurts you will damage them.

Also remember to use the right technique, if you can't do an exercise with the right technique then you should lower the weights, when I say that my goal is to perform 6-8 reps, I mean with the right technique otherwise you will get hurt.

I am no expert when it comes to this, but I used to be really scared of hurting myself, because of some scary stories my dad told me about his time at the gym.
So I have always tried to not try to care if I use the easiest weight standing next to a guy who does 200 kg in benchpress, and in the meantime I have seen lots of friends damage themself because they wanted to push it too far. And besides if you perform the exercise correctly you will improve faster anyway.

Here is my 1 month result: http://oi50.tinypic.com/2e5jckj.jpg

Although most of it is because of all the food I started eating after starting going to the gym xD

I am not really an expert on it, though I do know the importance of stretching and warming up prior to a work out. That is important to keep from getting hurt.

Another thing to keep in mind that variety helps a lot as well. So instead of just doing same the same workout over and over, and adding more weight, you might get bigger improvements by switching something different.

EDIT: I kind of misunderstood the whole thing I think.. too sleepy for writing. But I keep it here anyways... sigh

If you wish to increase maximum power, you should keep reps smaller. As Mastermind wrote before, it is good to do reps or even the whole set with small weights first after you have warmed up a bit. This is to ensure that your technique and movements are correct and they warm up more the corresponding muscle groups. 6-10 is a good amount of reps and when you do those with 3 sets it should be enough. I must clarify that I almost never do maximum because it is not very useful in my needs so I have more personal experience on long sets and strenght endurance training.

Now, the most important thing is to do clear planning. The worst thing is just to "go to gym" and do stuff. No goals - no improvement. Define goals and then choose the movements. Again, if you want to get bulk to look good, I cannot advice much here because I don't do it that way, but make different days for ie. upperbody and legs so your body gets to rest. Muscles don't develope unless they get rest and raw materials. So eat and rest well in between.

This is a one way I found works ie. with chinups ( using own bodyweight, but still by far one of the best movements in my opinion). Let's say you could do 7 chinups and that's your maximum. In order to raise your maximum it is not always best to try to get those seven reps. If you are doing set of 4 you could do it like this. 7-4-4-max. And with plenty of rest in between. A common mistake is not to rest enough when doing maximum. This doesn't naturally apply when you are aiming at endurance and stamina. So you can rest 1.5min to 2 min easily in between sets and not feel guilty. ( Some people say that you should even have resting times like 7 minutes in between but well.. ) Or if you want, you could do ie. abdominals in between as long as those muscles get to rest. Then you do the reps and the last one is the maximum you get after all those previous sets. When you do this kind of exercise maybe thrice a week it should grant you progress. Hardest part is to correctly evaluate your progress and raise reps and weights with it, so you don't go overboard or do too easy sets.

I know this might not help you so much, because it is not detailed for actual iron weight training, but I rarely do any other than weight training with my own body weight. I have found it to be very challenging when you have correct methods and imagination. Also, what Alric said about variation is very much true. Your body needs and wants different impulses and will eventually slow and stop progressing if you blindly do same thing over and over. It is not the muscle mass of the muscle, it is the nerve system of that muscle that does the magic.

Feel free to ask, this might have been a little bit confusing.

-Un

Dude fuck maxing out. That shit is all for your ego, and its a quick way to snap your shit up! As long as your getting full extension and contractions of your muscles then your good. A lot of people who lift really big do so with shit form. Pick a weight that is relatively hard, but that you'll still be able to do your sets with perfect form. If you feel like you can do more then go for it, but don't sacrifice form for ego.

Pro tip for going to failure. USE YO SPOTTER they'll help you go past failure to really tear dem muscles up!