Thanks for the helpful reply, gfk. I'll give it a shot.
I've never actually got this bike to shift as nicely as I'd like. It's all new SRAM parts and still it varies between shifting okay and shifting poorly. The shift lever gets harder and harder as I send the chain inwards on the cassette. I've tried to fine tune it, sometimes it'll work better, but eventually I'm back to really having to shove the lever hard to get the chain into the innermost cogs. I don't know if it's my set up/my tuning job or this is just how SRAM is. I'm leaning towards the latter, as a pal got a brand new cross bike with a full Red setup last year and I jumped on it to see how it went and his shifting was similarly stiff.
On the other hand, I have two different 105 drivetrains and three different Campagnolo drivetrains and they always shifting properly and smoothly.