Four Questions to Ask Yourself When Lifting Heavy Weights
Lift heavy weights to build muscle: This is a tip you’ve probably seen in a million places, whether you’re looking to get stronger, “get toned,” or just reap the health benefits of building a little muscle . But how hard is “heavy” and how do you know if your workout meets the requirements?
There is no specific number of pounds that will be “heavy” for everyone. What is hard for a teenage girl lifting a dumbbell for the first time will be much less than what is hard for a professional strongman. (If you want to compare your exercises to other people’s, sites like Symmetric Strength can show you where you stand, but please consider these exercises just for fun.)
Simply put, “heavy training” is shorthand for resistance training, which is done with low repetitions and gets harder over time. This is the type of training that provides the greatest gains in strength and muscle size.
Training with heavy weights is not the only way to build muscle, but it is effective. Here are the questions you should ask yourself when trying to figure out if you’re training hard enough.
How many reps do you do?
Strength training typically involves performing 1-5 reps per set. Training for hypertrophy (large muscles) is often in the 8-12 range.
There really isn’t much difference in results between the two methods; As you get stronger, you gain more muscle, and gaining more muscle makes you stronger. I’d say that as long as you’re doing 12 reps or less, you’re in the right range to say you’re training with heavy weights.
When you do much more – 15, 20, 50 repetitions – you are training more muscular endurance than strength. You can build strength this way, but that’s not what you’re looking for when you try to train with heavy weights.
How heavy does the set feel?
Let’s say you do squats in sets of eight. It can be considered a heavy workout, but only if you load the squats so much that you will struggle to complete all eight of them. For some exercises and some goals, you may want to train to failure—literally until you can’t do another rep. An example would be if you do eight biceps curls and can’t do the ninth.
But you can also get closer to failure without even getting there. For example, if you’re doing squats, a set of eight reps can be done with a weight that you could do for 10 or 11 reps if you were really working hard. This is still considered a hard workout.
What doesn’t matter is if you do eight reps of goblet squats with a light dumbbell because it’s the only dumbbell you have or because you’re afraid of gaining weight. Lifting weights is when you perform an appropriate range of repetitions with a weight that is challenging in that range .
Do you gain weight over time?
The only way to maintain the difficulty of the lift as you get stronger is to keep adding weight. This doesn’t mean you need to lift heavier every time, but it does mean you lift heavier weights once you get a little stronger.
To use the example of goblet squats, perhaps squatting with a 20-pound dumbbell was challenging the first time you tried it. But after a week or two, you can probably do the same eight reps with a 25-pound dumbbell. Soon, it may make more sense to perform front squats with a barbell to make it easier to add more weight. Okay, now you’re lifting heavy weights.
But if you keep doing the same sets of eight squats with the same 20-pound dumbbell, you’re not effectively challenging yourself to gain muscle mass or strength—you’re just doing an exercise that gets progressively easier. It’s still good for you because it’s still exercise, but it no longer fits the description of weight lifting.
How long do you rest between sets?
This is where many people go wrong, especially if they are doing home workouts or focusing on burning calories. When working out, you shouldn’t lift weights to burn calories ( or heart rate zones ); you should lift weights to build muscle and save cardio for another day.
If you’re constantly working to keep your heart rate up with little to no rest between exercises, you won’t be able to train hard. You’re most likely doing a hybrid of strength and cardio training, such as circuit training. CrossFit metcon WODs (workouts of the day) often fall into this category, as do many home workout videos that market themselves as high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Usually this is not exactly HIIT, but more on that another time .
If you don’t rest, it means you don’t approach each set of exercises with fresh, rested muscles. Reducing your rest time makes your workouts harder, but it also means you’ll be lifting less weight. This means that these exercises are usually too easy and qualify as hard work. They can still help you build strength or muscle size, but not as effectively.
If you rest a few minutes between exercises, you’re lifting heavy weights. A typical range is 2-4 minutes between exercises that use smaller or smaller muscles (such as curls or presses), and 3-5 minutes or more between sets of larger compound exercises (such as squats or deadlifts). If you have adequate rest time , you will be able to lift weights correctly.