I’m often talking about how heavy resistance training should be a part of your exercise programme. But how heavy and what does heavy actually mean?
In terms of your weight choice, well that’s quite simple: it’s all relative to your own experience. What’s heavy will vary greatly from person to person. It’ll depend on many factors including their sex, strength, body weight and experience. But when it comes to repetition (rep) range that’s more of a grey area.
Strictly speaking, and what’s taught on many courses, pure strength training is usually with a weight that you can only manage 1-6 reps. Many experienced lifters will regularly test themselves to find their max weight for one rep and use this as a benchmark to be able to structure their training more accurately.
But I want to keep things simple, my advice for most beginners is to work in the 8-10 rep range for a given exercise and complete 2-3 sets. A beginner’s primary goal should always be to learn the technique and movement pattern of an exercise first. This will help with creating a strong foundation on which to build strength whilst helping to avoid injury.
If you are a bit more experienced and have been lifting for a few months, then you can start working close to momentary muscular failure. This is when it becomes difficult to complete any further reps. Those last few reps as you get closer to muscle failure are when your body will be stimulated to adapt and become stronger.
An important point to remember with strength training is to schedule in regular de-load weeks, this is where you lift lighter for a week to allow your body to rest, recover and allow the strength to come through.
So, do you lift heavy? If not contact me today to see how I can help you get stronger.
Committed to your fitness Paul Golding
07968 723534