{"id":1235229,"date":"2025-02-26T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235229"},"modified":"2025-02-26T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:00:00","slug":"four-questions-to-ask-yourself-when-youre-lifting-heavy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235229","title":{"rendered":"Four Questions to Ask Yourself When You\u2019re Lifting \u2018Heavy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lift heavy to build muscle: That\u2019s advice you\u2019ve probably seen in a million places, whether you’re aiming to get stronger, get “toned,”<\/a> or simply reap the health benefits of putting on a little muscle<\/a>. But how heavy is \u201cheavy,\u201d and how do you know if your workout qualifies? <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no specific number of pounds that will constitute \u201cheavy\u201d for everyone. What\u2019s heavy for a teenage girl picking up a dumbbell for the first time will be a lot less than what\u2019s heavy for a pro strongman. (If you do want to compare your lifts to other people’s, sites like Symmetric Strength<\/a> can show where you stand\u2014but please consider these comps as just for fun.) <\/p>\n

In basic terms, training \u201cheavy\u201d is shorthand for resistance training that is in a low-rep range and gets heavier over time. <\/strong>This is the type of training that delivers the biggest gains in terms of strength and muscle size. <\/p>\n

Training heavy is not the only<\/em> way to build muscle, but it\u2019s an effective one. Here are the questions you should ask yourself when trying to figure out whether you’re training heavy enough.<\/p>\n

How many reps are you doing?<\/h2>\n

Training for strength usually has you doing 1-5 reps<\/a> in each set. Training for hypertrophy (bigger muscles) is often in the 8-12 range. <\/p>\n

The truth is, there isn\u2019t much difference in results between the two methods; getting stronger gives you bigger muscles and getting bigger muscles makes you stronger. I\u2019d say that as long as you\u2019re doing 12 reps or fewer, you\u2019re in an appropriate range to say you are training heavy. <\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re doing much more than that\u201415, 20, 50 reps\u2014you\u2019re training your muscular endurance<\/em> more than strength. You can<\/em> build some strength this way, but it’s not what you’re going for when you’re trying to train heavy. <\/p>\n

How hard does the set feel?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s say you\u2019re doing squats in sets of eight. That could count as heavy training, but only if you\u2019re loading the squats enough that it\u2019s hard to do all eight\u00a0of them. For some exercises and some goals, you might be aiming to train “to failure”\u2014literally, going until you can\u2019t do another rep. An example would be if you\u2019re doing eight bicep curls and can\u2019t manage a ninth. <\/p>\n

But you can also get close to failure without quite<\/em> going there. For example, if you\u2019re doing squats, a set of eight might be done at a weight that you could manage for 10 or 11 reps if you really pushed yourself. That still counts as heavy training. <\/p>\n

What doesn\u2019t<\/em> count is if you\u2019re doing eight reps of goblet squats with a light dumbbell because it\u2019s the only dumbbell you have, or because you\u2019re intimidated about going up in weight. Heavy lifting is when you\u2019re doing the appropriate rep range with a weight that is challenging within that range<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Are you increasing the weight over time?<\/h2>\n

The only way to keep the lift challenging as you get stronger is to keep increasing the weight. This doesn’t mean you need to go heavier every time, but it does mean that you pick up a heavier weight once you’ve gotten a bit stronger. <\/p>\n

To use that goblet squat example, maybe squatting with a 20-pound dumbbell was challenging the first time you tried it. But a week or two later, you can probably do the same eight reps with a 25-pound dumbbell. Before long, it may make more sense to do front squats with a barbell, to make it easier to add more weight. OK, now you\u2019re lifting heavy.<\/p>\n

But if you kept doing the same sets of eight squats with the same 20-pound dumbbell, you\u2019re not efficiently challenging yourself to build muscle or strength\u2014you\u2019re just doing an exercise that keeps getting easier. That\u2019s still good for you, because it\u2019s still exercise, but it no longer fits the description of lifting heavy.<\/p>\n

How long are you resting between sets?<\/h2>\n

This is where a lot of people go wrong, especially if they\u2019re doing home workouts or are focused on calorie burn. You shouldn’t lift heavy for the calorie burn (or heart rate zones<\/a>) during the workout; you should lift heavy to build muscle, and save the cardio for another day. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re constantly working to keep your heart rate up, with little to no time to rest between exercises, you aren\u2019t going to be able to train heavy. More likely you\u2019re doing a strength\/cardio hybrid such as circuit training. Crossfit \u201cmetcon\u201d WODs (workouts of the day) often fall into this category, as do many home workout videos that bill themselves as high-intensity interval training (HIIT). They\u2019re usually not really<\/em> HIIT, but that\u2019s a rant for another time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t resting, that means you aren\u2019t approaching each set of lifts with fresh, rested muscles. Reducing rest times makes the workouts feel harder, but it also means you\u2019ll be working with less weight. That means these exercises are usually too light fit the definition of working heavy. They might still help you build strength or muscle size, but not nearly as efficiently. <\/p>\n

If you take a few minutes\u2019 rest between exercises, then you\u2019re lifting heavy. A typical range would be 2-4 minutes between exercises that work smaller or fewer muscles (like curls or presses) and 3-5 minutes or more between sets of big compound lifts (like squats or deadlifts). With an appropriate rest time<\/a>, you\u2019ll be able to properly lift heavy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lift heavy to build muscle: That\u2019s advice you\u2019ve probably seen in a million places, whether you’re aiming to get stronger, get “toned,” or simply reap the health benefits of putting on a little muscle. But how heavy is \u201cheavy,\u201d and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifehacker","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1235229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1235229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1235229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1235229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}