Everyone has their own strength curve for every exercise. You'll become familiar with your own through practice and repetition. The key is to make sure you use a weight that best corresponds with your goals.
If you always start each exercise with a practice set, you can always rack the weight short of muscle failure and call it a warm-up if you don't think you're within the target rep range. Adjust the weight on your next set as necessary.
Of course, logging your weights in a notebook, on your smartphone, or on BodySpace reduces the guesswork next time around. The difficult part is behind you, but that doesn't mean an experienced lifter can't fine-tune the working weights. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind.
Some consider warm-ups a waste of time, but they actually enable you to lift more weight. Your tissue is more elastic, and you've practiced the motion before tackling the heavier weights. It's important to note that even though a bodybuilder trains to muscle failure, warm-up sets are never taken to failure.
Stop all lighter-weight sets well short of muscle failure. For a bodybuilder who wants to bench with a working weight of pounds, so that they fall within that rep range, warm-up weights might start with , , and pounds.
Because your energy starts to sag over the course of a hard workout, choose the most difficult exercises early in your training session, when you're fresh.
You can even train in the lower range of the hypertrophy zone, choosing a weight in which you can do just 8 reps. Over the course of your body-part workout, train with different relative intensities so that you're also including sets of 10 near failure and 12 later on as well. Warm-ups excluded, start your exercises in the lower rep range and keep your sets of 12 for later in your workout.
Muscles adapt to training by growing bigger and stronger. Strength trainers and bodybuilders know that the most adaptation occurs within their fast-twitch muscle fibers. In graphical terms, your strength curve has shifted outward, and you can now do more reps with any given weight.
How do you know when to go up in weight? Try this method: When you can do 2 more reps with a given weight than you started out with, for two consecutive workouts, increase your weight. So if you started on the bench press with 8 reps of pounds, but can now do 10 reps, and you've been able to achieve 10 reps for two workouts in a row, increase the weight. Let's say you make gains in size and strength.
To continue making more gains, you must increase the challenge to your muscles by once again increasing the resistance. As you can see, you must progressively increase the overload over time or you'll simply stall.
Complacency is your biggest enemy no matter what your goal, so pushing yourself to do more reps or use a slightly heavier weight can help you continue making progress. Even the most dedicated lifter hits a training plateau sooner or later. Advanced techniques in which you manipulate weight can further spur gains in size and strength, but should be done in a specific, intentional manner rather than randomly.
Study various techniques that allow you to cycle your training over time. You'll soon learn that the bigger and stronger you get, the less you'll see "accidental" results, and the more you'll have to plan your training. Seems counterintuitive, but you'll find you make greater gains the more you know. Bill Geiger, MA, has served as a senior content editor for Bodybuilding.
View all articles by this author. Bench Press Strength Workout. Barbell Bench Press - Medium Grip. What comes with BodyFit? Read on. Choosing the right weight is important because it'll have a direct impact on a your workout and b whether you achieve the goals you set for yourself. Weight isn't the only factor to influence this. Generally speaking, hypertrophy training works in reps of 8—12, endurance 10—14 and strength in 4—8.
Fortunately, most workout plans will include a guide weight range or, at least, give you an indication of the right weight with how many reps you're being asked to complete.
An easy way to test is to try a couple of reps using a weight you think is appropriate. If it feels too light or too heavy, adjust accordingly. Saying that, you should be able to maintain good form for all reps — e. Pick a weight that makes the last couple reps of a set challenging but not impossible. We're trying to fatigue your muscles, not inflate your ego. Core exercises require a lighter weight, especially when you're starting out.
If you try to jackknife or leg raise with a weight that's too heavy, you'll end up recruiting muscles in your back and neck, instead. Not good. If you're doing core exercises for beginners, think about ditching the weight altogether and getting the technique down pat, first. Equally, exercises that ask you to raise your arms above your shoulders like most tricep exercises , shoulder presses, and straight-arm pulses will need to be light enough that you can keep your core aligned throughout.
Full-body workouts and exercises will likely split the difference and call for a medium weight. Knowing what to expect and how to increase weight safely, though, is extremely important for reaching your goals and staying injury-free. Translation: Decide how many reps you want to perform per set, and then home in on the amount of weight that challenges you but lets you perform all of your reps with picture-perfect form.
Your goals dictate the range of reps you should perform , and for how many sets you should do them: To develop maximal strength, lifting incredibly heavy for 2—6 sets of 6 or fewer reps is ideal, while lifting heavy-to-moderate weights for 3—6 sets of 8—12 reps is the way to go when it comes to building muscle size. Last, to improve muscular endurance, or how long a muscle can work before tuckering out, most experts recommend training with 2—3 sets of 12 or more reps.
Most training programs involve performing the bulk of exercises in that 8—12 rep sweet spot for a few reasons. Second, training in this range is time-efficient and allows you to get a lot of work done without each workout taking forever.
Last but not least, most exercises are generally safe to perform in this range, whereas experts generally recommend avoiding low-rep high-weight lifts for single-joint exercises such as biceps curls and triceps extensions because such heavy weights could overstress the joint, Erica Suter, C. At first, choose weights that you are positive you can lift, but might not be sure how many reps you can perform. If you tucker out after fewer than 8 reps or have a ton of energy left after 12 reps, rest for a couple of minutes and repeat with a different weight lighter or heavier, depending on how your last set went.
Repeat this until the weight feels right—it should be challenging, but doable. The next time you perform the exercise—maybe in a few days or a week—use that same weight again, but for all sets. Rather, early strength gains are due to a combination of neurological changes—basically, your brain and muscles learning to work efficiently together so that the muscle cells fire and contract—and changes within the protein of the muscle, which are stimulated by resistance training.
At this point, most of your muscular wiring is already laid down. Many people especially women tend to be stronger on lower-body exercises, at least initially, says Juster.
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