Is it better to lift heavy or lighter?
Lifting for pure strength is best partnered with heavy weights. "If you're trying for strength, or your max force output, the heavier the weight, the more strength gains you'll have, along with size gains," Tuminello says. It's also super time efficient.
Generally, exercises with higher reps are used to improve muscular endurance, while higher weights with fewer reps are used to increase muscle size and strength.
Low Reps with Heavier Weight
On the intense end of the spectrum, powerlifters and many competitive bodybuilders pair very low reps (1 to 5) with extremely heavy weights (90-95% of their one-rep max).
Lighter Weights Can Still Make A Big Fitness Difference : Shots - Health News You don't have to lift heavy weights to build muscle strength. Lifting lighter weights can be just as effective if you do it right, and you're much less likely to hurt yourself, researchers say.
High reps build muscle and connective tissue strength, and give your body respite from the grind of low-rep sets, too. Similarly, low-rep sets build neuromuscular and CNS efficiency.
More repetitions with lighter weights can build muscle as well as heavier weights -- assuming they are done to the point of exercise-induced fatigue. And fatigue is the important point. That means even with light weight, the last two to three reps should be hard.
The simple answer: No. Many people (especially females) are afraid that if they lift weights, they will get bulky (gain a lot of muscle mass), which inevitably changes their physique into what they may view as undesirable. Weight training does one thing very reliably: it makes you stronger.
Arnold was a firm believer that you should always lift heavy free weights, regardless of whether you were looking to build muscle or burn fat. This is backed up by evidence, as well as Arnold's experience. A study conducted by Greek researchers compared lifting heavy to lifting light.
A good guideline is to lift heavy enough that the last 2-3 reps on each set feel challenging to complete but not so hard that you can't do them with proper form. After the last rep, you should feel close to maxed out with enough energy left to do however many sets you have left.
- Your Exercise Form is Suffering. ...
- You Can't Complete a Full, Quality Set. ...
- You Feel Pain Rather Than Your Typical Soreness.
Why do big guys lift light weights?
Light weights allows you do more repetitions and these aid muscle growth faster than heavy weights which are mostly used to build strength. Doesn't mean you should focus only on light weights else you'll not increase your strength as fast as you increase your size.
Of the 596 genes, the researchers identified 179 associated with age and exercise that showed a remarkable reversal in their expression profile after six months of resistance training. This literally means that resistance training not only can slow down but also reverse the aging process at the genetic level.
"However, sets of eight to 12 repetitions are generally considered a good range that helps people to build a combination of strength and muscle size," he adds. So, for most people, the heaviest weight you can lift for eight to 12 reps of an exercise can be considered lifting "heavy."
More repetitions with lighter weights can build muscle as well as heavier weights -- assuming they are done to the point of exercise-induced fatigue. And fatigue is the important point. That means even with light weight, the last two to three reps should be hard.
Muscle growth does not depend on the amount of weight you lift. It is a myth that one must lift more weight to bulk up. If you're regular and patient with lighter weights, you can achieve similar results.