UNDERSTANDING WHEN TO GO HEAVY AND WHEN TO GO LIGHT

It’s often fairly confusing for newcomers to know when it’s time to kick up the weight or knock it down. We hear things like “no pain, no gain” and then moments later we’ll hear something like “you need to take it easy”. It can be very polarizing, confusing, and, often misleading. The actual answer is probably much simpler than you’d imagine.

To help you better understand the rationale, let’s give you a very basic real-life scenario into which you can insert yourself, and hopefully make this topic much more simplified. Imagine you meet up with a friend to go running. They don’t tell you anything besides the fact that you’re going to run.

So you show up to the track and they tell you that you’re going to run 2 miles (8 laps around the track).

Are you going to go all-out and sprint as fast as you can?
Or are you going to start with a slow pace and possibly adjust as you go?

Now, imagine that they say you’re going to run 10 yards distances at a time with minutes of rest in between runs…

Are you going to move slowly, barely lifting your knees up?
Or are you going to run faster and cover that distance quickly?

Really think about it.
Are you capable of SPRINTING 2 miles? No, you’re not.
Are you going to basically walk a 10 yard distance? Of course not.

The principle here is that intensity and duration have an inverse relationship.

This basic principle applies to all aspects of fitness, including weightlifting. So how can we take this little running analogy and apply it to weights?

Generally speaking, if the repetition range is low (5 reps or lower), the duration is considered short. This would be a sign for you to move away from the lighter weights and towards the heavier ones. If the repetitions are in the range of 6-10, this can be considered in the middle and would call for moderate weights. Finally, if the repetitions are in the 12+ range, this is an indicator that lighter weights will be more appropriate.

While this is only a crash course on weight-selection, this is the basic principle upon which all resistance selections should be made. As I always say in class, whatever you’re doing, make it make sense. If you only stop for a moment to think about your weights, relative to reps/sets, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be making a better decision than if you just blindly grabbed a random weight.

Let’s keep improving!