Advantages to Lifting Lighter Weights

The fastest way to grow muscle may not be the way you are thinking. If you think lifting heavy weights and putting them down is the best way, you may be wrong. According to a recent study, lifting lighter weights with high rep counts may increase muscle size and strength faster than lifting heavier weights at low rep counts.

For a long time, traditional weightlifting wisdom has thought that lifting heavier weights will lead to bigger muscles. New findings have found that you can match that of the muscle mass gains from heavy lifters by lifting lighter weights. This is because people who are lifting lighter weights tend to get to exhaustion quicker. Lifting to exhaustion develops micro tears in the muscle and forces more blood to pump into the muscle to recover. This results in larger sized muscles. These new findings about lifting lighter weights to gain muscle conclude that it’s not the amount of weight you lift that matters, it’s the amount of reps it takes to get to exhaustion that count.

The main way to build muscle is to get your body to exhaustion, so that your muscles will tear and come back stronger. However, you don’t always have to lift to failure. In fact, it could be dangerous if you lift until you start shaking and end up hurting yourself. Instead, try to get close to exhaustion as possible. That way you are exhausted from the reps but not so exhausted that you can’t put the weight load down safely. Also, if you are lifting to about 12 reps and still don’t feel exhausted, you should go up in resistance. Strength training this way will allow your muscles to grow and become stronger as you go up in resistance.

In conclusion, if you want to get stronger faster, you are going to want to start with a lighter weight load and do higher reps. Going straight for the heavier weights will build strength but not in the progression you want. Lift until you are exhausted and increase your resistance when you feel you have gotten stronger.

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Article written by William Graves.