Hi.
I’ve been lifting weights for a few months, and I am confused about the way that I should increase the weight I lift.
I’ve read many articles, but none seems to answer my question.
I know that you must lift the biggest that you can, but is it always possible? For exemple, for an exercice with 3 sets of 10 reps. I can do 10/10/10 with a weight, but if I increase it only by 5 pounds, I get stuff like 10/9/8, or 10/10/9, or whatever.
Do I stick with the weight that I can lift 10/10/10 until it becomes easy enough to perform 10/10/10 with a heavier weight, or with the heavier weight until I can do it 10/10/10 and put another 5 pounds?
I’m a little (a lot) confused with this, could any one help me out?
To an extent it’s an individual thing, some people like to really “own” a weight before moving up, but in general the normal way of doing things, along the lines of your example, would be to up the poundage you use once you get 3 sets of 10 reps with a certain weight.
In other words, if you can only get a certain weight for 3 sets of (10,8,6) reps, then you stick with that weight and push yourself next workout to get more reps in those second and third sets, until you can get 3x(10,10,10).
Then you add however much weight you see fit to add for the next workout (for something like a barbell curl it may be as little as 5lbs, but for something like a deadlift it could be 20lbs or more… personal judgement call).
Hope this answers your question.
Yes, thanks a bunch.
And for methods in wich you don’t work until failure, you procede the same way, but you just stop before the failure and you will get progress, am I right?
As long as you are able to add weight to the bar regularly then it doesn’t matter whether all the sets were to failure or not, really. Although I personally think it’s better to reach failure if you’re trying to build muscle, and its also a FASTER way to progress than “leaving one rep in the tank” if you’re doing your last work set.
if you’re working with singles and doubles for max weight you obviously don’t want to be at muscular failure. haha that would just be dangerous.