How Do You Know If You’re Lifting Enough Weight?
Let’s be honest.
You’re not in the gym to putz around, going through the motions.
It may feel like that some days, but it’s not your intention all the time.
You’re there to get a specific result.
You’re there to get stronger, build some muscle, make fat loss easier, and improve your muscle definition.
Maybe you’re in there to improve your performance and mobility, too.
But more likely than not, the reason you’re in the gym is because you want to change the way you look by building some muscle and losing some fat, so that is who I will speak to today.
Those changes, specifically building some muscle and gaining strength require a specific intention with the weight you’re lifting.
The question is, how do you know you’re lifting enough weight? How do you know when your intention is in the right place?
That is what we will seek to discover together today.
Building Strength and Muscle: A Brief Overview
Strength and muscle gain are the result of a lot of interesting things that happen in the body when exposed to a challenging resistance.
To spare you the exercise science lecture, let’s keep things simple.
In order to build muscle and strength, you need to challenge your muscles with enough resistance in order to create something called mechanical tension, which is the primary driver of muscle growth.
Think of it like this: Your muscles are a team of workers pulling on a heavy rope. If the weight (the resistance they’re pulling with the rope), is too light, they barely have to work. If they barely have to work, there is no need to adapt and improve in order to make the rope easier to pull. It’s already easy enough.
But if it’s heavy enough, they will struggle, pull harder, and call in more workers (build more muscle) to have an easier time pulling the rope.
In a nutshell, as you lift more challenging resistance, you will build more muscle and as a result gain more strength over time.
But this brings us back to the first question: How do I know if the resistance (the weight) is challenging enough to create that response?
Reps in Reserve (RIR)
Reps in reserve is another exercise science term that is used to refer to the amount of reps one has left in reserve (reps left in the tank) at the end of a set.
Let’s say you’re doing push-ups, and you fail after 10 reps. Failing means you literally couldn’t push yourself off the ground no matter how hard you tried. That would be considered 0 reps in reserve (RIR) because you didn’t have any reps left in the tank.
If you completed 10 reps knowing you could’ve only done one more if your life depended on it, that would be considered 1 RIR because you stopped the set with 1 rep left in the tank.
I generally recommend my coaching clients stop their sets with 1 RIR, meaning they stop their set when they know they only have one rep if they were to give every ounce of effort they’ve got.
Problem is, this leads us to another question: How do you know when you only have one rep left in the tank?
Experience
The best teacher with RIR is experience. The more you’ve worked out, and the harder you’ve pushed yourself, the more in tune you are with your body and what it’s capable of doing.
One of the best ways you can gauge how close you are to failure is to actually go to failure. However, I only recommend doing this with exercises that are more stable and secure, and if not, have a training partner to spot you.
For example, going to failure on a belt squat machine is far more forgiving than a barbell back squat.
Force Velocity
The next best teacher is force velocity.
This is nothing more than a fancy term to describe the speed of your reps.
When you first start out, you’re fresh, and you’re able to move the weight at a decent speed.
As you progress through the set, the speed of those reps should begin to slow down.
The more your reps slow down despite your hardest effort, the closer you are to failure.
Here is an example of what this looks like:
Now looking at the video, I should have pushed for one more rep. I think I had another rep left.
So, if you watch a video of yourself going through an exercise, and you notice that the speed of the reps is pretty similar during the last rep compared to the first rep, you know you’re not anywhere close to failure.
That last repetition should be an absolute grind.
The tricky thing to be aware of with force velocity is that it’s very easy to trick yourself into feeling like your reps are slowing down, by intentionally slowing them down.
A common sign of this is a drastic difference in speed between one rep and the next.
It should be a gradual decrease in speed from one rep to the next.
So be mindful, and remember that as you get more fatigued, as you feel more of a burn in your muscles, you will be tempted to slow your reps down intentionally in order to help yourself believe you’re pushing yourself harder than you actually are.
This is where it becomes extremely helpful to have actually practiced going to failure in order to have more of an objective measuring stick, so to speak.
Decreasing Reps With Each Set
The next thing to look for to know if you’re lifting enough weight in your workouts is to see how many reps you’re doing from one set to the next.
As you train hard in each set, you are accumulating fatigue. The more that fatigue accumulates, the lower the chances are that you will be able to lift the same weight for the same reps, even if you’re resting a long time in between sets - which you should be.
Whenever I go through my client’s workouts, this is what I look for:
As you can see in this client’s seated leg curl, they have the same weight performed for the same reps each set.
This is a clear example of not pushing close enough to failure during the first set, which is what we call our benchmark set.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean they are wasting their workout, or not getting results.
Here’s how I described it to my client:
Imagine you are in the gym giving a 6 out of 10 effort, for a 4 out of 10 return. That’s what’s going on when you’re lifting the same weight for the same reps every set. You’re getting results, but relative to the work you’re putting in it’s not much.
If you were to bump up to a 8 or 9 out of 10 effort, you would get a 7 or 8 out of 10 return. A little bit more work for a much bigger return.
Here’s what it would look like from one set to the next if you were to increase the intensity (the weight you use) in the first set.
If that first set is performed just shy of failure, the remaining sets should decrease due to fatigue, looking something like this:
Set 1: 10 x 125
Set 2: 8 x 125
Set 3: 8 x 125
Or
Set 1: 10 x 125
Set 2: 9 x 125
Set 3: 7 x 125
It doesn’t matter how they’re decreasing necessarily, but just that they’re decreasing in general.
Now you may be wondering, “Well Adam, if I need to do 10 reps, shouldn’t I be doing 10 reps in every set?
Nope.
Your body doesn’t care or know how many reps you’re doing.
Your muscles don’t respond to reps.
They respond to load (overall weight) and proximity to failure.
Whether you’re doing 6 reps, 10 reps, or 15 reps, they will respond when they experience a real challenge, which is what happens when you push near failure.
This is a concern my client, Jerome had when we were first working together. He was super consistent with his workouts, but the muscle definition just wasn’t coming in like he wanted.
We did an in depth dive into his workouts, and it was clear he just wasn’t pushing himself enough.
After a great conversation and clarity on how to push himself moving forward, he got in the best shape of his entire life.
You may not have a coach to have that conversation with at the moment. If that’s the case, you’ll have to have that conversation with yourself.
Take a look through your workout log and try to identify exercises where you’re not pushing yourself as much as you could be.
If you don’t keep a workout log, that is your most important homework assignment after reading this article.
You should also consider recording yourself doing your exercises and assess the speed of your reps as you get closer and closer to your rep target. Believe me, there is always a difference between what you perceive yourself to be doing in the first person, and objectively viewing what you’re doing from the third person.
Regardless of what information,data, or feedback you look at, be as objective as you can, and spot any areas where you have room for improvement.
Common Questions
“I don’t want to get bulky. How hard should I push myself if I just want to get toned?”
Whether you want to pack on 20 pounds of muscle, or just a few to improve your definition, you should lift the exact same way. Follow the guidelines I laid out in this article.
The amount of muscle isn’t determined by how hard you push. It’s determined by how often you’re pushing yourself to that point.
So once you get to a point where you’re happy with how much muscle you have, you can reduce the amount of sets you do per week if you’re worried about putting on too much muscle.
For example, let’s say you’re happy with your physique and you’ve been doing 12 sets per muscle group per week.
You can reduce the amount of sets to 9 sets per muscle group per week, if you’d like, as it takes far less training volume (sets per week) to maintain the muscle you’ve already built.
“What are some exercises I can do to practice pushing myself to the limit in order to get a better gauge of what failure looks and feels like?”
You want to use exercises that have very low injury risk.
Think, “can I easily put the weight in its starting position if I reach failure?” If so, that may be a good option for you.
Here’s a list of ideas to get you started:
Push ups
Lat pulldown machine
Belt Squat Machine
Leg Extension Machine
Leg Curl Machine
Machine Chest Press
Any Biceps Curl
Any Triceps Extension
Seated Cable Row
Seated Machine Row
Note the machines are a great option as they are extremely stable compared to free weights, and provide an easier way to control the weight back to its starting position if you reach failure.
Practical Application
Unfortunately, building muscle and strength is much harder than losing fat. Not only does it require good sleep, sound health, and proper nutrition, it requires you pushing yourself hard in the gym. Perhaps, harder than you’ve pushed yourself before.
But the good news is that if you’re already working out, chances are you’re already putting in a solid 6/10 effort with the weight you use and how hard you push yourself.
So all you need to do is bump it up to a 8 or 9 out of 10, and your body will respond like never before.
Here are your key takeaways:
If you want to build muscle, strength, and improve your definition, you should be pushing yourself just shy of failure each set, with about 1 rep left in the tank.
You can get a better understanding of what it looks and feels like by practicing going to failure on more forgiving machines and exercises.
If the speed of your reps is slowing down, with the last rep in your set being an all out grind, you are lifting enough. If the speed of your reps isn’t slowing down much, and you have more reps left in the tank when you hit your rep target, you are not lifting enough.
If you are lifting enough on the first set, you shouldn’t be able to lift the same weight for the same reps in the subsequent sets.
If you are lifting the same weight for the same reps every set, you are not lifting enough weight.
Record yourself performing exercises to assess your intensity and the speed of your reps.
When in doubt, push yourself more. Do one more rep. Then another. Then another. Odds are, you will be able to do much more than you thought you could.
Any questions? Feel free to shoot me an email.
For more information on coaching and what it’s like to work with me, click here.