Should I Lift Heavy if I Want to Put on Size?
May 24, 2021 mindpumpRonnie Coleman once said “Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody want to lift no damn heavy weight!”
It’s a little hardcore, but he’s got a point. While there are hundreds of programs, and different types of goals towards increasing strength and building an ideal physique, they all center around one thing; you have to be doing more than you did before.
I’ve had plenty of friends and clients work with me for a time being, then venture off to do their own thing. While they made progress with me, once on their own, they eventually come back asking why they haven’t put on any size. When I get a chance to look at their programming (if they even kept up with it), one thing seems the most evident. Their weights haven’t significantly increased.
Low Rep vs High Rep
This doesn’t mean your 1 rep max, and low rep ranges have to be the FOCUS of your programming. While they are important, low rep work doesn’t always equate to size. You can easily put up higher numbers at higher intensities, without having to put on additional mass. In fact, when it comes to working with athletes, a strength coach’s main goal is to add power and strength with minimal size (as it may weigh them down). Usually this is achieved through central nervous system adaptations and teaching your body to recruit more of the fibers it already has as opposed to just growing new ones.
A better judge of whether you are putting on actual size would probably be seeing an increase in weights in the 6-10 rep range. That still forces you to lift heavy, but requires a higher volume of work which is where muscle growth actually occurs.
Progression
Equally important is just making sure you are progressing week to week in some form. I’ve done this before. I have a training block where I’m slowly increasing and progressing perfectly. Then the next month I had to travel so training was all over the place. The following month I got back into it but it took awhile to find my proper weights. Or maybe I got injured, and had to take a break. We’ve all been through some cycle of this long enough throughout a year that we forget to check if anything at the end of the year significantly changed from when we started.
Progress can come usually in two different ways.
More Reps – You don’t ALWAYS have to be upping the weight. Using a method like double progression allows you to focus more on quality reps, and hitting a range. Once you are hitting all sets in the top end of the range, only THEN can you increase the weight and repeat.
More Weight – You can also increase weight week to week. It doesn’t have to be huge jumps either. I find too many lifters increase by way too much weight that it becomes unsustainable for an extended period of time forcing them to eventually dial back. Even a 2.5lb increase is a LOT. Imagine doing 2.5lb more every single week. That would mean an increase of 130lbs in one year on a given lift! That’s insane!
Mind Muscle Connection
Regardless of which progression method you choose, don’t forget; stimulate don’t annihilate! It’s not just about increasing weight week to week for the sake of hitting goals. In order to get a specific muscle to grow, you need to FEEL that muscle working. I spent the first SEVEN years of my lifting career not connecting with my back. I just kept doing back workouts assuming because I showed up for the workouts it should be growing. It wasn’t until an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder put me through a couple back workouts, did he teach me how to actually target the muscle. Boy did it make a difference. I got more growth in my back in the following year than I did in my 7 years prior. I was both happy and mad at the same time. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Whatever workout you end up going with just remember, there needs to be progress! Don’t just push weights without any focus on form or connection, and make sure you TRACK your workouts to make sure at the end of a year you are overall moving more weight than you started! One last bonus tip, make sure you are in a caloric surplus to feed the workouts you are doing. Follow that advice and I guarantee you will be growing in no time.
