One of the most common issues my 1:1 online coaching clients and other gym goers run into is – how much weight to lift to get fit?
Well, I can guarantee you those pink weights aren’t going to do jack sh*t for you.
Sorry, I know it’s harsh, but high rep “toning” exercises aren’t a real thing.
You can’t “tone” a muscle. You can only make a muscle bigger or smaller.
What reveals muscle is being at a low enough body fat percentage which gives you that wanted toned look.
You see, strength training is the key to getting lean and toned which is accomplished by building more muscle.
How do you build more muscle?
First, by getting stronger so you can lift more weight over time.
Second is lifting close to failure.
That is a FACT.
It’s those last few challenging reps that really count.
The reason for this is that you need to challenge your muscles enough to force them to grow.
So, if you want to get the results that you’re looking for, put down the colored weights and start lifting heavy.
How Muscle is Built
Muscle is mostly built through mechanical tension.
Basically, this is where you create enough tension in the muscle so that more muscle fibers are recruited and therefore, a stronger muscle building signal is created.
What’s the threshold for enough tension? Those last few hard reps close to failure.
So, going close to failure very important when determining how much weight to lift.
A few seconds of discomfort leads to a lifetime of gains.
3 Phases to Building Muscle and Strength
There are 3 things that need to happen for you to build muscle and get stronger.
- Create a stimulus by lifting weight and creating tension in your muscles.
- Recover by taking a rest day
- Adaptation which is where progressive overload comes in to get stronger and build muscle…
Once you create enough tension, your muscles will adapt so you’ll have to create a stronger stimulus over time through progressive overload.
Without getting into too much detail, progressive overload is basically doing more work over time so your muscles adapt by getting stronger and growing into bigger muscles.
(i.e. more weight/more reps/more sets/etc).
What’s The Best Rep Range To Build Muscle?
Now that you know the in’s and outs of building muscle, what’s the best rep range?
Well, research shows that muscle can be built anywhere in the 1-30 rep range as long as you’re 1-3 reps shy of failure.
However, the 6-12 rep range is the most efficient and practical.
This is because 6-12 reps are not as fatiguing or stressful on your joints, tendons, ligaments, and CNS as 1-5 reps are.
Too much intensity and volume will lead to achy joints and over use injuries which aren’t fun.
On the other hand, 12-15+ reps are very reliant on your cardiovascular system.
Try going to failure on a set of 20 reps…
Yeah, it’s fucking hard and your cardiovascular system may quit before your muscles do.
Now, if muscular endurance is something you want to work on then go for it.
But, it’s not the most optimal for building muscle.
So, as a general rule to build muscle: 75% of your volume should be within the 6-12 rep range, while the other 25% should be within the 1-5 or 15-20 rep range depending on your goal.
Lifting With a Full Range of Motion
In addition to lifting within the 6-12 rep range the majority of the time, you also want to make sure you’re lifting with a full range of motion in order to create the biggest muscle building stimulus.
It’s been shown that a big portion of your muscle is built when your muscles are contracting from a stretched position – the point at which your muscles are working the hardest.
Therefore, make sure you lower the weight (eccentric) with control to create tension and to fully stretch the muscle.
Once the muscle is fully stretched, quickly contract (concentric) and squeeze hard to create the most tension throughout the whole muscle.
And BOOM…This will lead to more muscle growth.
So, the question is how much time should each rep be?
A tempo of 1 second on the concentric and 2-3 seconds on the eccentric is a good general rule to follow.
The Importance of Lifting Close To Failure
Let me start off my saying – failure is not a bad thing.
Just like how diamonds form under pressure…
Muscle is formed under a lot of uncomfortable stress.
Muscular failure is when you can’t do any more reps with good form – even if someone is holding a gun up to your head.
Notice how I said with good form?
You could easily keep going if you have shit form and use a bunch of momentum.
But all that is doing is allowing your bigger muscles to take over for the smaller ones.
Not ideal when you’re trying to build ALL of your muscles.
Therefore, maintaining good technique makes sure you’re placing tension on the right muscles.
Do You Know Failure?
That said, if I had to guess, your perception of failure is probably way off.
I once had an online coaching client Amy (shout out to Amy) attempt going to failure on cable bicep curls because she’s an absolute BEAST.
After 12 reps, she assumed she had 3 more left in the tank before her biceps exploded.
Well, before I knew it I kept telling her to keep going.
…23, 24, 25….
Until she reached 32 reps!
So, here she thought she would fail at 15 reps and ended up failing at 32 reps with solid form.
How fucking crazy is that? That is 15 reps left in the tank!
Therefore, it may be a good idea practicing going to failure.
Two Ways to Practice Going To Failure
From both my experience as a coach and evidence from research, we are absolute dog shit when it comes to lifting close to failure.
Yes, that even includes me who does this for a living and has been lifting for over 10 years.
Our minds love to quit before our bodies do because lifting close to failure is hard and uncomfortable.
Therefore, the first way to practice is to go to actual muscular failure on an exercise.
That way, you can experience what muscular failure feels like and can better gauge 1-3 reps shy of that point.
The second practical way you can gauge on how close to failure you are is when your reps start to involuntary slow down.
This doesn’t mean you slow the rep down on purpose. It’s INVOLUNTARY.
As you get close to failure, your muscles get tired, lose energy, and aren’t able to produce as much force.
Therefore, the reps start too slow down as you go through your set.
This is where mechanical tension is created – the main driver for building muscle.
For example, if you’re doing a set of bicep curls for 8-10 reps and reps 1-6 took 1 second on the concentric (on the way up) and then started to take 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 second, on reps 6,7,8,9 then you are lifting close to failure.
However, if your first rep looks similar to your last rep, your lifting way too light.
So, be honest with yourself… are you lifting heavy enough?
If those last few reps start to involuntary slow down – that is a good indicator of how much weight to lift.
(Just like the video above)
If you can’t tell, take a video of yourself so you can be objective on whether or not the intensity is where it needs to be.
Lifting Close to Failure
The next question would be: should you always go to failure?
No.
The goal is to go 1-3 reps shy of failure with good form for each working set.
Why 1-3 reps shy of failure vs going to failure? Well, because you get almost identical results going within that range.
Therefore, leaving 1-3 reps in the tank is going to allow you to get the same results as going to failure but without as much fatigue.
As a result, you’ll still create a strong muscle building stimulus, recover better, and therefore build more muscle.
Now, here’s the kicker…
1-3 reps is the ideal range for determining how much weight to lift WITH good form.
Then, once your form starts to break down, you’re done.
How Much Weight To Lift For Each Exercise?
Alright! The time has finally come to go over how much weight to lift for each exercise.
Determining how much weight to lift is relative to you and your abilities.
So, that may be 20 lbs for you, while it may be 50 lbs for someone else.
Now, if you’re a beginner, this doesn’t necessarily apply to you because you can make progress from practically looking at weights.
In this case, your first priority should be to hire a coach/trainer to help you with a proper workout program and make sure you have good form.
Because, if you remember reading from above, maintaining good form is going to be the foundation of your fitness progress and journey.
Just like a beautiful house has a foundation… having good form is the foundation to a solid and healthy physique.
Once your form is on point and you feel comfortable with the movement, then it’s time to push the weights and lift heavy.
It’s really as simple as that.
Below, I’m going to go over how much weight to lift based on the type of movement.
But first, let’s not forget about warming up your body so that your muscles are able to perform the best.
1. Warmup Sets
This warmup is not the same warmup you’re doing before your training session.
These are warmup sets that you do before you’re “working sets” – the sets that you’re pushing the heavy weight close to failure.
Warm Up Sets Are Going To:
- Help you get the proper movement pattern down for that specific movement.
- Tell your brain which muscles to use so that your form is on point.
- Get your joints lubricated and warmed ups ready to go.
- Allow you to lift the most amount of weight in the greatest range of motion = muscle growth.
Here’s an example:
Think of warming up your car in the winter… (For those of you that don’t have a winter- not all of us are fortunate enough as you)
You warm it up so it’s ready to go and drive while it’s cold as balls outside.
Same thing with your body – By warming up, you’re telling your body “hey mother fucker, wake the fuck up. We’re ready to move and get grinding”
So, yeah, if you want to the best results and to not get injured, you best be doing warm up sets.
How many warm up sets you ask?
Well, my good friend that depends on the type of exercise and movement.
As a general rule, the more weight you lift, the more warmup sets you should be doing.
Keep in mind – these warmup sets should not be fatiguing. They are there to prepare your body for your working sets.
If you go too heavy, then you’re going fatigue yourself with will reduce the amount of weight you can lift I your working sets, therefore, you won’t get as good of results.
2. How Much Weight To Lift: Compound Movements
Compound movements are the main lifts of your workout – (squats, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, chin-up).
These are usually the first 1-2 movements in a workout because they use a lot of muscles and joints, take up a lot of energy and are the most fatiguing, and require good technique so you don’t get hurt.
Warming Up
For compound movements, you’re going to have to do more warmup sets due to the multiple muscles and joints involved and the more weight associated with that.
For example, if I’m squatting 225 lbs for a 3×6 (3 sets of 6 reps), then I would have to work my way up to that.
So for a squat, it may look something like this:
- Bar (45 lbs) x6
- 135 x 6
- 185 x3
- 205 x1
- 225 x 3 x5 (working set)
As you can see, I did not push myself super hard on these warmup sets.
How Much Weight To Lift
So, remember that talk about fatigue?
Yes? Well, that applies to compound movements.
As I mentioned above, they use a lot of muscles and require a ton of energy, so they’re very fatiguing and take longer to recover from.
If you do too much for your body to recover from, then you’ll actually lose progress.
Therefore, you don’t want to go as close to failure on compound movements.
Furthermore, not only are they fatiguing, but they also have the highest risk of injury.
If you push too hard… one wrong move while lifting that much weight can cause an injury.
If you’re injured, then you can’t lift at all.
Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.
So, If you’re new, your main focus should be on getting the movement pattern down.
If you’re more experienced, load the bar heavy, but make sure to leave a few reps in the tank.
How Much to Lift: I’d recommend sticking closer to the 3 reps shy of failure or 3 RIR (reps in reserve which is the same thing) on these movements only after you have your form down and feel comfortable.
3. How Much Weight to Lift: Accessory Movements
Think of accessory movements as the children of the main compound movements.
The accessory movements are exercises like your split squats, lat pull downs, rows, dumbbell press, etc.
These movements still work multiple joints and muscles but aren’t as quite as fatiguing or as technical as the main compound movements.
They allow you to hit different muscle groups in different ways which can help you make more progress and fix imbalances.
For example, If you’re barbell squatting that day, maybe you would do a Bulgarian split squat to compliment your barbell back squat since it works similar muscles but is less fatiguing on you body.
Warming Up
The cool thing is that you’re already warmed up from your main compound movements so you’ll only need 1-2 warmup sets for these at most.
That way, you can still get the movement pattern down for that exercise.
After your warm up sets, you’d complete how ever many working sets you have programmed.
How Much Weight to Lift
Now your accessory movements are a bit different.
They aren’t as technical and you can’t lift as much weight.
Therefore, going closer to that failure point is ok.
I still wouldn’t recommend going all of the way to failure because a lot of muscles are still being used.
And a greater amount of systemic fatigue will be created, but it’s not as much as your main compound movements.
How Much Weight To Lift: Still go heavy and aim for 1-2 reps shy of failure here.
4. How Much Weight to Lift: Isolation Movements
Isolation exercises involve one muscle at a time.
You’re “isolating” a specific muscle group.
For example – A bicep curl works your bicep. A tricep pushdown works your tricep. A leg extension works your quads. And so on…
Therefore, you won’t be able to go super heavy with these.
Warming Up
Since these smaller muscles have been assisting the bigger muscles in your compound and accessory movements, I don’t think warmup sets are needed as much for these.
Now, if you’re a beginner and still learning proper form, then maybe a warmup set may be a good idea to get the movement pattern down.
But, if you’re more advanced and you’ve performed the isolation movement multiple times and it’s engrained into your DNA like 2+2=4 than just go straight into your working sets without warm up sets.
How Much Weight To Lift
With isolation exercises, the goal is to feel that mind to muscle connection and make sure that target muscle is working.
I like to program a bit higher reps as well since it’s easier on your joints and causes less stress.
And since the tension is mostly on the target muscle group, it’s not as fatiguing to your whole body as your compound and accessory movements would be.
Therefore, if you’re going to go to failure, these would be the exercise to do it on.
How Heavy To Lift: A possibility would be go 1 rep shy of failure. Then on your last set, bring that bad boy all the way to failure!
The Problem With Lifting Too Light
Now, I absolutely love that people are going to the gym.
But, the problem arises when people become frustrated with their lack of progress and can’t seem to figure out what the fuck is going on.
When in reality, they’re lifting too light and not pushing themselves close enough to failure.
So, I’m writing this article FOR YOU. I want you to get amazing results and this is what I’ve seen time and time again coaching clients.
If you want to get results… you need to push yourself and lift heavy.
If you don’t, that’s fine. Just don’t be mad for your lack luster results.
Sample Workout Template
- 1-2 Compound Movements
- 2-4 Accessory Movements
- 2-4 Isolation Movements
| 1. Squat | 3×5 |
| 2. BB Bench Press | 3×6-8 |
| 3a. Seated DB Shoulder Press | 3×8-10 |
| 3b. 1 Arm DB Row | 3×8-10 |
| 4a. Side Lateral Raises | 3×12-15 |
| 4b. Rear Delt Fly | 3×12-15 |
Final Thoughts
Hopefully after reading this article you have a good idea of how to warmup and how heavy you should be lifting.
Keep in mind – this will take some trial and error. This isn’t something where you’ll just go into the gym and be like “Ok, I’m going to know exactly what and how much weight to lift for each set”
Nah… doesn’t work like that.
Some sets will be too light and some sets will be too heavy.
Therefore, there will be adjustments. But, over time there will be less adjustments and if you keep track of your workouts – which you should be doing – than you’ll be good to go.
Now, go lift some heavy weight.
-Bob