For the past few years a big debate has been going on between the serious gym goers about what’s the best way to work out; heavy or light? In reality some people honestly don’t care how they lift they just care why they lift, the gym is a place to find inner peace, I assure you that everyone inside the gym is there for a personal reason, it doesn’t matter if it’s stress related, self image confusion or just a hobby, on the other side you have some individuals that go to the gym because they want to look better than everyone around them and that’s a good thing because they strive for personal perfection and are hungry in what they do, someone that wants to be better than everyone else is not arrogant or cocky, he’s determined and driven.
Heavy is a really confusing word when it comes to gym science because what’s heavy for someone can be really light for others, never pay attention to what everyone else is doing at the gym or how much they are lifting try to focus on yourself and strive to be better than the day before. When you walk into the gym you always want to be prepared by having a mental image of what you want to work out and how you want to work it out, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing biceps or back, always strive for lifting five or ten pounds more than last time; even if you can’t lift it one week you will surely do it the following, it’s all mental, always remember that what the mind thinks the body does. When the body experiences a certain level of stress (heavy or intense lifting) the body adapts and grows that’s why every week you want and have to lift more than the previous one, this way you can keep the body guessing. Try different levels of intensity when working out, some days try doing drop sets or pyramids without resting between sets; again, you want to keep the body guessing by playing with your workouts.
Lifting light weights won’t make your body grow unless you’re doing one hundred reps per set, if you can do more than twelve repetitions with a certain weight you can easily increase the weight by ten pounds and do eight to twelve repetitions, don’t be afraid to fail at lifting something, if everyone is watching you and you fail to make a lift just ignore them and try again and again, week after week until you can finally deadlift 500lbs or bench press 315 lbs. A lot of gym trainers advice bodybuilders to lower the weight they’re lifting when preparing for a contest because they can injure themselves and by doing so they will get ripped and defined, this is a lie! Look at any bodybuilders pre competition videos such as Steve Kuclo’s and you will see that they lift the same amount of weight that they normally do in the off season, it all depends on how well your diet and training are managed.
Some people actually react better to light weight training while doing high repetitions (between 20 and 30 reps) than heavy training with lower repetitions (between 6 and 12 reps), my advice is to train with heavy weight for high repetitions, now, this may work or may not work for you, it all depends on your genetics and how they respond to different training methods, for me personally heavy training has helped me go a long way since I first started hitting the gym.
I guess the point here is that if you want to build a nice physique and get stronger you should always strive to be better and not just inside the gym but also outside in life, play around with the weights and never be afraid to try something new, don’t listen to the trainer or to your gym partner listen to your body and trust your gut feeling.
