How Much Weight Should I Lift?

Women’s Self-Defense Seminar

 

Meet Terry Knight. Terry is a women’s self-defense instructor. Standing around 5’8, and less than 120 pounds, she is not an intimidating presence. But you wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark ally.

She teaches women:

 

• Awareness and avoidance
• How to use surprise to your advantage
• Verbal self-defense
• Releases from holds and chokes
• How and where to hit and kick for maximum effectiveness

 

I’ve heard many good things about the seminar, and if you would like to get Terry to present for your group of ladies, she would be happy to do so. It’s a very nominal fee, and it’s all donated to community organizations, like the Mackenzie Health Volunteer Association, Sandgate Women’s Shelter, Food Bank and others.

If you want to get in touch with Terry, email her at [email protected].

 

Congratulations to… Me 🙂

 

On Saturday, February 16, I went to my first powerlifting competition. Powerlifting is a sport where you just lift as much weight as you can in 3 different exercises: the bench press, the squat and the deadlift.

In other words, I lift heavy things for no good reason.

Nonetheless, I came in first place by bench pressing 242 pounds, squatting 315 pounds and deadlifting 352 pounds. This is at my current bodyweight of 143 pounds.

Here is the video of me bench pressing 242 pounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyOWAP8y-Dg

 

And here is the video of me deadlifting 352 pounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzx6kD9o-ao

Unfortunately I don\’t have a video of me squatting, but here\’s an instructional video of how to squat.

Just don’t ask me to help you move any furniture.

 

How Much Weight Should You Use When You Exercise?

 

One question I am often asked is “how much weight should I lift?” The answer is, as always “it depends” (I wonder how many times I’ve said those words in all the time I’ve been publishing my newsletter. Hmm…

What does it depend on?

 

• For how many repetitions you are lifting the weight.
• Your goals.
• Your strength levels.
• Which muscles or movements you are working on.

 

Let’s break it down.

 

Logic dictates that the more times you do an exercise, the less weight you can use in the exercise. To use my own example from above, if I can deadlift 352 for a single repetition, I’ve done 3 repetitions with 315 pounds, and 10 repetitions with 225.

Next are your goals. The following is overly simplistic, but for our purposes here it gets the job done.

 

• If your goal is to build strength without building muscle size, you’ll want to use multiple sets (5-12) of 2-5 repetitions. The weight must obviously be fairly close to your maximum possible weight. So for example, if you can lift 100 pounds for just one single repetition in a certain exercise, you’ll want to lift several sets of 2-5 repetitions at 85-95 pounds.
• If your goal is to build strength together with muscle size, you’ll want to use several sets (3-6) of 4-8 repetitions (yes, there’s some overlap with the previous recommendation).
• If your goal is to build primarily muscle size with some strength, you’ll want to use 3-6 sets of 8-12 repetitions.
• If your goal is to build muscular endurance, you’ll want to use 2-6 sets of 12 or more repetitions.
• If your goal is fat loss, then you can use anything from 6 up to 20 repetitions, for 3-5 sets.

Your strength levels also dictate how much weight you should use. Somebody who has been exercising consistently and intelligently for years will obviously need to use more weight than a beginner.

Different muscles have different strength levels. For instance, the backs of your forearms are small, fairly weak muscles, where even 5 pounds provides a workout. Your legs, on the other hand are very big, strong muscles. Even an untrained, middle-aged woman can often do 20-30 pounds on her very first try, and in a matter of a few months can be using 70-100 pounds in the same movement (if these numbers scare you, ask yourself why you may still not have gotten the results that you’re after).

 

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Short Summary

 

• How much weight you lift in any given exercise depends on:
  • For how many repetitions you are lifting the weight.
    • The more repetitions, the lighter the weight.
  • Your goals. Different goals will require different numbers of repetitions.
  • Your strength levels. The stronger you get, the more weight you’ll need to lift.
  • Which muscles or movements you are working on. Stronger muscles (like the legs, butt and back) require more weight than smaller/weaker muscles (like the forearms, for instance).