To Build More Muscle, Lift More Weight

If you’re looking to build more muscle, you have to start
lifting more weight.

That’s one of the biggest problems I see as a personal trainer
in the gym each day.

Many people want to build more muscle, but they do not strive to
progress upwards in the amount of weight they lift. If that is
the case, continually gaining lean muscle and strength can be
prohibited.

I often speak with women who are fearful of lifting more weight
because they do not want to build large muscles.

I explain to them that it’s almost impossible for women to gain
muscle mass like men can because of the lack of the amount of
the sex hormone testosterone that creates this growth of muscle.

Since women do not produce enough testosterone, the likelihood
of building large muscles is virtually impossible.

Women that you see on TV or in magazines with large, man-like
muscles, either use muscle-enhancing substances (steroids) or
they naturally produce more testosterone than most women.

It is very difficult for women to build bulky muscles.

You must strive to continuously increase your weights lifted
over time. Muscle will only grow if it is forced, or coerced,
into growing. You force it by lifting progressively heavier
weight.

Muscle growth is simply a result of placing demand on your body.
When you lift a weight that is heavier than you are used to,
your body will start to add muscle to handle the extra demand
(weight) you are placing on it.

As you continually lift heavier weights over a long period of
time, your body will continue to adapt to the additional demand
being placed on it, by building more muscle.

If you continuously lifted the same amounts of weight over time,
the body would become used to that weight and new muscle growth
would not need to occur. It has no reason to add more muscle
because the muscle you currently have can handle the demand.

When you start lifting more weight, then your body needs new
muscle to handle this additional demand, creating new lean
muscle tissue to handle this demand.

Any new and additional muscle growth you achieve will have a
direct impact on the number of calories you burn. So, for long
term success in weight loss and fitness, continue to lift
progressively heavier weights as you continue on in your program.

How do you know how much weight to lift?

If you are just starting a lifting program, keep it light and
easy and learn proper form. As you progress, start to increase
the weights you lift but decrease the amount of times (reps)
that you lift the weight.

Something happens when you do this. If you lessen the amount of
times you have to lift something, shouldn’t the amount of weight
you can lift increase?

Suppose if you had to lift 100 pounds 10 times. You manage it
and it’s not that difficult. Now, say you only have to lift it 6
times.

If you managed to do it 10 times at 100 pounds, shouldn’t you be
able to increase the weight if you only have to do it 6 times
now?

So, as you progress into your weight training workout, begin to
lessen the amount of reps and instead increase the weight.

Increase the weight to 150 pounds and lift it 6 times.

The more weight you lift, the more muscle you need to adapt to
the additional weight. The more your body needs to adapt to more
resistance, the more growth that will occur.

The more lean muscle tissue you have, the more calories burned
and the more weight loss…see how weight lifting/resistance
training has a direct impact on fat loss and weight management?

Six repetitions are a great number for you to shoot for. A
repetition is one movement. A set of movements is called a set.
If you were to do a set of 10 repetitions, you would have to
move the weight 10 times.

Start a particular weight lifting exercise (bench press, bicep
curls) with a nice, easy set of 10 reps. The next set do eight,
and the last two sets, do 6 reps.

Follow this for ALL exercises. When you can do more than six
reps for that given weight, you simply add more weight and
continue to shoot for six reps.

As you continue up in weight over time, that’s proof that you
are getting stronger and are adding more lean muscle to your
body. This, in turn, is a future investment in burning off more
calories.

So to build more muscle, you need to lift more weight.

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