What is “Heavy Lifting”?

Lots of great fitness programs - including mine - encourage women to lift heavy weights.

But have you ever been stumped by what exactly constitutes “heavy weights”? Is this appropriate for you? And how much weight it too much or not enough?

Listener Lisa had the same question:

“I’m wondering what you consider ‘heavy weights’. I’ve noticed you mention that you lift heavy weights 2 times a week. How much do you lift?”

Let’s start with a story…

When I was in highschool, the gold standard for females was “light weight/high reps” - 3 pounders at 20+ reps

As a girl, lifting heavy was a big no-no. If you did that, it was going to make you look like a football player - big, beefy, and thick.

Total myth.

As a woman, in order to build that level of muscle mass where you get that incredibly muscular, it requires soooo much effort - it’s very challenging. Hours a day, extremely targeted nutrition, very periodized programs.

This is just not going to happen to the average woman that’s strength training a couple times a week.

Your number one goal

As a woman, no matter your age but especially as you get older, the best goal you could have with your workouts is to build and maintain your muscle mass.

The amount of muscle you have on your body impacts so many other areas of your health - like your metabolism, your bone density, and your joint health - that you can be checking off so many boxes if all you did was follow a workout program that is aimed at building your muscle mass.

How do you build and maintain your muscle mass?

Put simply - Your muscles have to work.

They have to push and pull against something. They can be pushing and pulling against gravity, like with a bodyweight only exercises like push-ups - or they can be pushing and pulling against a weight.

How much weight you use or what angle you choose for your bodyweight only moves is relative to YOU and your current strength level.

The ideal repetition range for building muscle is doing somewhere between 6 and 15 repetitions.

• Below 6, you’re training mostly power and shear maximum strength
• More than 15, you’re not going to see great gains in muscle mass
• To keep it simple, I usually train between 6-12 repetitions

Once you know how many reps you’re aiming for, then you can choose a load that allows you to do that many repetitions with good technique, but only leaving about 1 or 2 reps left in the tank.

• For bodyweight-only moves, you choose an angle - it’s all physics
• When you’re first learning a move… 0-little weight to rehearse the mechanics
• This weight is body part specific and it will change as you get stronger
  • This is why it’s really helpful to invest in a full set of dumbbells - only ever using 10’s won’t be helpful

So for me… I weightlift 2x a week, and when I’m doing most moves in the 6-12 repeition range, for it to be challenging for me, I have to use anywhere from 25-35 pounds.

More Resources

The Jumpstart 30 Program for Beginners - Get started with a structured strength training & mobility program!

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