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This headline is misleading. The answer is not that you need to be lifting light weights. Rather, you need to focus on progressive load. Repeatedly lifting any

This headline is misleading. The answer is not that you need to be lifting light weights. Rather, you need to focus on progressive load. Repeatedly lifting any weight just gets your body used to lifting that weight. This is how our minds work too. If you do a task enough times, you just get good at that task. It's not that lifting a light weight would suddenly make you better at lifting a heavy weight, nor that repeating a single simple task would make you better at more challenging complex tasks. What you really want is your body to get used to progressively lifting heavier weights, just as you want your mind to get used to progressively more challenging tasks. This translates to starting with light weights and progressively increasing your load over time. Ditto your mind. Where the body is different is that there are physical limitations. You can't increase weight forever. Training programes like HST (Hypertrophic specific training) solve this with periodic strategic de-conditioning. I personally recommend anyone interested in weight training spend some lime looking into HST.

desigooner 16y ago
I followed the HST routine for all but the last 2 weeks. Started out with 2 weeks of 15 reps per set / 2 sets per exercise and then on to 10 reps a set for 2 weeks and then on to 5 reps per set for another 2 .. It not only helped me put some muscle on, it helped me knock down 3-4 percent of body fat as well and increase my strength by quite a bit. i ended up benching out at 240 lbs in the last 2 weeks where as my previous max was 170 lbs. I highly recommend the routine.
- joshklein 16y ago
  Great work! One of the advantages this program has to me is also psychological. I don't get to choose how much weight to lift or how many reps to do; it's all determined by my progression in the program (which is figured out at the beginning of my 9-week cycle). For anyone with ADD, executive dysfunction, or just general procrastination, this is a great way to reduce the number of "decision points" that give you an opportunity to break your new habit. Also: I recommend following through with the final 2 weeks. They can be really hard, but when you then take 14 days off and see yourself get in noticeably better shape during a period of sitting on the couch, you buy into the program big time.

desigooner 16y ago

I followed the HST routine for all but the last 2 weeks. Started out with 2 weeks of 15 reps per set / 2 sets per exercise and then on to 10 reps a set for 2 weeks and then on to 5 reps per set for another 2 .. It not only helped me put some muscle on, it helped me knock down 3-4 percent of body fat as well and increase my strength by quite a bit. i ended up benching out at 240 lbs in the last 2 weeks where as my previous max was 170 lbs. I highly recommend the routine.

joshklein 16y ago
Great work! One of the advantages this program has to me is also psychological. I don't get to choose how much weight to lift or how many reps to do; it's all determined by my progression in the program (which is figured out at the beginning of my 9-week cycle). For anyone with ADD, executive dysfunction, or just general procrastination, this is a great way to reduce the number of "decision points" that give you an opportunity to break your new habit. Also: I recommend following through with the final 2 weeks. They can be really hard, but when you then take 14 days off and see yourself get in noticeably better shape during a period of sitting on the couch, you buy into the program big time.