Are You Lifting Enough Weight?

Some guys pick up an arbitrary weight they do an arbitrary number of reps with and then wonder why they neither get stronger or bigger. Here is why.

Strength Vs. Endurance

This Monday I made a bit of fun about using too much or too little weight. On Tuesday it dawned on me that I never really explained what the right amounts are.

So here goes and we start with using too little weight and doing too many reps with it. If you do that, you end up training endurance and that does nothing for strength and size:

Is Training Endurance Wrong?

No, of course not. Only if you train both, strength and endurance, which means doing your cardio, you get the complete fitness picture. Bodybuilders benefit from the latter because it reenforces the cardiovascular system responsible for getting nutrients to your cells. And that of course includes muscle cells.

But if you think you are doing strength training, make sure you are doing strength training.

Slow And Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers

In the video I hinted about the type of muscle fibers strength and endurance training use. That is, strength training involving your fast twitch fibers, endurance / cardio slow twitch. For those interested in learning more about that, I have an explanation right here.

Picture courtesy of Pete Bellis.