Lifting heavy weights is essential for a better physique
Many males don’t do energy systems work (‘cardio’) and many females don’t lift weights. Both are missing out on crucial elements of sculpting a cracking physique!
Why?
The ladies believe lifting anything other than those pink 3kg dumbbells will result in huge muscles and veins popping out everywhere.
The guys think ‘cardio’ work will eat all of their muscle up. I will disprove this in a later write up, but let’s sort the girls out first!
Ladies, you need to realize that many men dedicate hundreds of fruitless hours in the gym and thousands of pounds on useless supplements to pack on muscle with very little to show for their efforts.
These men have 30-40 times as much testosterone (the anabolic / muscle-building hormone) as you do and still have to work very hard to achieve muscle gain.
Therefore, unless you are pumping serious amounts of iron, taking steroids and have the hormonal profile of a small gorilla, you will not ‘bulk up’. Instead you will begin to see those muscles getting harder and more ‘toned’.
You want sexy looking legs and bums? Start lifting heavy weights.
I should define ‘heavy’ here.
Heavy is a relative term. The chances are I can lift more weight than most of you in most exercises. However, there are many, many men out there who can lift a hell of a lot more than I! For instance, a heavy deadlift to me is one of over 500 lbs. If you are a beginner, a heavy deadlift may be 95 lbs. The world record is around 900 lbs. All of them can be equally heavy relative to bodyweight, genetic potential, training age and skill level -another reason to forget what everyone else is doing and saying, and focus on what’s happening in your own little world!
We define ‘heavy’ as weights which, when you perform an exercise, you can only lift up to 8 times before you lose technique or simply can’t move them anymore! In the realms of strength training and power-lifting heavy means the weight you can lift just once (your 1 repetition max) but we do not need to consider this type of training for fat loss.
Don’t forget this doesn’t mean 8 repetitions before it starts hurting a little bit. It means 8 repetitions before you are unable to perform another one with good form. There is a very big difference!
The fact is that if you want to be ‘more toned’, ‘ripped’, ‘slim’ or whatever other tag you want to put on it, you simply have to lift heavy weights. If you want to look like a stick-thin marathon runner with your ribs popping out then go ahead and start jogging!
So, far from fearing heavy weights when you are trying to lose body fat, you need to not only prioritize the integrated high-intensity functional training at Underground Functional Fitness over cardio-specific work, but the weights need to be a significant challenge. Our systems provide clear repetition ranges, sets and rest times.
