Trainer gives tips: How difficult weights for muscle building have to be

Composite exercises are effective for muscle building

Before it deals with the concrete choice of weight, the expert clarifies a few basic things about strength training:

“Especially if you want to lose body fat and build muscle, you should know that not all exercises are equivalent. For this reason, experts recommend carrying out so-called multijoint movements, i.e. compound exercises to build muscle and burn more calories and fat, ”explains Pridgett.

In weight training one also speaks of composite exercises – these are the squat, cross lifting, overhead press, bench press and the pull -up.

You also have to make sure that you make a sufficient amount of sets and repetitions to build muscle mass.

“The last extremely important factor is that the right weight can be put on,” continued the fitness trainer.

Extra training: light or heavy?

A good indicator that the weight is too light: “The feeling of being able to make an infinite number of repetitions without a break,” says Pridgett. That may be good for your own self -confidence, but it will not help to get stronger.

According to the expert, one realizes that the weight is too heavy from the fact that the exercise is carried out unclean and the planned number of sentences and repetitions cannot be created.

To make the best of the strength training sessions, you should make it clear what the goal is: endurance, maximum muscle growth (hypertrophy) or maximum strength?

“If you know that, you can determine exactly how much weight you should optimally use – and how often the exercises have to be carried out,” said the trainer.

Find the right weight for muscle building

As a rule of thumb it is a Weight To find that in the last repetitions of an exercise can still be challenged, but can also be maintained over several sentences.

According to Pridgett, the optimal weight can be found even more precisely with this method: First test what the maximum weight is that can be lifted for three to five repetitions of a certain exercise.

Then enter maximum weight and the number of repetitions you have carried out in a repeat computer.

“The computer shows a list of percentages that can be lifted at the maximum. Depending on the individual goal, you can now read in the following table which number of sentences and repetitions and what weight is best suited, ”explains the expert.

It recommends using the procedure, especially for classics such as squats, cross lifting, bench press and bicep curls.