Why Should You Lift Heavier Weights?
Almost every physically able person is in pursuit of a pleasing personality and an attractive physique.
But in today’s age, anyone who is working for a living hasn’t got time or facilitation to play a particular sport to maintain their body. And let’s face it, hour long jogs or walking is just so much more mentally fatiguing than physically. So what do we do?
Seeking the answer to this question, the fitness industry has witnessed a booming success in the past decade or so in India. Everyone, irrespective of age and gender, are filling up the gyms to build their muscles and lose body fat.
But, in many cases, people don’t get the results they hoped to achieve when they first stepped foot in the gym. I can honestly say that after putting all that serious effort and not getting any satisfactory results, you would want to stop working out right a way. But, you haven’t really given your 100% yet.
See, every new guy in the gym who has no prior or little experience in the gym is made to do 30 minutes of cardio and then 15-20 rep for 3 sets on some hi-tech machines and then he is told to go home. That is not the way to go about it, obviously.
Teaching heavy compound movements like Bench, Snatch, Clean And Jerks and Squats should be the way you train a newbie. Push-Ups, Pull-Ups and Dips are the most essential exercises for a novice lifter and yet you never see do them do any single one of them. Most of them don’t even know what a Snatch is, let alone perform it.
Lifting heavy is highly crucial and equally underrated for a better physicality and better bodily functioning. Most guys shy away from it. I mean, Why wouldn’t they? The Lat Pulldown machine is more comfortable than getting under a heavy weight and performing full repetitions of squats with it.
Seeking comfort in the gym is what’s keeping you away from your goals.
Here’s a list of benefits that would convince you that heavy lifting is the way to go and why you should be doing it for those sweet gains.
- Lifting heavy weights will make every single muscle of your body stronger, period. You will definitely increase your core strength, your shoulder girdle strength and your lower body strength. All this strength would better your posture. Once you start lifting heavy week after week, you will get taller because of the straightening of your posture.
- More strength always entails an increase in muscle mass. The muscle you gain from 3-6 rep sets done on compound movements is harder than the muscle you gain from 12-15 rep isolation type movements. Also, this muscle is more durable. It stays on your frame longer than the muscle you gain from training high reps.
- As you age, your bone mass decreases by a factor. That’s why old people have troubles getting around. But if you invest your time in heavy weightlifting, you could reduce this rate of bone mass decrease and hence, could lead a healthier life.
- Once you pick a relatively heavy weight off the ground or push it off your chest, you are basically conquering an immensely strong foe in your mind. Doing this regularly, would entail that you are victorious every single day, every single week. Hence, lifting big would do great things to your self confidence. You develop a “Holier-than-thou” attitude, which gives you a high ground in your day to day interactions with other people. You feel like Superman all the time.
- After a heavy session, you should be exhausted both mentally and physically. Thus, you won’t be having enough mental stamina to wander around into bad thoughts or the things that are bothering you. You effectively fight depression by lifting heavy. Everything just seems more in your reach.
- Lifting heavy increases your muscle mass. Just look at any powerlifter or Olympic weightlifter there is. Chances are if they are below 110kgs, they are incredibly lean. This is because of all the added muscle mass, your metabolism level peaks. You could burn more fat when sleeping or sitting than before. And the best part is, you won’t need additional cardio exercises in your routine if you lift heavy as it is such calorie exhausting activity. I think it’s the best way to burn fat and stay in shape, provided you cut down the rest periods between your sets.
- Heavy weights strengthen your ligaments and joints. Hence, you could prevent injuries like broken bones and muscle tears if you go heavy. Your body becomes accustomed to a heavy beating every now and then and hence won’t get easily broken.
- Heavy weights increase your testosterone levels more than light weight high rep sets. That’s why You feel more like a man after a big session. You get the “Just Bring It” body language.
- Also, heavy compound movements tend to hit all the muscles of the body. Therefore you can save time by performing low reps, high sets with high weights on the exercise that I’ll be mentioning below and go home after an awesome workout.
So the next time your trainer tells you to go do 3 sets of 20 on the pec deck machine, just remember this article and ask him to train you properly by teaching the more demanding movements.
You should increase the weights every single session and turn the session in to a journey full of pain for the muscle you are training.
Doing these exercises for sets of 3-5 reps is the most optimal form of training.
Bench Press
Deadlift
Clean And Jerk
Front Squat
Squats
Snatch.
Now go lift something big and intimidating.
