Have you ever walked around the gym wondering how much weight you should use for a particular exercise? In my experience, women tend to go for the lighter weights, while men tend to choose weights that are way too heavy. This happens because most women are afraid of getting too bulky, so they choose light loads and perform more repetitions. Men, on the other hand, seem to be too proud to admit that they are not there yet, so they compromise form in order to lift heavier weights. Even though I don’t recommend going overboard with the load, I have to admit that men usually get better results with their training mentality. This can be explained by the progressive overload principle.
According to the progressive overload principle, our body responds to challenge. This principle states that in order to achieve muscle growth and increased strength, one must load the muscles beyond the point at which they are normally loaded. In addition, it is important to adjust the challenge as you get stronger, meaning that you should progressively increase the load to stimulate further strength gains. I understand that many women only want to get lean and toned, but, believe me, without overload you won’t see any changes in your body. Furthermore, gaining muscle mass is a hard task; the chances of getting too muscular are close to none.
Therefore, you must learn how to choose the appropriate amount of weight that will help you get the results you want, without compromising proper form. First, it is important to understand that different muscle groups require different loads. The same is true for different exercises. It is not as if you are going to select a pair of dumbbells and perform all your exercises with the same load. Some muscle groups require light weight and more repetitions; others heavier weight and fewer reps. In order to illustrate that, I divided the main muscle groups into three categories: core, upper-body, and lower-body.
Core muscles are the ones responsible for the maintenance of posture and body alignment. These muscles don’t get tired very quickly, so you’ll need to work them with light loads and many repetitions. Among them are: abdominals, lower-back muscles, and calves. When working these muscle groups, choose a load that is light enough for you to complete between 15 and 20 repetitions. However, it should be heavy enough to make those last repetitions difficult. If you feel that you can do more than 20 repetitions with this load, you should increase it on the next set.
The lower-body group includes the muscles of your thighs and hips. These muscles are strong and don’t fatigue very quickly. For those muscle groups, you should perform a moderate number of repetitions in order to induce muscle growth. Select a load that will allow you to complete at least 12 but no more than 15 repetitions. For gains in strength you may use heavier loads, performing between eight and 10 reps.
As women, we have less muscle mass on our upper-body than men, which makes upper-body exercises harder to perform than lower-body exercises. Also, upper-body muscles fatigue faster than our leg muscles, so we should perform fewer repetitions for the upper-body. If your goal is muscle growth, you should perform between 10 and 12 repetitions with a challenging load. However, if your goal is strength gain, stick to six to eight reps. Remember to choose a weight that is light enough for you to complete your assigned reps, but heavy enough to make you work hard through those last repetitions.
Reference
Wilmore, J., Costill, D. and Kenney, W. L. Physiology of Sport and Exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 2008.