Do I always need to go heavy?

The most common objective in any gym by any avid gym goer is to lift heavier. This may not always be to build muscle, but a majority want both strength and size. But does lifting heavier promote muscles to grow and become larger? Well, you may say, Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman always states ‘Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights’ and he had some insane muscles. But is this true?

There are many different leagues of thoughts some believing muscle will only grow if you lift heavier but others believe you can just as effectively build muscle through using lighter weight but with higher reps. Now you may even ask ‘well surely the heavier I go I’m going to build strength so surely the muscle will have to grow’. So what is the difference between training for size and strength?

Strength is about increasing the force production, thus in bodybuilding terms being able to lift a heavier weight. Size is in our case the growth of a muscle through creating microscopic damage to the muscle in order for it to repair larger, this is hypertrophy in its simplest state.

When training for strength the general programme to follow is high weight along with low reps. This training is what I like to say to clients is much like a update on your computer, there to shock the body and thus promote the central nervous system into to thinking it has to increase motor unit recruitment. Much like an update on your computer will promote other parts of your computer to work more efficiently. This basically means the use of more muscles to perform that exercise. In contrast the goal with building size is to promote building muscle and strengthening bones, forcing the muscle tissue to grow stronger and develop. 

So you may ask, well which one should I do, I say both!!! There is a place for both in your programming if you're really serious about not only putting on size but getting stronger. Come on you may want arms the size of Simeon Panda but you also want to be able to deadlift 5 plates or bench press those 50kg dumbbells. The answer is therefore simple, include both in your routine. Here are a few pointers:

1. Begin the session with the heavy, compound exercise for that muscle group your looking to train. It will put pressure on the central nervous system but recruit every muscle within that group, hitting them in a different way, somewhat of confusion. I like to call this blunt force trauma training. Pushing the muscle beyond its limit.
2. Going heavy however doesn't mean you use momentum to cheat the rep or you lose focus on the muscle group you're training purely to lift the weight. Always have control over the weight you're lifting, this is where the strength will be built otherwise you'll just be further prone to injuries. 
3. If you're going heavy at the beginning don't then have a full workout planned after. You're body will already be slightly fatigued, reduce the volume and weight and focus on tempo of the exercises but most importantly the contraction. Really feel the muscle working, use forced reps or negative reps to really push the muscle beyond failure. 
4. Time under tension as partial mentioned above is critical in this stage. Use strict form focusing on the eccentric and concentric phases gaining maximal peak contraction. This doesn't mean a few cheat reps are out of the question, but do the fundamentals first. 

So the final point is do I need to lift heavier to gain muscle, the answer is yes, its a contributing factor. It will aid in the strength of the muscle and promote the central nervous system to become stronger however form shouldn't be compromised because of it. Hypertrophy still has its place to cause the breakdown of the muscle for it to grow back stronger but more importantly larger. So as a pair they go hand in hand and should be used to optzimumize both strength and size.

Happy Training

Jack