henrypaget.com

For your body to gain strength and thus muscle you need to train intensely, of course with good form so you don’t get injured.

But it’s those last reps, the difficult ones that take it out of you that make all the difference.

For you to truly understand what I’m writing about you need to know a bit about Hans Selyes general adaptation theory. If you go out in the blazing English sun for hours on a summer day there’s a good chance you’ll burn. Yet if you only went out into the sun for 30 minutes to an hour you might catch the sun a bit but you won’t burn yourself, you’ll find that the next day your skin is more brown.

In the former example of getting burnt, you’ve gave your body too much of a stressor, so much so your body couldn’t cope and it damaged your skin. But when you go out into the sun for a short period your skin can cope with a smaller stressor and not get damaged enough to burn your skin, your skin just goes slightly brown as a way to adapt to the exposure.

Why this relates to lifting

The exact same theory of getting sun burnt relates to getting stronger. For example a few years ago after a lay off from training I was too spunky in getting back to lifting I got burnt. I went straight into heavy weighted chin ups when my body wasn’t adapted to the stressor. I gave my body too much of a stressor that it wasn’t even close to adapting to. But if I built up slowly like I would normally do then this results in you lifting light weights, getting adapted to them and adding weight to the bar or using heavier dumbbells week after week and by doing so your body adapts and injury is much less probable.

There is a difference between Luke warm training and training so hard you get burnt

In the middle of these two extremes is where effective training lies. I like to work with a weight and hit the top of a rep range before increasing the load. For example today I did the lat pulldown at the gym and I just about hit twelve reps which was pushing my limits and next week I’ll put the weight up and go to try and hit 12 reps with the new weight over the next few weeks and when I do so I’ll put the weight up again , only if my form is good and I’m using a full range of motion.

The bottom line

If you want to experience the benefits of being strong you need to work up to your limits in the gym (so you can adapt and thus get stronger) but not beyond them otherwise you’ll get injured. Working at your limits takes some trial and error. But doing so is worth it every time because being strong is a great blessing. The better are bodies function the better we function and the easier it is to be useful in the world (life is harder when you’re unfit/unhealthy). And as Mark Rippetoe from Starting Strength says we become harder to kill. But don’t try to lift too heavy too soon as you really will get burnt.