Increacing Weight

[jsbeckton]

I have been back in the gym for about 10 months now and have made pretty good progress. I have cut my BF by 6% and doubled my max bench thus far.

I had a question as to whats better for gaining; doing increacing weight sets like 200lbs for the first set, 210lbs for the 2nd and then 220 for the third. Or should I just do the same weight 3 times. I do the 3 weights but see a lot of people doing just one weight and there doesn't seem to be a trend (of physical condition) amoung the different styles as far as I can see.

 

[dougp25]

Personally, if trying to gain and up my bench, I do increasing weights with decreasing reps.

So 200 for 8, followed by 210 for 6 and maybe 225 for 4 or so. Your actual mileage should vary!

 

[R.Lewis]

I pretty much never use straight sets.
for say shoulder press, wih dumbells...
If I'm doing 5x5 I'll do 26kg (warm up) 38kg, 38kg or 36, 36 or 34, 34kg.

Choose the heavest weight you can do for each set (with good form of course!), and listen to your body. You may find that you miss out on a lot of gains because you are not using the most you can, but... you may also find that you are lifting too much weight and your not getting good range of motion.

Never go too high without a spotter.

 

[goergen1]

Straight sets

I pretty much never use straight sets

I do increasing weights with decreasing reps.

I'll weigh D ) in with a different point of view when it comes to increasing weight.

Why would you wait until you have done a bunch of sets before you use your heaviest weight? Warm up, then do the heaviest weight you can on the first set. That is when you are fresh and most able to lift heavy weight.

Straight sets are very useful. They allow better tracking of progress as well as govern the number of sets you do. For example:

Choose a number of reps. We will use 6 here for the example. Put the heaviest weight you think you can lift 6X on the bar and lift it 6X. Keep doing sets until you can't get 6 reps. At that point you are done with that exercise.

This puts you more in tune with your body so that you know when enough is enough. It will also prevent over training since you are more able to keep track of the total load.

If you want to do more sets do a dropoff. Example:

We will use sets of 10 here. Warm up - then work to a 10 rep max for the day. Take that max and subtract 10% - 20%. For 200lbs that would be between 160 and 180 lbs. Choose your weight and DON"T change it. Do sets of 10 until you can no longer get 10 reps. At that point you are done with that exercise.

Using this method makes sure that you lift a max for the number of reps as well as getting in work sets to increase work capacity.

I made huge gains using this and variations of this method for all of my assistance exercises. It keeps you knowing where your body is and lets you work to your peak on each exercise on each day. Some days you will destroy your lifts from the previous week.

Other days you will be less that the previous week. That would be a sign of over training. Since you should be able to either lift more weight for your 10 rep max, or do at least one more set than the previous week. If neither of those things happens, change the exercise or reps. Sometimes it is as simple as your body has adapted to that exercise.

If you are not keeping track you will never know. There is a difference between listening to your body, and knowing where it is at.

You will find that different exercises increase at different rates. You will also see your workouts change as your fitness changes since each exercise will rotate in and out at different times. This way you are not just "changing things to have variety." You are changing exercises based upon the point where your body adapts and tells you to change.

 

[jsbeckton]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I find it easier to lift the heavy weight if I work up to it for some reason?

 

[dougp25]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I find it easier to lift the heavy weight if I work up to it for some reason?

Well, everyone is a little different. I have a friend (like goergen) who just does the most rudimentary warmups, then hits the heavy weight. He used to laugh at me (for benching i would do 135 1X8, 185 1X6, 225 1X5, 275 1X3, and then maybe a 1RM). He said "Chr*st, if you skipped half those reps you'd push 350 off". But I felt more comfortable working my way up.

Good lucK!

 

[SgtTTTT]

One school of thought is to keep reps low & sets high, increasing weight with each set... the 1st few sets act as warm-up sets & the low reps keep one from becomming too tired prior to lifting heavy.

Another school which works well is pyramiding up in weights while pyramiding down in reps -- it warms up the muscle-group sufficiently prior to heavy weight being used -- but it can be a bit more tiresome than the above-mentioned method (which may or may not work to your advantage).

You may want to test both ways. They both feel good to me, but the 1st set or two of the 1st method feels like nothing is being accomplished (even though something is... that is, a slow warm-up is beginning). The second method is a favorite of Dave Draper (a common rep scheme of his is similar to 15/12/10/8/6 with some repeats of 8 reps &/or 6 reps when doing many sets, or when starting with 12 reps rather than 15).

Warming-up becomes critical when middle-aged.

 

[goergen1]

Warm-Up

Lets remember that there is a big difference between warming up and work sets. There is also the mistake of using your first work sets as the end of warm up sets. This is very common when pyramiding.

 

[buzz]

i prefer to do one warm up set then 3 sets with the same weight,but drop the reps every week while increasing the weight.
3x15 100k wk 1
3x12 105k wk 2
3x10 110k wk 3
3x8 115k wk 4
3x5 120k wk 5

 

[THBench]

The weight trainer at the school (maxed out on full squat at 725 last week) has us doing the same amount of reps, but it changes each workout. Like 4 x 8, 5 x 6, 8x3, so on. I trust his judgement.

 

[stroutman81]

IMO, there is no right or wrong answer here. It is very goal dependent.

 

[xtonymarsx]

It's goal dependant true...but I also think that each person has to find what works best for them. It's hard for me to get my max's to reach new highs, but my working number of reps always seems to go up pretty good.

Also, maxing is different from just strength training. Doing a 1RM requires you to be good at the explosion portion of the lift. I don't think that is talked about enough when speaking of 1RM's personally. Powerlifters understand this, but also train this way all of the time. Strength training is more about proper form along with "time under tension"...utilizing rep counts and such.

 

[tonymcclellan]

I'll weigh D ) in with a different point of view when it comes to increasing weight.

Why would you wait until you have done a bunch of sets before you use your heaviest weight? Warm up, then do the heaviest weight you can on the first set. That is when you are fresh and most able to lift heavy weight.

Word. Hit the heaviest weight while fresh.

 

[SKMMAN]

Word. Hit the heaviest weight while fresh.

I agree, you just need a good warmup before lifting heavy . tonymcclellan you forget to tell him to a buy a book!

 

[tonymcclellan]

I agree, you just need a good warmup before lifting heavy . tonymcclellan you forget to tell him to a buy a book!

Im just concerned with proving to you that I have other tips in my arsenal