how often to "up" weights

[Timber99]

Cathe & educated crowd,

I know that you are supposed to change weights when your current weight no longer fatigues you, but I feel like I have not made progress in quite some time. It's been a year or more at mostly the same weights.

Should I try to up my weights and do fewer reps or should I stick tight with the current weight? I still feel like I am pushing and I feel stronger generally but the numbers have not changed.

Christine

 

[firmscorpio]

RE: how often to

Hey girl,
How are you?Haven't heard from you in awhile!!!! Try upping your weights on area you know you can.Then work from there.I know you definitely can up your weights.

 

[bootyquake]

RE: how often to

Have you tried using the heavier weights? You might surprise yourself. I often think I can't lift a certain weight, but when I try it, I get through just fine. You're probably capable of much more than you think!

 

[lorrayne]

RE: how often to

You may want to spend a month or so just focusing on heavy weight training. I'm currently doing this right now and have noticed some improvement. I started with doing Slow and Heavy for week one (total of twice per video). Following week one I did Pure Strength tapes. Then, I did Pyramid Series. I then went back to Pure Strength on week 3 with Slow and Heavy for week 4. I definitely noticed a change in what I can safely lift from week one to week 4. For example, at week one, I could only use 10 lb dumbbells for pec flys (and had to go down to 8 lbs for the last set). This morning, I was able to use 12 lb dumbbells for all sets! Same thing with biceps. I was able to go pound-for-pound on biceps that Cathe used in Pyramid Upper on week 3 (I always maxed out at 12 lbs for the heaviest set).

So, try this and see if it works for you.

Lorrayne

 

[Timber99]

thanks!

Thanks for the input guys! I thought that I might try to do something like S&H and see if that helped. In August I start training for a100 mile nike ride and I am going to use S&H then but I might go for a four week course in the next few weeks.

 

[kathryn]

RE: how often to

When going up in weight, it's usually necessary to do fewer reps. For example, if you were doing biceps curls and could do 16 reps with 10#, when you go to 12#, you might start with 7 or 8 reps. That's the way it's done in regular weight training.