Senior Strength Training Tip

Here's a common strength training mistake I see a lot of people making. Let's say you're lifting weights, and you're doing a set of 15 reps, and you find it's too easy, what do you do next time?

A). Increase the weight.

B). Increase the reps.

Let's go over choice A. Let's say you increase the reps and do 20 reps. But eventually that's too easy.

Now what. 30 reps? If you continue on this road, you might be doing 50 reps or more in a couple months.

I actually see this a lot. People tell me they're doing 3 sets of 50!

If you're doing that many reps, you probably aren't even using your strength muscle fibers, you're using your endurance fibers.

But you already work your endurance fibers plenty when you're doing your cardiovascular exercise (you are doing cardio, right?).

Your strength fibers will only be used if the weight is heavy enough that the brain thinks they're needed. If you're using a weight that you can do 30 reps with, it will be too light to recruit your strength fibers.

The solution, of course, is to go with choice A - increase the weight. You should be doing sets of 20 or less reps if possible. Choose a weight that fatigues the muscle by the time you get to 20 reps.