Should I always lift heavy weights to get big muscles? Topics Fitness Types Of Exercise Programs Should I always lift heavy weights to get big muscles? • • • • • A Answers (2) • Follow Following Unfollow Pending Disabled ANational Academy of Sports Medicine answered No, increasing muscle size, or hypertrophy, is dependent on several factors, and the amount of weight you lift is only one of those factors. Getting your body to grow is simply an adaptation it will make to the demands being placed on it. If you only lift heavy weights, you may become good at lifting the heavy weights and develop higher levels of strength, but this will produce little results in terms of muscle growth. One important aspect of getting bigger is nutrition. In order to grow your muscle size, you must consume more calories than you are burning. These extra calories will help provide your body with the energy necessary to build the muscle. You must be sure the additional calories you are consuming are nutrient dense, such as protein and carbohydrates, as opposed to energy dense, such as fat. Although your body does need fat for many important functions, it is easier for your body to store fat. It is recommended to take in 1.6-2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day and 50%-70% of your total calories should be made up of good carbohydrates, such as whole oats and grains. Fat should make up 10%-30% of your total calorie intake. Increasing your muscle size requires your exercise program to consist of higher volumes of training (3 to 5 sets of 6 to 12 repetitions) and intensities of 75%-85% of your 1 repetition maximum. During the training session, long rest periods are not recommended. Helpful? • Follow Following Unfollow Pending Disabled ARick Richey , NASM Elite Trainer, Fitness, answered on behalf of National Academy of Sports Medicine I guess this depends on what you consider heavy weights. The most common intensity range used to increase muscle size (hypertrophy) is between 75%-85% of your 1 repetition maximum. This equates to being limited to lifting weights for a maximum of 6-12 repetitions. This may be considered heavy weights by some, however this is often consider a “moderate” weight. Below is a list of the variables (provided by the National Academy of Sports Medicine) that may best increase muscle size: SETS: 3-5 REPS: 6-12 Intensity: 75%-85% of 1RM Tempo: 2 second lift / 2 second lower Rest: 0-90 seconds Duration: 4-12 weeks Frequency: 3-6x/week There is also a very important nutritional component. Protein, and overall calorie intake, must be increased. A simple calculation to know how much protein you should take in is to divide your bodyweight by 2. This is approximately how many grams of protein you should have daily. You should also make sure you increase your vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants intake during this intense training in order for your body to recover, heal, and grow. DO I HAVE TO LIFT HEAVY TO BUILD MUSCLE? High reps using light loads can be just as effective as lifting big, says PT Christian Finn By Christian Finn Posted on January 29, 2014 ShareTweetShareToggle It’s one of the most common and seemingly obvious pieces of gym advice. If you want to gain muscle as fast as possible, you need – as Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman once put it – to lift some heavy ass weights. Case closed. Or is it? In fact, despite the widespread belief that muscles only grow after lifting heavy, you can and will build muscle just as effectively using lighter weights and higher reps. Researchers from McMaster University got a group of men to train their legs 3 times a week for 10 weeks. One leg was trained using high reps and light weights (3 sets of 30-40 reps), and the other with heavy weights and lower reps (3 sets of 10-12 reps). The result? The amount of new muscle added to both legs was almost identical. What’s more, the average size of both type I and type II muscle fibres increased equally with heavy and light loads, meaning that both fibre types were recruited and stimulated during training. Of course, it’s never a good idea to draw conclusions about anything from the findings of one study. But there’s plenty of other research out there showing much the same thing. High reps and light weights (4 sets of 24 reps) have been shown to raise muscle protein synthesis in the quads for 24 hours after exercise to a greater extent than low reps and heavy weights (4 sets of 5 reps). And in another 13-week study, Japanese scientists found that taking a light weight and lifting it slowly had much the same effect on muscle size as heavy training. What matters much more than how many kilograms you’ve piled on your barbell is lifting to (or very close to) technical failure – the point at which you are physically unable to perform another rep with good form. Whether lifting heavy or lifting light, you won’t see results unless you push yourself to the limit. Get constantly evolving workout and nutrition plans personalised for your specific needs and training goals. Sign up to Men's Health's Personal Trainer tool now! The Truth About Lifting Heavy Training as heavy as you can, workout afer workout, may not actually be the best way to build muscle or even strength! 2.1Kshared this Jim Stoppani Ph.D There’s no secret as to what drives bodybuilders like you and me to the iron. We’re a diehard breed that doesn’t need the camaraderie of a team or the thrill 
of competing against others. Our competition is with ourselves. Day 
in and day out we hit the gym to push it harder than we did the previous workout. The rush we get is from throwing more plates on the bar and seeing the resultant increase in our muscle mass. There’s an inherent thrill we get from grabbing a set of monster dumbbells that 99% of gym members will never be able to touch. The motto we live by is, “Go heavy
 or go home.” Yet before you down your pre-workout shake and head to the gym with the goal of doing dumbbell shoulder presses with irons that are
 10 pounds heavier than the ones you used last week, take a deep breath and hear me out on something. Training as heavy as you can, workout after workout, may not actually be the best way to build muscle or even strength! Yes, you read that right. According to research that’s been accumulating over the past couple of years, as well as my own research in the real lab known as the gym, going with lighter weight and higher reps may be even better for maximizing muscle growth. Before you spit out your shake and skip on to the next article, do yourself a favor and read this if you truly want to pack on as much muscle as you
 can. If not, continue with what you’re doing, but don’t be surprised when those gains come to a sudden halt. You’ve been warned. In the world of strength-training science, rep ranges are categorized into what’s known as a repetition maximum continuum (see the figure included below). This breaks down the rep ranges into three main categories: 1) muscle strength, 2) muscle hypertrophy (growth), and 3) muscle endurance. Research and years of training have previously shown that the rep range of 1–6 reps per set is best for increasing muscle strength; and the rep range of 7–12 reps per set is best for increasing muscle growth; while reps of 12 and higher
 are best for increasing muscle endurance. This has always sounded solid based on what we know about muscle physiology and the energy systems used during these types of workouts, as well as the results that athletes have seen over the years training these ways. So most bodybuilders end up training in the 6–8 rep range, maybe going as high as 10 reps occasionally, as this rep range allows them to look and feel the most impressive in the gym, hoisting as much weight as they can, while doing just enough reps to stimulate muscle growth. Theoretically this sounds like the smartest plan based on the repetition maximum continuum. It’s pure science, right? But alas, as science often demonstrates, there is new research that turns this way of thinking upside down. Size Matters Find the right supplements for your diet and fitness goals at GNC Live Well. Another tidbit that strength scientists have learned in the laboratory is
the fact that muscles are recruited (called into contract) from smallest to biggest. This is known as the size principle. To keep things simple, there are two main types of muscle fibers—slow-twitch muscle fibers and fast-twitch muscle fibers. Slow-twitch fibers are those with the most endurance and are also the smallest and weakest. The fast-twitch muscle fibers are those that have less endurance but have the most strength and power and grow the biggest. When you pick up a weight and do a biceps curl, the slow-twitch muscle fibers in the biceps are recruited first to contract and then lift the weight. If the load is too heavy for the few slow-twitch muscle fibers that were recruited, the brain signals the rest of the slow-twitch muscle fibers available in the biceps to assist their pals. If the weight is still too heavy, the brain starts calling on some of the bigger fast-twitch muscle fibers in the biceps to assist those small, weak, and pathetic slow-twitch fibers. If the weight is still too heavy, then the brain calls in the rest of the big and strong fast-twitch muscle fibers to assist and the weight is curled up. Of course this all occurs in a matter of microseconds.