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Weekend Q&A: Am I Lifting Heavy Enough to Build Muscle? · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: How do you know you're lifting heavy enough to build muscle?
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: Find out in today's weekend Q&A bonus episode.
• 0:07
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast.
• 0:12
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:23
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset.
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: With a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best, let's dive right in.
• 0:35
  Philip Pape: Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Whits and Weights podcast, where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend.
• 0:52
  Philip Pape: These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Philip thread in our free Whits and Weights Facebook community.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and, let's be honest, misinformation online and just want a straight up answer without the jargon, that's what this free service is for.
• 1:10
  Philip Pape: With the weekly Ask Philip thread, you can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: If you'd like to experience it yourself, I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Whits and Weights Facebook group.
• 1:28
  Philip Pape: It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: With that, let's get to today's Q&A.
• 1:36
  Philip Pape: How do you know you're lifting heavy enough to build the muscle?
• 1:41
  Philip Pape: Oh, my goodness, this is such a fundamental, simple question, but one that everyone has on their mind when they're lifting weights.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: Then, when you see my content and you see me talking about weights, I'm like you've got to train heavy, you've got to use progressive overload, you've got to use the muscle, mechanical tension and effective reps or whatever it's like.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: Okay, what does that mean?
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: All right, I have a few thoughts.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: The first thought is, like with anything you know, when the results tell you you're doing the thing, what does that mean?
• 2:13
  Philip Pape: Well, if your goal is to build muscle, your results are you're building muscle.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: Now, how do you know you're building muscle?
• 2:19
  Philip Pape: Well, this is where there's multiple data points that can tell you that.
• 2:23
  Philip Pape: That is just how you look and feel.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: Are you filling out your arms or your glutes or whatever?
• 2:29
  Philip Pape: Wherever you're trying to build your muscle, are you feeling leaner and stronger?
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: Are your lifts progressing?
• 2:36
  Philip Pape: That's one of the main ways that we know, because muscle follows strength.
• 2:40
  Philip Pape: If you're progressing on your lifts, no matter what rep ranges you're using, no matter what programming you're using.
• 2:45
  Philip Pape: If they are progressing in some way load reps, sets then you are getting stronger and lifting heavy enough.
• 2:54
  Philip Pape: If you're flat lined, if you're lifting the same weights week after week after week, then you're not Circumference measurements.
• 3:02
  Philip Pape: That's another objective way to do it.
• 3:03
  Philip Pape: Your waist size, or your biceps, your thighs, your chest, should all be slowly trending up over time.
• 3:10
  Philip Pape: That's what the second way is.
• 3:15
  Philip Pape: In the session itself, when you are lifting, if you feel like you could do another Two reps, you're probably not lifting heavy enough.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: Now again, we're.
• 3:24
  Philip Pape: It depends on the lift, the big compound lifts.
• 3:26
  Philip Pape: If you're doing, for example, sets across like three sets of five and your your goals to get exactly five reps, it's not so much about the feel as the fact that you went up by by more weight than you did last time, in the time before that and time or for that, and eventually you'll know what heavy feels like, because you will be building muscle.
• 3:45
  Philip Pape: The fact that you can go up and wait each time go back to my first comment it means that you're lifting heavy enough.
• 3:51
  Philip Pape: But if you're working in like a rep range let's say eight to twelve and you bang out twelve reps and it's like, okay, done, no.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: If you get to twelve and you feel like you could do two more reps, do two more reps.
• 4:01
  Philip Pape: And then, if you still feel like you could do two more, do two more.
• 4:03
  Philip Pape: You get my point.
• 4:04
  Philip Pape: You should be able to go to the point where the next rep is really hard, where you could barely get it done.
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: Now there's grinding, which is like on a big lift, where You're shaking and it takes like ten seconds to get the lift.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: You don't always want to be at that place, necessarily, but and that's why I like sets across for beginners, for the big lifts, but for the accessory work, you know like, let's say you're, by doing bicep curls, you can go to complete failure on those.
• 4:34
  Philip Pape: You can go to where you know you get it.
• 4:35
  Philip Pape: It slows down, it slows down again and then this next rep is like you're just impossible to get it up.
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: You know you lifted heavy enough and then next week you should be able to increase the weight or add more reps, or Add more sets even.
• 4:49
  Philip Pape: I mean that's, that's a more advanced strategy there.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: All right, so the feel of it me, you're not just hitting 12 reps because that's what your program says.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: You know You're hitting what's actually heavy.
• 5:00
  Philip Pape: Now, if you get to 12 and it's super easy during the session I would just I would just up the weight and Consider that last set, a warm-up set, and up the weight until the 12 is barely accomplishable, and then you know you're lifting heavy enough.
• 5:15
  Philip Pape: That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: Remember, this is just a small part of the weekly ask Philip live Q&A in the Whits and Weights Facebook group, which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes.
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together.
• 5:33
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Whits and Weights.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up there with sore weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform Right now to catch the next episode.
• 5:53
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.