Heavier Weights Or More Reps: Let’s End This Debate Once And For All!

Is It Better To Do Heavier Weights Or More Reps?

So you’ve been hitting the gym for quite some time, you’re past the novice stage, and showing good progress. However, you’re now looking to add more strength to your body but find yourself confused over the next appropriate step.

Should you be going for heavier weights or more reps at this particular stage of your training? This confusion results from plethora of information you get from your friends, training partners and internet forums.

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Heavier Weights Or More Reps?

Ultimately, the answer boils down to two choices:

1. More weight and less reps, or
2. More reps and less weight.

Some people say one set works better than the other, while others claim otherwise. But the truth is both sets are equally effective.

Let’s go back to the drawing board on why you want know if you should be doing heavier weights or more reps in the first place. You want this to be answered because you want to make progress, and you understand you’re now in a certain phase where you have strength but there is room for more improvement.

You have hit what’s known as the “Fitness Plateau”. This means that you’ve grown out of the current reps and weight sets you’re incorporating into your workouts and it’s time for change.

More Weights and Low Reps Routine

Let’s first consider the more weight and low reps training routine. In this routine, you’ll want to gradually increase the weight you lift. This is a routine that’s good for strength building. The one thing to remember here, however, is you shouldn’t get too caught up over lifting numbers because you would end up hurting your body and breaking your form and posture, which are the most important parts of your routine.

Building your form and posture takes time, patience and discipline, and you don’t want this to get undone. So going for more weight is good as long as you keep it consistent to your form.

Increasing Both Weight and Reps

But suppose you’ve been keeping everything under control for the last couple of weeks while simultaneously increasing weight.  Once again you’ve run into a wall where you can’t add more weight because it’s now hurting your form. This is the moment you have been waiting for as it’s now time for you to add more reps to the exercise. This is called ‘double progression’, which simply means you increase both weight and reps.

Always Focus On Your Form

When training, you should always focus on your form. If you’re facing a bit of difficulty keeping both weight and reps up, just remember there’s no need to show off to anybody, or prove to the entire gym that you’re able to lift huge weight numbers. You should instead do yourself a favor and lower the weight while keeping the reps up. Doing so won’t hinder you from making progress. The key in training is always consistency, and not the weight or reps. Slow and steady always wins the race!

Whenever it comes to heavier weights or more reps, remember everything works in tandem with one another. You need to figure out what your sweet combination is while ensuring you’re still in sync with your body and form. If someone lifts more weight and does less reps, or does more reps while lifting a little lesser, it doesn’t mean they are right or wrong as long as they understand their body and are keeping a good form and routine.

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Building up muscle isn’t easy.  If you’re not doing it right you can hurt yourself. You can also end up doing all the workouts while not actually building up any muscle. When women try to build muscle they often end up making a variety of mistakes that make the job of building muscle much harder than it needs to be.  To learn more, download my free report, 10 Muscle Toning Mistakes Women Make and make your choice for heavier weights or more reps.