When are you ready to increase your weights?

listen to your body:

Being able to interpret how you're feeling is an important part of working out.  Listening to your body and paying attention to certain cues will help you perfrom exercises safely and in the most effective way.   After reading this post, you'll learn when an exercise is too hard or too easy for you and how to make adjustments!

If you're like a lot of my clients...

Increasing your weight on exercises can be a scary thing to do on your own.  Honestly, most of my clients have told me they don't feel confident enough to do it on their own, and they like to have me there to guide them.  The reality is though, I don't set the rules...  THEY DO.  All I do is watch for their cues and interpret that information for them.  

Signs something is too easy:

1. you can reach 20+ reps with no fatigue
2. you can breathe normally after a set
3. you can perform a timed exercise for over 90 seconds

Signs something is too hard:

1. you cannot complete two reps with good form
2. you find yourself holding your breath throughout a movement
3. you cannot hold a timed exercise for even 10 seconds

my general rule of thumb is:

If you can perform an exercise for 20 reps with good form, increase your weight by 2 - 10 lbs and see how many reps you can do well."

Yes, 2 - 10 lbs is a pretty wide range...  

That's because weighted exercises can vary SO MUCH.  Think about it: increasing by 2 lbs on a dumbbell curl is way harder than increasing by 2 lbs on a barbell squat.  In general, you can increase:

• by 2 (ish) lbs on upper body, one armed exercises
• by 5 (ish) lbs on upper body, two armed exercises
• by 5 (ish) lbs on lower body, one legged exercises
• by 10 (ish) lbs on lower body, two legged exercises

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What about non-weighted and timed exercises?

You got it, we need to increase difficulty on non weighted exercises too!  Whether you are holding side plank, doing pushups or performing TRX rows, you need to increase the difficulty of your modification once things get too easy.  The same rules apply here as stated above.  If you can hold side plank with bent knees for over 90 seconds, it's too easy and it's time to pick a harder modification.  If you can perform 20 beautiful pushups from the wall, they're too easy and it is time to decrease your angle.  If you can perform 20 awesome TRX rows, they're too easy and it's time to walk your feet closer to the anchor point.

STILL WANT MORE HELP?  TRY OUT A PRE-PLANNED WORKOUT ROUTINE:

EASY BUTTON workout plan

Conclusion:

Hopefully this post has given you some extra confidence to kill it in the gym!  Here are some final words of wisdom before you go off on your own though:

Increase weight SLOWLY."

Do not rush through increasing weights.  The faster you go, the easier it is to get injured.

Never increase weights without proper form."

Although increasing weight is an amazing feeling, I never want you to sacrifice form just to hit a new PR.

Do NOT train in only one rep range."

All the ranges have their benefits so it is important to train in each range.  If you want a week to week guide for this, try one of my workout cycles!  Each week of my workout cycles has a different rep range goal and tells you exactly how to group exercises together!

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