Building muscle with light weights? I thought you had to lift at 90% of your maximum to build muscle. New research is starting to refute this (so has my experience). This is great news for people with high blood pressure issues or even the elderly.
Lifting heavy is not the only option anymore. I have previously mentioned on my videos and facebook page about lifting with a slow cadence (3 seconds up and 3 seconds down, no pause until you finish the set, using 50% of maximum) builds nearly as much muscle as lifting heavy. Now, researches have taken this a bit further and gone after even lighter weights and seen similar results.
The key seems to be - pushing the set to failure. I have seen research showing this is not as beneficial for strength but my opinion is those studies did not account for enough rest at the high weights (just an opinion). Pushing to failure makes more sense for increased strength. So if you're lifting the lighter weights - go each set to failure. The study participants who did this were still building muscle 24 HOURS after the workout. Those who lifted heavy weights WERE NOT.
The original abstract from the research is here.
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