Should you lift heavy or light ?

Now without getting too scientific and I will try and explain this in the simplest way possible .Take two weights one which is extremely light like a bottle of water and other relatively heavy like a 10 kg dumbbell .Now perform bicep curl with the bottle of water and do 10 repetitions ….do you feel any anything?? The answer is no because the weight that you are lifting is not challenging enough for your muscles. ..Forget 10 repetitions even if you do 60 repetitions you still will not feel any difference as your muscle are already used to it and hence will not respond. ance, but are not conducive to gaining muscular mass.
Low intensity activities like lifting a water bottle,lifting a spoon or laptop recruit motor unit that have smaller number of muscle fibre which are called low threshold motor units.

Now try and lift 10 kg dumbbells for 10 repetitions …do you feel a difference??The answer is yes because this weight is challenging for your muscles and in order to lift this weight you have to apply strength or power. With high intensity activities which require more force the body not only has to recruit low threshold motor units but also has to recruit additional high threshold motor units that have number of muscle fibre.

So its pretty clear that lifting heavy weight works better than lifting light, but having said that if you are a beginner then do not straight away jump into lifting heavy weights as chances of injury are extremely high because your muscles /joints are not conditioned for it .So start light and build it up slowly.

Raghav Pande is New Delhi (India) based Fitness Consultant

He is a Certified Fitness Trainer,Sports Nutritionist and the Winner of “You Tube Next Trainer”

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