The Value of High Rep, Low Weight Workouts

Normally, you wouldn’t consider a high repetition routine to build strength, but there are some good uses for it.

It used to be that people said use heavy weight to “bulk up” and light weight to “cut”. Turns out this just is not true. Strength – and muscle growth - comes from putting gradually greater stress on your muscles over time – enough to make them grow, but not enough to get injured in the process.

Lifting light weight can stress the muscles, but it’s not the type that forces the muscle to grow and too many reps can even cause muscle wasting – just look at the difference between a marathoner and a sprinter.

But there is one factor most people forget – the basic law of physics that says faster moving objects have a higher mass. Another words, if you move a light weight FASTER, it’s harder because in effect, it becomes heavier or more massive.

A sledge hammer is not particularly heavy, but swinging at the end of a 3 foot oak handle at high speed it is absolutely devastating – far more so that it’s resting mass might seem.

There are three ways to get more out of any work out: Move more weight, move the weight in a more controlled fashion, and – often forgotten – moving the weight faster.

Here’s where the light weight work outs come in. By moving the weight faster – but still in a controlled fashion – you will be getting a great workout while avoiding the potential joint and tendon damage of heavy metal.

It’s not nearly as impressive in the gym to work light weights, but it does offer some serious benefits. You can:

Working on your form is always a good idea, and lifting the heaviest dumbbell you can lift out of the rack is a sure way to develop bad form and probably injure yourself.

If you need to feel the burn, just speed up the movements some and you’ll find it gets plenty hard enough. No need to do a million reps; 3-4 sets of 12 to 20 is great. You will feel nice and tight after one of these workouts. Find the right weight that you can do easily for 10 to 15 reps fast.

If you train for a given sport, this is a good way to train. Concentrate on movements related to your sport and try to strongly accelerate your movements – especially at the starting point. This will give you that explosive strength needed during competition.

If you feel burnt or are injured, rest is really the first step, but some injuries – like the common tendonitis – respond to light weighs better that doing nothing. Check with your doctor to find out what’s the best treatment for any pain you have.

Breaking up your routine to keep boredom or muscle adaption from setting in and it’s also a great way to provoke more muscle growth. Muscles quickly adapt to workloads allowing you to use less energy to do a given amount of work. This means to make them grow, you constantly need to challenge them one way or another – the change up from fewer reps with heavy weights to many reps with low weight could be just what you need to “surprise” your muscles and keep them developing.

But don’t expect to look like a body builder doing light stuff, you need big iron to get big results – period. If you are looking for overall strength, this should only be used every once and a while, not part of your main routine.

In fact, working your muscles too much with low resistance will cause them to shrink, – plus you’ll be tired as hell to boot.

And if you want to look “ripped”, try losing that gut via a proper diet. Cardio sessions are what burn the fat, so don’t leave those out.

Even working your leg muscles with a light routine is not the same as cardio since it’s difficult to stay moving constantly when doing resistance exercises. This constant movement is what truly defines cardio and is what burns the most calories.

But if you feel in a rut, feel burnt out or just want to take it easy for the day, light workouts are perfect. They are even better if you’re coming off the injured list, so start light and work back up real slow – no sense re-injuring yourself.

For women who are worried about bulking up and want to have tight but small muscles, this may just be the perfect workout. Even thought the changes of growing large muscles are very small even using heavy weights, “lite lifting” is even less prone to gain size.

Remember that everyone is different and responds differently to exercise – in fact, there are those who actually grow muscles faster using lite workouts. Unfortunately for you, these are the same people who grow using just about any type exercise and always look well-muscled. But you should try working with lesser weight for a few weeks and see how your body responds – you might be surprised at the results!

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