How to choose your weights to build muscle properly?

Building muscle and sculpting your body requires a lot more thought than you might initially think. Number of repetitions, tempo, exercises, rest time... All these elements must be taken into account to optimize your training. But the most important element to gain muscle remains the choice of weights. Light loads ? heavy loads ? Free weights? Here are the data to take into account to choose the best solution.

What criteria should I take into account when choosing weights for bodybuilding?

The practitioners of bodybuilding all have their own experience, goals and a morphology which are different. To choose your weights, you must take all these elements into account and know how to adapt your training accordingly.

Experience: what weights to start with?

The most important thing at the beginning is to master the basic exercises. Indeed, before choosing an effective training programTo do this, it is best to work at a slow tempo, to master and perform a large number of repetitions per set. For this, it is better to work on a slow tempo, control and perform a large number of repetitions per series. Thus, from this point of view, it is preferable to favour a light weight, even very light. You will increase it quickly enough thereafter to return to a more traditional 8-12 x 4.

Depending on the muscle group worked on

Depending on the muscle group worked, your work weight will also be different. Indeed, to gain in abs or thighs, the work will be radically opposite. For the abs, for example, you will have to do a lot of repetitions (leg raises, crunches) at body weight. When toning your thighs, you will have to lift very heavy weights (in guided or free weights).

What's more, when we practice bodybuilding, after a few weeks or months of training, we may find that we have what are known as strengths. Some muscles are easier to develop than others, and therefore more powerful.

According to your goals in bodybuilding

Finally, the size of the discs you put on your bar will also depend on your goals. To gain in strength, it will be necessary to push heavy with few repetitions. To simply improve your physical condition and work hypertrophy, it will be better to make longer series but not too much and thus to take loads a little less heavy. And for endurance, you will have to do very long sets and work with light weights.

Choosing your loads in weight training: Two schools

In any case, if you are following a serious weight training program, at some point you will need to find the right weights for your barbells and dumbbells. To do this, there are two quite different methods.

Calculate your 1 RM

The first is to calculate your maximum workloadIn other words, the maximum weight for one repetition. For your biceps, for example, if at 15 kg per pair of dumbbells, you can't do more than one repetition, it's because this load is your RM for this exercise and you should therefore work in series with 75 % of it.

You should then repeat this technique for all your bodybuilding exercises, but don't take on a disproportionate load straight away.

Do your warm-ups Before the session, go up gradually to avoid injury.

Trial and error

The second technique for choosing your workload is to simply perform your exercises with dumbbells or adjustable weight machines, and add or remove loads based on the number of reps you want. This method is more time consuming, but also safer for your muscles than calculating your MR.

Do you want a complete bodybuilding program to follow?

The interest of progressive loads to gain muscle mass

With time and experience, we tend to pay more and more attention to the feeling to progress. But, at the beginning, when you don't yet know your body and its limits well, it is more interesting to quantify, calculate and program all aspects of your training.

To do this, use a notebook or training manual can be extremely interesting. By noting your loads of the preceding training, you do not waste time to test you on a series, you find directly your loads of work. The best is to try, at the very beginning, to increase your load every two sessions. Thus, you should quickly see the effects on your muscles. Nowadays, no one goes to the gym with their progress book, so you can write it all down on your phone to make it more convenient.

Safety first

After the first few months in the gym, you will find that your dumbbells and bars on your rack have tripled in size on all your muscle groups. At this point in your strength training, you may want to use a variety of accessories to isolate the muscles.

For example, to do this and not have your handles give out on demanding exercises like the deadlift or pull-ups, or back pulls, you can use straps or hooks. There is still a lot of useful bodybuilding equipment to progress in your physical preparation, but they will only come into play after a few months of assiduity at the gym.

The arm blast to isolate the arms, and other accessories can help you.

Indeed, the only thing to know for your first bodybuilding sessions is that the choice of your loads will condition your training volume and that the latter will condition your progress. So, be sure to choose the right load to work properly.

After several months or even years of weight training, it is possible that your progress will diminish. In this case, change your weight-training program can be a good way to keep getting results.

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