If you happen to find a weight training system that brings quick results, you are fortunate. At the same time, you are at risk for buying into using that same system for a life time because the initial results were so promising. This can be a problem for a long term lifter because lifting that brings quick results can just as quickly lead to a training plateau. There may be other approaches that don’t cause gains to come as fast, but they work better in terms of long term consistent results that don’t lead to a plateau.
After years of training, I have come to the point where I believe that weight training progress works a lot like different types of races. You can sprint, you can run middle distance, or you can run a long distance race. Your strategy for each type of race will be different. If you try to sprint when doing a long distance race, it will actually slow you down in the end. You may be way ahead of everyone else at the start of the race, but you will quickly run out of gas and get passed up. In contrast, if you use a long distance pace for a 40 yard dash, you will get beat and look pathetically slow.
Within the realm of weight training, there are training methods that are the equivalent of sprinting because they produce quick results for a short amount of time. In contrast, you can use training methods that produce slower results, but they eventually result in more progress over a longer period of time. Having said that, I will give you my perspective on training methods that produce short term gains, medium term gains, and long term gains.
High Intensity: A Short Term Perspective
I made my best gains and my fastest gains with high intensity training. I didn’t go high intensity on every set, but I worked up to high intensity in the vast majority of workouts. In the process, my bench press improved by about 60 pounds, and my squat and deadlift improved by close to 100 pounds in three months. I thought this was such good progress that I was sold on high intensity training for years. The problem was that it didn’t work for years, it only worked for three months and then it quit working. Would I ever tell someone not to use high intensity training? No, I would tell them to use it as long as it is working, but if it quits working, quit doing it.
Training Thresholds with Heavy weights: A Medium Length Perspective
My experience with high intensity training is that it doesn’t work forever, although if someone experiences long term ongoing gains from high intensity training, they should keep doing it. Since it doesn’t work for me in the context of long term progress, I experimented until I found something that did work. What worked was training thresholds which I also refer to as precision points. Precision points are based on strong training which means to only repeat sets for a muscle group as long as it is at full strength, and only repeat reps of a set as long as a steady even rep pace can be maintained. This is all that is necessary to stimulate strength and your body can handle this type of training over and over again on a fairly frequent basis without burning out or stalling out.
Light Weights: A Long Term Perspective
At the time of this writing, I am about one week shy of reaching my 55th birthday. By necessity over the last few years, I have had to often resort to the use of light weight to keep from agitating or reigniting old injuries. Anytime I switch to light weights, I admit that I start to lose strength. However, what I have found out about light weights is that you can keep adding little by little over time and the weights keep feeling light, even though the weight is increasing and getting heavier. The result is that my strength eventually comes back to its previously level, but it takes the better part of a year before my strength is regained. This makes it seem like progressing with light weights is a long slow tedious process that doesn’t work very well. However, the gains keep coming a lot longer before encountering a plateau. This is not evident unless you are forced to stick with light weights for a long time, which most people never do. The bottom line is that if you know how to use light weights properly, they can prove to be beneficial in the context of long term training and lifetime lifters.
Light Weights Must Be Used Correctly to Be Effective
Having said that light weights are effective when used as a long term strategy, I need to clarify that I have found plenty of ways to make no progress at all with light weights. The worst way to make progress with light weights is to think that you can do three sets of eight reps once or twice per week and make progress like you would with heavy weights. Wrong. More volume and frequency is needed when using light weights. The second big mistake is to assume that you must train to failure in order to get anything out of your workouts with light weights. Wrong again. Training to failure with light weights allows you to do way too many reps beyond the proper stopping of a set.
With heavier weights, I advise stopping a set at the point where a steady even rep pace can no longer be maintained. When using a lighter weights that are 50% or less than your single rep max, I advise you to stay relaxed as long as possible and to stop a set when you feel your body suddenly start to tighten up. It is also very important to repeat sets only as long as the muscle group being trained is at full strength. If you adhere to these boundaries, you can and should train each muscle group three to six times per week. A final important factor is to add weight to your lifts little by little by micro-loading a half pound to a pound per week, and you will be able to keep on adding weight for a long, long time which is the goal of a long term weight training plan. Eventually those light weights are going to get heavier, but they will still feel light because you will be getting stronger.
I realize that the perspectives that I just shared in regard to training with light weights does not fit into the traditional view point on how to build strength, but I have found it to be true almost by accident in order to avoid injuries. What I want to emphasize is that training methods that work quick and fast should be used if your goal is to obtain results as quick and fast as possible, but if your goal is long term progress, there are training methods that may seem inferior because they work slower, but they work more consistently over a long period of time. Best of training to you.
Need evidence that training with light weights can be an effective long term training strategy? Take a look at Serge Nubret at age 54. Serge rarely used more than 50% of his single rep max, but relied on plenty of training volume with light weights to develop his size and strength. Even though Serge was a bodybuilder, not a weight lifter, he could bench 500 pounds raw at a bodyweight of just over 200 pounds.