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How do you know you're lifting heavy enough to build muscle ?

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Find out in today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast . I'm your host , philip Pape , and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger , optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition . We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement , metabolism , muscle and mindset . With a skeptical eye on the fitness industry , so you can look and feel your absolute best , let's dive right in . Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Whits and Weights podcast , where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend . These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Philip thread in our free Whits and Weights Facebook community . If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and , let's be honest , misinformation online and just want a straight up answer without the jargon , that's what this free service is for . With the weekly Ask Philip thread , you can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday . If you'd like to experience it yourself , I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Whits and Weights Facebook group . It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is .

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With that , let's get to today's Q&A . How do you know you're lifting heavy enough to build the muscle ? Oh , my goodness , this is such a fundamental , simple question , but one that everyone has on their mind when they're lifting weights . Then , when you see my content and you see me talking about weights , I'm like you've got to train heavy , you've got to use progressive overload , you've got to use the muscle , mechanical tension and effective reps or whatever it's like . Okay , what does that mean ? All right , I have a few thoughts . The first thought is , like with anything you know , when the results tell you you're doing the thing , what does that mean ? Well , if your goal is to build muscle , your results are you're building muscle . Now , how do you know you're building muscle ? Well , this is where there's multiple data points that can tell you that . That is just how you look and feel . Are you filling out your arms or your glutes or whatever ? Wherever you're trying to build your muscle , are you feeling leaner and stronger ? Are your lifts progressing ? That's one of the main ways that we know , because muscle follows strength . If you're progressing on your lifts , no matter what rep ranges you're using , no matter what programming you're using . If they are progressing in some way load reps , sets then you are getting stronger and lifting heavy enough . If you're flat lined , if you're lifting the same weights week after week after week , then you're not Circumference measurements . That's another objective way to do it . Your waist size , or your biceps , your thighs , your chest , should all be slowly trending up over time . That's what the second way is .

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In the session itself , when you are lifting , if you feel like you could do another Two reps , you're probably not lifting heavy enough . Now again , we're . It depends on the lift , the big compound lifts . If you're doing , for example , sets across like three sets of five and your your goals to get exactly five reps , it's not so much about the feel as the fact that you went up by by more weight than you did last time , in the time before that and time or for that , and eventually you'll know what heavy feels like , because you will be building muscle . The fact that you can go up and wait each time go back to my first comment it means that you're lifting heavy enough .

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But if you're working in like a rep range let's say eight to twelve and you bang out twelve reps and it's like , okay , done , no . If you get to twelve and you feel like you could do two more reps , do two more reps . And then , if you still feel like you could do two more , do two more . You get my point . You should be able to go to the point where the next rep is really hard , where you could barely get it done .

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Now there's grinding , which is like on a big lift , where You're shaking and it takes like ten seconds to get the lift . You don't always want to be at that place , necessarily , but and that's why I like sets across for beginners , for the big lifts , but for the accessory work , you know like , let's say you're , by doing bicep curls , you can go to complete failure on those . You can go to where you know you get it . It slows down , it slows down again and then this next rep is like you're just impossible to get it up . You know you lifted heavy enough and then next week you should be able to increase the weight or add more reps , or Add more sets even . I mean that's , that's a more advanced strategy there . All right , so the feel of it me , you're not just hitting 12 reps because that's what your program says . You know You're hitting what's actually heavy . Now , if you get to 12 and it's super easy during the session I would just I would just up the weight and Consider that last set , a warm-up set , and up the weight until the 12 is barely accomplishable , and then you know you're lifting heavy enough .

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That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Remember , this is just a small part of the weekly ask Philip live Q&A in the Whits and Weights Facebook group , which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes . I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together . Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Whits and Weights . If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up there with sore weights , please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform Right now to catch the next episode . Until then , stay strong .