Weight Selection

How to Select the Weights Used During Your Workouts

     Bill Starr said one time that the most confusing aspect of setting up a strength program is selecting the poundages to be used for the various sets of an exercise.  A lot of lifters can’t decide the weight to start with or the weights to utilize for all the intermediate sets as they work their way up to a heavy set of 5 or a max triple, double, or single.  Starr even said that he spent more time giving advice on this than any other subject in lifting.

     I personally receive more questions about other things—a lot of lifters need help with an assortment of training stuff before they even get around to deciding weight selection—but I have noticed that this confuses a lot of lifters compared to many subjects.  And it’s not just beginners, either.  A lot of advanced lifters get confused, especially when changing over to a new program.

     Perhaps there’s more good information out there about weight selection these days, but I remember being confused about this myself when I first started lifting (way back in the ‘80s).  At that time, most workout routines laid out in the magazines didn’t really explain this aspect.  But you can’t really blame the muscle rags.  If the program came from a well-known bodybuilder—as a great majority of them did—he or she may have used weights, and methods of selecting their warm-up weights, that didn’t apply to the average reader.  And if you were a writer (such as me) who wrote “general” programs for the “general” audience, it was hard to outline all the details needed to decide this because your readers had such varying strength levels.

     Although I try to be as clear as possible about how to decide weight selection when I write a training program, I thought it would be a good idea to write an essay specifically about weight selection and weight progression.  Hence, what you’re now reading.

     One reason for the confusion—and this also might be the reason that it’s not written about more—is because of how individualistic it can be, and this doesn’t really have anything to do with strength levels.  No matter how strong (or weak) you are, you may like to utilize entirely different weight progressions from someone else at the exact same strength level.  Some lifters prefer a lot of warm-up sets as they progress up to a max five, triple, or single.  Others prefer a very limited number of warm-ups even when going for a really heavy max single.  Most are somewhere in between, but to varying degrees.

     I’ve been to more than my fair share of powerlifting meets over the years and have watched hundreds of powerlifters in the warm-up area/room to understand just how individualistic this truly is.  Some lifters like to do many warmup sets and some like to do only a few.  And then, no matter the number of sets utilized, some like to take a final warmup set very close to their opening attempt on the lifting platform, whereas others might take a final warmup that’s a hundred pounds away from their opener.  I’ve even seen lifters—and I’m hesitant to even write about this because I wouldn’t want you to imitate it—take their first attempt almost cold with only one warmup set beforehand.

     Even though bodybuilders generally don’t need as many warmups because the work sets are done (often though not always) with lighter weights, at least in comparison to what they may be capable of lifting for a max single, you still see a wide range of warmups.  I’ve known bodybuilders—and once again, I’m not recommending this—who just jumped right into their work sets with no warmups, but I’ve also known bodybuilders who like to do a lot of warmup sets, at least for their first exercise.  Some of these bodybuilders even warmed up on the stationary bike—or some other light cardiovascular activity—for 30 minutes or more before starting the weighted portion of their workout.

     Although the exact number can vary, you need to do some progressively heavier sets to warm up to your max work weight, whether it’s for one max single or multiple work sets using multiple reps.  When going for a max weight, however, you don’t need to do so many warmups that you are fatigued.  This is the reason that I’m typically against so-called “pyramid” sets where you start off by doing sets of 10 or 12 reps, then add weight and decrease reps as you work up to a heavy triple, double, or single.  That kind of training just fatigues you too much.  I’m pretty sure that there are even quite a few lifters out there who are stronger than they know.  (Now, to be honest, this is also counteracted by the number of delusional lifters who are not near as strong as they believe themselves to be, but I don’t want to digress…)  The reason for their perceived weakness?  They take too many high-rep warmup sets before going for their max lift.

     To illustrate this point, Bill Starr told a story about a professional football player that he worked with when he was the strength coach for the Baltimore Stallions (a now-defunct team that was part of the Canadian Football League).  Here’s how Starr told it: “This player told me he wanted to bench press 300 but was stuck at 275.  For several weeks I spotted him while he went after a heavy single.  He never got past 275.  His form was fine.  I saw his problem and asked if he’d like some assistance in selecting his warmup weights.  Like most professional athletes, he was skeptical.  After all, he’d gotten this far without too much outside help.  I told him he was already strong enough to master 300 because he could do 255 for 5.  I explained to him that he was doing too many reps before going for his max single.  He was doing 10s up to 225 and then as many as he could do with 255 before trying a single.  Finally, out of frustration, he agreed to let me pick his weights.  I had him do fives with 135, 185, and 225, then singles with 255, 280, 290, and 300.  He did each single easily, and I made a friend for life.  I would have proceeded to the 300 after the 280, but since he was breaking a PR on each of the heavy sets, I didn’t want the numbers to get in his head.  I then showed him with pen and paper that I’d simply eliminated nearly 3,500 pounds from his warmups, thereby leaving much more energy and strength to go after the big weights.”
     This is one of the reasons that I’m fond of ramps instead of pyramids.  With ramps, you use the same reps or a small range of reps throughout your warmup sets.  I wouldn’t even call them warmup sets, to be honest.  Too many lifters think of the warmup sets as not part of the workout, but that’s not how they should be viewed.  You can get a lot of good sets in, ones that really help to “build” the total workload of your training sessions, even though the sets aren’t all-out or close to your max.  It’s a sort of “sneaky” way to help increase your workload and build up your work capacity.

     Let’s say you want to go for a max single of 405 in your squat, which would be a new PR for you.  Do sets of 5 with 135, 185, and 225.  At this point, switch over to triples, and do triples until they start to get hard, but not until you hit a max triple.  So, you might end up doing triples with 255, 275, and 315.  Now, switch over to singles.  Don’t do too many if you’re going for a new max.  In this case, you might do singles with 340 and 375, then attempt a new PR with 405.  If you’re not going for a max, then do more singles than that, and stop when a single gets really tough but not all-out.  In which case, you might do singles with 335, 355, 375, and 385.  That’s the “secret,” by the way, of making the Bulgarian method work.  The Bulgarian method, if you’re not familiar with it, revolves around going for a max single at each training session, which might be almost daily.  But it’s not a “true” max because of all the singles you do working up to it.  Also, some days (quite obviously) you won’t be very strong, so you just work up to whatever you can do that day.  This method works by the amount of workload that is accumulated over the course of a week, a month, and so on.

     When it comes to weight selection and progression, it will always vary due to individual preferences and genetics.  But take some of my suggestions into account if you’re struggling with what weights to use in your workouts.  And remember not to fatigue your muscles too much before going for that big lift.  Do that, and you might just be surprised at how strong you truly are!

 

 

     If you want more essays such as this one, be sure to purchase my latest e-book, “Ultimate Mass and Power Essays.”