Increasing Your Weight

And no...I don't mean via Weight Gain 4000.  Although most of you may be too young to remember when this episode of South Park wasn't a rerun for the 100th time.

Last week at training I was writing down what weights you were using for each of the exercises in our repertoire, not because I was bored or tired of attempting assisted chin-ups, but because it's important that you pay attention to the amount of weight you're lifting.  It's been about six weeks since we started back up at training, so at this point you should be more comfortable with the exercises and things should be getting easier.  Maybe not all of the time, but in general, you should be having less trouble completing the agility, weights and cardio activities.  However, while this is great and it shows you're making progress, you need to keep challenging yourselves so that you keep making gains in all three of those important areas.  You're not making yourself a better athlete if you're not increasing either your weights or your reps when you have become stronger and are able to, or if you're not pedaling at a higher RPM on the bikes because you don't want to feel the burn. 

Here are some guidelines to increase the weight you are able to lift safely and effectively.  When it comes to the agility and cardio, you need to push yourself from the inside since it's a bit tougher for someone else to measure improvement in these areas.

You'll probably have noticed that we do a different number of reps for each of the exercises in the weights routine- some are as low as 6, others are as high as 15.  This is an important part of the program that Breege has designed for you.  For exercises where we complete a lower number of reps, we're going more for strength.  When we're doing 15 reps for an exercise, we're trying to build up the endurance of the muscle.  Doing exercises for 12 reps is a blend of both muscular strength and endurance.  However, no matter what your target number of reps is, you want to be fatigued by the last couple and you shouldn't be able to do many more past your target.  For example, if you're doing bench press (either with dumbbells or with the bar) with a target of 12 reps, and you feel like you could keep going way past 12, then you need to increase your weight.  This may mean that you can only do 8 reps on the next set, but you need to keep working with that higher weight and as you get stronger you'll be able to eventually reach your goal of 12.  Increasing your weight when completing a higher number of reps doesn't mean that you're going to bulk up and bust out of your grad dress, it means that you're going to challenge your muscles and get stronger for those situations in a game that will test your strength.

For certain exercises, however, it will be pretty tough for you to increase your weights.  Take the side-lying external rotation exercise, for example.  If you're doing it with good form, you know that it's pretty tough to get through all 15 reps using just a 5lb weight.  Once it does start to get easier, however, it's totally ok to start out your set with a larger weight (ie. 8lb) and then switch to a smaller weight once it becomes too heavy or your form starts to suffer.  Or, you can always ask Haylee, Niki or I to give you a modification such as using tubing or one of the other weights machines in the room (and if you're doing your training elsewhere, make sure you ask a trainer or strength and conditioning coach for modifications).

The point is that you need to get out of your comfort zone and bump up the weights when you're ready.  Some of you did mention that you felt your technique was improving over the last six weeks even though you couldn't lift more weight.  This is an important part of getting stronger and ready to lift more weight.  I can guarantee you that the girls you'll be competing against next summer in Sherbrooke are working hard in the gym and will be in peak physical condition when they play you.  You need to be ready for them, and that starts with something as simple as bumping up your weight on a couple of exercises at training this week.

Val

How good does this exercise look???