Comment by lifting_throw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifting_throw | Hacker News Reader

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Some folks are able to lift heavy weights frequently, and that's awesome. I'm jealous. But here's a comment directed at people who've tried that and hurt themselves.

For years I tried to lift heavy. Big compound barbell lifts. In my early 20s it was OK, but by 30 I started hurting myself. I always warmed up fully, but kept tearing things. I tried eating more, eating better, more recovery, everything I could think of.

Finally I gave up on doing 1 rep max lifts, or even 3-5 reps 90% 1RM. Now I do very high repetition workouts. I'm talking warm up sets at 20-30 reps, "work" sets at 10-20, with a minimum of 5 sets, with limited rest between. I focus on every rep - focus on feeling the muscle contract, and focus on thinking about moving blood to the contracted muscle. I try to go to failure every set but the first.

Sounds goofy, but it's been a game changer for me. I don't hurt myself, and I look much bigger/better than ever before. I'm not sure if I'm really "stronger" since I don't lift heavy anymore - but I've added pounds of muscle so I wager I am.

Point is - a lot of folks get huge mileage out of lifting heavy. I wish I was one of them. For those of use who, for whatever reason, don't have the body type to handle it. High rep workouts are the next best thing!

You're doing good, form is better than just lifting heavy. It's counter-productive, you hurt something and then laid up for weeks in recovery. I hurt my shoulder lifting heavy and it took me months to get to even half of what I was lifting earlier. I've been lifting for 22 of my last 40 years, so know how/what to lift, but sometimes all it takes is a small mistake to throw you off. Focus on a comfortable weight and slowly add 5 pound increments from there, never compromising on form.

> Finally I gave up on doing 1 rep max lifts

I never understood why people focus on 1 RM lifts. They're obviously a huge strain on your body and there's literally no benefit for the vast majority of lifters. Good to hear you found a good template that works for you though, often people just give up on lifting.

I've had to start doing the same after turning 40, more 20-30 rep sets, no more 5 reps. I just ended up injuring myself too many times by pushing my max too much.

The other thing that seems to help is warming up - working up instead of down. I start with lower weight and work up to my max over several sets, rather than what I used to do, start at my max and only drop when I couldn't lift it anymore.

Lifting to optimize hypertrophy usually involves medium-heavy weights at significantly higher volumes. More along the lines of 5x12s instead of 5x5s.

In my experience, working out in the 90-100% range is Evil Magic. It works for a while so you think "Hooray, I'm stronger than I've ever been" and you enjoy posting heroic numbers. Then it stops working and becomes all about demonstrating strength rather than building it.

It sounds a lot like you've reinvented bodybuilding with your protocol. You're probably not actually stronger in a strict 1RM sense than you were before, but you may well be healthier and you sound happy, so why worry?

If you occasionally threw in a peaking protocol and worked your way back up to the 90% range you'd probably be beastly; the trick is not to stay there.

Lifting-wise, age is a game changer for most.

If you want to train low rep after 30 you have to do just 1 big lift per training session, and no more than 3-4 sessions per week.

A related problem is that low rep lifting burns little calories (training volume is not much) but requires quite a surplus to recover. So, as your metabolism decreases with age, it tends to make you fat.

After 40 anything below 8 reps is too low and most exercises should be done between 8-12 reps for big lifts and 12-15 reps for small lifts.

Also, unless you need to demonstrate low rep strength, as long as you increase the weight in the bar, you will get stronger.

Everyone who trains for strength is just one injury away from losing months and perhaps even years of work.

Training for muscle is a much more sustainable long term strategy.

90% or 1rep routines don't work well for natural lifters, every body has different composition so you need to find what works best for you, following the routines of enhanced builders is sure to give you only frustration and injuries. Same with bulking-cutting, it's hard to lose 15% of body fat without losing muscle as a natty, not impossible but not in 8 weeks as you see in training videos.

I'm quantitatively motivated, and almost never have access to a spotter, so I usually get my 1RM "fix" by calculating/extrapolating by using a lower weight and counting number of reps until near-failure.

Something like this helps: https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax

The total volume you lift with higher rep rqnges may be much higher than with high weight and low reps, hence you get bigger ;)

That's very interesting. I've frequently had to take time off lifting due to injuries, many of which never really relax properly. Eg a tense spot on my back I'm still having massage/physio done on.

Do you do barbells lifts at high rep, or other things? Also, how many days a week do you do it and for how long?

Barbells and dumbbells and bodyweight stuff. I load the bar very lightly. For example, for shoulder press I am usually putting 10 pounds on either side of a 45lb bar.

For deadlifts I do 20-30 reps at 105-145

Have you looked into Starting Strength (the book and the program)? It goes ridiculously anatomical in order to address the most common injuries uncoached weightlifters experience.

Yeah, I've gone through some of it. Helpful, I was waiting until I got my current back injuries fixed before trying to apply it. I don't think I can squat correctly while a certain spot is tight - have tried.

It did help me get closer to the proper position though.

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