Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since OP asked if heavy weights are essential and what for:

As you age, the more lean muscle mass you have, the more likely you are to maintain bone density and prevent worsening osteoporosis. Osteoporosis can greatly decrease your lifespan when it limits your mobility and ability to stay active, increases your likelihood for fractures from minor falls and accidents, etc. For this reason, it's especially critical for perimenopausal and older women to increase protein consumption and lift heavier weights. Dieting and exercising purely for caloric deficit and weight loss is often at the cost of lean muscle mass.

Obviously extra fat mass carries risks regardless of your lean muscle mass and bone density, so it isn't just about those markers. However, safe weight training with progressively heavier weights should be a priority for almost everyone. The bonus is increased functional fitness for the rest of your life.

Any guides or videos to help someone worried about developing osteoporosis, like many women in my family?

Anonymous wrote:Since OP asked if heavy weights are essential and what for:

As you age, the more lean muscle mass you have, the more likely you are to maintain bone density and prevent worsening osteoporosis. Osteoporosis can greatly decrease your lifespan when it limits your mobility and ability to stay active, increases your likelihood for fractures from minor falls and accidents, etc. For this reason, it's especially critical for perimenopausal and older women to increase protein consumption and lift heavier weights. Dieting and exercising purely for caloric deficit and weight loss is often at the cost of lean muscle mass.

Obviously extra fat mass carries risks regardless of your lean muscle mass and bone density, so it isn't just about those markers. However, safe weight training with progressively heavier weights should be a priority for almost everyone. The bonus is increased functional fitness for the rest of your life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For general health and fitness, it doesn't really matter if you are doing sets of 15-20 (with relatively light weights) or sets of 5-7 (with relatively heavy weights). But to build strength, you do need to be using weights that are heavy enough to really challenge you. You don't have (and probably shouldn't) go to exhaustion, where you literally couldn't do another repetition if your life depended on it. But the last rep of the set should feel quite difficult and give you the sense that you couldn't do more than a few more.

Also, it's generally more efficient to do exercises that engage multiple large muscles, such as rows, deadlifts, and squats. You will naturally use heavier weights for those than for exercises like shoulder curls and bicep curls.

For instance, according to https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards60LB, an untrained, 97 pound woman in her 60s should (on average) be able to deadlift 30 pounds. Unless you are a frail, small, elderly woman, deadlifting with 10 pound dumbbells won't help. (And the standard for a "novice" 130 pound woman in her 40s is 115 lbs.

These deadlift amounts aren’t with dumbbells are they? I would pull a back back muscle if I lifted that! I usually do 15lbs for each dumbbell (30lbs total) and do it nice and slow, and feel it in hamstrings and glutes.

No, these are BB standards, but even with DBs you should be able to do significantly more than 15lbs. You are stretching the muscle, which is why you feel it, but you are not meaningfully overloading the muscles.

You have to be careful giving advice. It’s easy to injure yourself working with weights that are too heavy. People have to build up… slow & steady.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For general health and fitness, it doesn't really matter if you are doing sets of 15-20 (with relatively light weights) or sets of 5-7 (with relatively heavy weights). But to build strength, you do need to be using weights that are heavy enough to really challenge you. You don't have (and probably shouldn't) go to exhaustion, where you literally couldn't do another repetition if your life depended on it. But the last rep of the set should feel quite difficult and give you the sense that you couldn't do more than a few more.

Also, it's generally more efficient to do exercises that engage multiple large muscles, such as rows, deadlifts, and squats. You will naturally use heavier weights for those than for exercises like shoulder curls and bicep curls.

For instance, according to https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards60LB, an untrained, 97 pound woman in her 60s should (on average) be able to deadlift 30 pounds. Unless you are a frail, small, elderly woman, deadlifting with 10 pound dumbbells won't help. (And the standard for a "novice" 130 pound woman in her 40s is 115 lbs.

These deadlift amounts aren’t with dumbbells are they? I would pull a back back muscle if I lifted that! I usually do 15lbs for each dumbbell (30lbs total) and do it nice and slow, and feel it in hamstrings and glutes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For general health and fitness, it doesn't really matter if you are doing sets of 15-20 (with relatively light weights) or sets of 5-7 (with relatively heavy weights). But to build strength, you do need to be using weights that are heavy enough to really challenge you. You don't have (and probably shouldn't) go to exhaustion, where you literally couldn't do another repetition if your life depended on it. But the last rep of the set should feel quite difficult and give you the sense that you couldn't do more than a few more.

Also, it's generally more efficient to do exercises that engage multiple large muscles, such as rows, deadlifts, and squats. You will naturally use heavier weights for those than for exercises like shoulder curls and bicep curls.

For instance, according to https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards60LB, an untrained, 97 pound woman in her 60s should (on average) be able to deadlift 30 pounds. Unless you are a frail, small, elderly woman, deadlifting with 10 pound dumbbells won't help. (And the standard for a "novice" 130 pound woman in her 40s is 115 lbs.

These deadlift amounts aren’t with dumbbells are they? I would pull a back back muscle if I lifted that! I usually do 15lbs for each dumbbell (30lbs total) and do it nice and slow, and feel it in hamstrings and glutes.

No, these are BB standards, but even with DBs you should be able to do significantly more than 15lbs. You are stretching the muscle, which is why you feel it, but you are not meaningfully overloading the muscles.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For general health and fitness, it doesn't really matter if you are doing sets of 15-20 (with relatively light weights) or sets of 5-7 (with relatively heavy weights). But to build strength, you do need to be using weights that are heavy enough to really challenge you. You don't have (and probably shouldn't) go to exhaustion, where you literally couldn't do another repetition if your life depended on it. But the last rep of the set should feel quite difficult and give you the sense that you couldn't do more than a few more.

Also, it's generally more efficient to do exercises that engage multiple large muscles, such as rows, deadlifts, and squats. You will naturally use heavier weights for those than for exercises like shoulder curls and bicep curls.

For instance, according to https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards60LB, an untrained, 97 pound woman in her 60s should (on average) be able to deadlift 30 pounds. Unless you are a frail, small, elderly woman, deadlifting with 10 pound dumbbells won't help. (And the standard for a "novice" 130 pound woman in her 40s is 115 lbs.

These deadlift amounts aren’t with dumbbells are they? I would pull a back back muscle if I lifted that! I usually do 15lbs for each dumbbell (30lbs total) and do it nice and slow, and feel it in hamstrings and glutes.

Anonymous wrote:For general health and fitness, it doesn't really matter if you are doing sets of 15-20 (with relatively light weights) or sets of 5-7 (with relatively heavy weights). But to build strength, you do need to be using weights that are heavy enough to really challenge you. You don't have (and probably shouldn't) go to exhaustion, where you literally couldn't do another repetition if your life depended on it. But the last rep of the set should feel quite difficult and give you the sense that you couldn't do more than a few more.

Also, it's generally more efficient to do exercises that engage multiple large muscles, such as rows, deadlifts, and squats. You will naturally use heavier weights for those than for exercises like shoulder curls and bicep curls.

For instance, according to https://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards60LB, an untrained, 97 pound woman in her 60s should (on average) be able to deadlift 30 pounds. Unless you are a frail, small, elderly woman, deadlifting with 10 pound dumbbells won't help. (And the standard for a "novice" 130 pound woman in her 40s is 115 lbs.

Anonymous wrote:I'm 42. I have for years done strength training at home (30 minute videos) in addition to cardio and am generally happy with the results, and recently added some 10 pound weights to my routine instead of just 5s and feel like I'm getting a good strength training workout. I also love barre but am never clear if that should count as strength training or exercise.

I keep hearing about how everyone is doing workouts with heavy weights though - are they essential, and what for? I will admit that weight loss is a goal for me, but historically that has been more about food for me. As I get older, trying to figure out what the right mix is and if I'm really missing out by not having a home barbell set.