{"id":784199,"date":"2026-07-07T06:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784199\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T06:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:07:11","slug":"why-heavier-weights-arent-always-better-for-strength-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784199\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Heavier Weights Aren\u2019t Always Better for Strength Training"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Then there\u2019s muscular endurance. \u201cPerforming one-repetition maximums doesn&#8217;t translate to better performance particularly well for marathon runners or triathletes,\u201d McKendry says. Thanks to that principle of specificity, a better bet for these folks, he says, is to aim for lots of reps with lighter weights to train the muscles to keep contracting repeatedly over time.<\/p>\n<p>When lighter works better\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Fitness goals aside, there are plenty of people for whom heavy weights simply aren&#8217;t as appropriate. Maybe they\u2019ve never stepped in a weight room before and need to learn good form first. Maybe they have joint issues or osteoarthritis or an injury that would make a heavy weight inadvisable. \u201cI&#8217;m never going to get my mom in her 60s started lifting at 90% of her one-rep max,\u201d Reed says. \u201cInstead, I&#8217;d start with a lower load to build technique and the neuromuscular connection, improve confidence, and then progress up to a more moderate load and keep her close to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Then there\u2019s muscular endurance. \u201cPerforming one-repetition maximums doesn&#8217;t translate to better performance particularly well for marathon runners or&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,5623,22029,538,9550,137],"class_list":["post-784199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-evergreen","tag-exercise-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-freelance","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}