Ep 81 | How Hard Should You Push Yourself During Resistance Training?
Many people make a common mistake when it comes to resistance training: they approach it the same way they do cardio. They focus on keeping their heart rate up, moving constantly from one set to the next without any real rest. While this approach isn't necessarily bad, it's not very effective for building muscle.
If your goal is to grow muscle and get stronger, keeping your heart rate elevated throughout your entire workout isn't the key. Instead, you need to understand what it actually feels like to challenge yourself effectively for muscle and strength gains.
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Jayd (00:00):
Many people mistakenly think that they should push themselves in the same way in their resistance training workouts as they do when they're doing cardiovascular training. They make the mistake of thinking that the goal of resistance training is to keep the heart rate up so they will stay moving the entire time and not let their bodies have any true rest between sets of an exercise. Now, this way of working out is not necessarily bad, but it isn't very effective for helping you to grow muscle. Instead, it lends itself more towards cardiovascular fitness and burning lots of calories. But if your goal is to build muscle and get strong, keeping your heart rate up during your resistance training workouts is not necessarily going to help you. So let's take a look at what it feels like for you to challenge yourself effectively to towards building muscle and building strength in your resistance training workouts.
(01:09)
Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, aka Jaydigains. I've been a personal trainer for over 10 years and I've created this podcast to share with you tips and tricks to make the most out of your workouts and improve your fitness without shame and without burnout. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to judge how hard you're working in your workouts to make sure that you are pushing yourself enough to make gains while also avoiding pushing yourself to the point where you're at risk of injury or burnout. We're talking specifically about resistance training here, whereas in the previous discussion we talked about cardiovascular training. So if you are interested in learning how to pace yourself and challenge yourself just right in cardiovascular training, I highly suggest that you check out the previous episode of the Coaching Corner podcast. And before we get into the episode, make sure to like this video if you're watching on YouTube and subscribe to my channel so you always get the latest videos whenever they drop. And if you are listening to this podcast, thank you so much. Make sure that you follow the show so that you always get the latest episodes delivered right to your device. Without further ado, let's get into the episode.(02:23)
We've previously talked about how to pace yourself and ensure that you're challenging yourself in your cardiovascular workouts. Today we're going to talk about how to judge how hard you're working and make sure that you're challenging yourself enough during your resistance training. In resistance training, our goal is to improve the strength or the size or the power that our muscles are able to generate, and this means that we have to take an approach that's slightly different from how we train our cardiovascular system. For the most effective way to do resistance training, you should be alternating between periods of intense bursts of effort with periods of rest where you're allowing your heart rate to come back down towards resting so that you can recharge your muscles and go for another set, pushing yourself with the amount of reps or the amount of weight or the amount of time that's needed to trigger muscle gains.(03:23)
Now there are a couple of different styles of resistance training. Usually we start with high volume or hypertrophy focused training. High volume or hypertrophy focused training is lifting or performing resistance training with the goal of building muscle. This type of resistance training usually looks like performing an exercise for between eight and 12 repetitions before resting for 30 seconds to two minutes, and then repeating an exercise for eight to 12 reps. Again, and you'll repeat this usually for somewhere between two and four, sometimes five sets of an exercise. High volume training is the foundation for muscle building and muscle fitness training. It's what beginners should focus on when they're first getting started on their fitness journey. And it's also what more intermediate and advanced exercisers should do very frequently to continue to push themselves towards making muscle gain so that they can get stronger and perform better in their sports.(04:24)
If you are on a fat loss journey, doing high volume training has a lot of benefits as well. Not only does it help you to build muscle, which helps to boost your metabolism, but doing high volume training itself earns more calories than heavier lifting sessions with fewer reps. It's generally a pretty safe way to train and it's a great way for you to learn your muscles as well. When you're doing high volume or muscle building training, one of the key markers that you're pushing yourself as much as you should is what a lot of people call a burning sensation in the target muscles. So for example, when you're doing bicep curls, the target muscle group or the working muscle here is the biceps muscles. And if you are using the right amount of weight performing eight to 12 reps, or what I usually recommend for my clients, which is 10 to 15 reps or maybe sometimes even as much as 20 reps, you should feel the biceps burning by the end of your set.(05:26)
And usually I like for my clients to feel that burning happening in at least three of the repetitions and you continue to let the muscles burn as they get tired until the point where you feel like you can't do any more in a way that keeps good technique and when you feel like you could maybe only do one or two more repetitions before your muscles give out completely. Our goal with high volume training is to approach muscle failure. You don't necessarily have to go all the way to muscle failure unless you are assigned an amrap set as many reps as possible. Most of the time it's going to be good for you to leave one or two repetitions left in reserve and stop when you feel like you could only do one or two more. This will help you to avoid a risk of injury and to ensure that your body can properly recover after your workouts and what this feels like to approach muscle failure.(06:23)
A lot of times people say that they feel a burning sensation in the working muscles and you know that you are doing it right. If you feel that burning happening in the last three to five repetitions of your set and then you end your set rest and then try again, the weight often will feel increasingly heavy as the set progresses and you'll find that you're not able to move as quickly like your reps are slowing down, your rate of motion is slowing down. This is something that you'll also experience if you're challenging yourself enough. You may also experience the feeling of your muscles getting fatigued and even what a lot of people call a pump, which is the feeling when your muscles get a rush of blood to them and they may actually look more swollen as well and you'll feel that rush of blood to your muscles often at the end of a really good set or in the rest period following an effective set.(07:22)
You may find that your heart starts beating really fast and that you have to breathe faster towards the end of the set or during your rest period. As you recover at the end of the set mentally, you'll find that you really got to focus on finishing out the set towards the end. It's really hard for you to have your mind wandering on other things, especially as your muscles get really tired towards the end of the set. And when you think about the level of difficulty that you had while pushing towards the end of your set, you should have felt like that was challenging, but not that was easy and not that's impossible. You want to feel like you got a good challenge. A great way for you to monitor how hard you're working in your high volume resistance training workouts is to use the reps and reserve strategy.(08:12)
So reps and reserve means that you're ending your set when you feel like you could only do a certain number of reps before your muscles give out and fail completely. Generally speaking, I often have my clients end their set when they feel like they could do only one or two more repetitions when we're really trying to build muscle, we might just end it when there's only one rep left in the tank. Sometimes we may go to where they have no more reps in the tank, especially if I'm trying to get a sense of how many reps they really can do because it is often hard for people to gauge how many reps they have left, especially if you are just starting on your fitness journey. It may be difficult for you to sense how many reps you have in reserve at the end of your set, and if that's the case, I encourage you to do an AMRAP set using whatever weight that you're using and perform as many reps as possible using the same rate of motion, usually about two seconds up, two seconds down in the exercise and go until your form breaks down or your muscles give out and you're not able to perform another rep.(09:23)
The number of reps that you're able to do in an AMRAP set should give you a good idea of how many reps you'll have in reserve when you go to repeat that exercise using that weight or a similar weight. If you are deloading or reloading coming back from a period of time off from the gym, I'll usually recommend that you leave three reps and reserve at the end of your sets because you're likely going to be sore from your first workout back or your first workout ever. So you don't necessarily need to push quite as hard as people who have been training consistently for at least a few weeks. So if you're feeling sick, you're taking a deload or you're just getting back into it, feel free to leave three reps in reserve. Another way that you can gauge how hard you're working is to use a rate of perceived exertion.(10:15)
With my clients, I usually use a scale of one to 10 where I'll ask them How hard was that on a scale of one to 10, one being super easy, barely any work at all, and 10 being maximal effort, oh my God, I couldn't do anymore. In general, what I like for my clients to do is shoot for an RPE seven or eight, sometimes nine. If we're doing an AMRAP set, that's going to be an RPE 10. A lot of times people will use reps and reserve and RPE interchangeably. So for example, if they are working at an RPE seven, that means that they have three reps in reserve. An RP eight means that they have two reps in reserve. RPE nine means one rep in reserve and RPE 10 would be zero reps in reserve. So if you are working at an RPE seven, eight or nine when you're doing your high volume resistance training, you should feel those working muscles burning again for bicep curls, that's going to be your biceps muscles.(11:16)
But if you're doing squats, you should feel that burning primarily in your quadriceps muscles, in your thighs, and you may also feel it in your glutes and hamstrings when you're doing r DLS or good mornings, you should feel the glutes and the hamstrings starting to burn as they get tired. I encourage you to use your high volume training as an opportunity to get more familiar with your muscles when you're doing a high volume training set, practice naming and really paying attention to the muscles that you feel working. And if you feel any muscles stretching, practice identifying those as well because when you learn your muscles, it will help you with your proprioception or your mind muscle connection, which means that you will be better able to perform exercises with good technique and minimize your risk of injury while maximizing your gains. Now, when you're pushing yourself in your resistance training workouts, it's normal for you to feel some burning in the working muscles, and that's often the goal.(12:16)
But a couple of red flags that you should look out for that are signs that you need to stop are sharp pains, especially in the joints. Acute pain is something we never want to push through. Burning is fine, but acute sharp pain is usually a sign that there's something wrong either with your technique or maybe you're using too much weight or maybe you just have an injury that you need to work around. So stop immediately if you feel any kind of sharp pain, especially in your joints. Also, if you are experiencing a form breakdown, you're not able to keep the same good technique through the entire set of an exercise. This is a sign that you need to stop. Do not continue to practice the exercise and perform bad reps with bad form because all this does is reinforces bad technique, which will put you at an increased risk of injury.(13:12)
So if you're not performing the exercise with good technique or you're not able to perform the exercise with good technique, you should stop immediately. Reduce your weight, fix your form and reach out to me if you have any questions. Another thing that you should watch out for is any dizziness or nausea that you may feel between your sets. This is usually a sign that you're overdoing it and pushing yourself way too hard. You do not need to push yourself to the point where you feel like you're going to pass out in order to make muscle gains. And if you feel any extreme exhaustion like you just can't do any other exercises after you have done your set, that's also a sign that maybe you pushed it a little bit too hard. You should always feel like you have energy at the end of your workouts.(13:58)
Leave some energy in the tank because your body's going to need that energy to make the repairs to your muscle that will help you to get stronger. You'll know that you're not pushing yourself enough if you feel like your sets are easy throughout the entire workout. If you don't have any muscle burn or any fatigue setting in, that's also a sign that you're not pushing yourself enough if you're not breathing harder by the end of a set, that's also a sign that you're not pushing yourself enough. And if you're finishing your workout and you feel like you just didn't really work, that's also a sign that you're not pushing yourself enough. So keep in mind that some muscle discomfort is important for you to push yourself, feel the burn, feel your muscles fatiguing and feel like you have to exert some effort. You have to work.(14:44)
That's what we're doing when we're working out. That's what it takes for us to build muscle. We have to challenge it in order for it to get stronger. But at the same time, you don't have to push yourself to the point where you're feeling sharp pain, you're not able to perform the exercise with good technique or you're just exhausting yourself. You want to strike that sweet spot of an RPE seven, eight or nine, leaving one, two or three reps in reserve at the end of every set, and then taking your rest periods to recharge your muscles so that you can push yourself as much as you need to stimulate muscle growth. Follow these guidelines and your muscle building workouts, and I guarantee you, you will make gains. In the next episode, we're going to talk about what it feels like to push yourself in high intensity or heavy lifting resistance training. This is a style of training that's more advanced, and I don't recommend attempting heavy lifting unless you have been already doing high volume training for six months at least. But when you do go to start practicing heavier lifts, you're going to have to change your expectations of what it feels like to challenge yourself at a higher intensity of lifting. We'll talk all about that in the next episode.(16:06)
Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of the Coaching Corner podcast. Again, I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. If you found this episode helpful, make sure to like the video on YouTube and subscribe to the channel so you always get the latest videos as soon as they drop. And if you are listening to this podcast, thank you so much. Make sure that you follow the show so you always get the latest episodes delivered right to your device. If you are interested in working with me one-on-one for coaching, check out the link that's in the show notes or the description of the video below. I am currently onboarding new clients, so fill out the form and apply work with me today. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure that you're taking good care of yourself. Eat your veggies, eat your protein, and drink some water, and I will see you soon.
Understanding Effective Resistance Training
To improve muscle strength, size, and power, you need to take a different approach than cardiovascular training. The most effective resistance training alternates between intense bursts of effort and periods of rest. These rest periods allow your heart rate to come back down so you can recharge your muscles and push yourself again with the right amount of reps, weight, or time needed to trigger muscle growth.
High Volume Training: The Foundation for Muscle Building
High volume training, also called hypertrophy-focused training, is the cornerstone of muscle building. This approach typically involves:
Performing 8-12 repetitions of an exercise (I often recommend 10-15 reps, sometimes up to 20)
Resting for 30 seconds to 2 minutes between sets
Completing 2-5 sets of each exercise
This style of training is perfect for beginners just starting their fitness journey, but it's also essential for intermediate and advanced exercisers who want to continue making muscle gains.
Benefits of high volume training for fat loss: Not only does it help build muscle (which boosts your metabolism), but high volume training burns more calories than heavier lifting sessions with fewer reps. It's generally safe and helps you learn your muscles better.
What Should Muscle Building Feel Like?
When you're doing high volume training correctly, you should experience several key sensations:
The burning sensation: This is one of the most important markers. For example, when doing bicep curls, you should feel your biceps burning by the end of your set. This burning should happen during at least the last 3-5 repetitions.
Progressive fatigue: The weight should feel increasingly heavy as your set progresses. Your reps will slow down, and your rate of motion will decrease.
The pump: You'll feel a rush of blood to your working muscles. They may even look more swollen, especially at the end of a set or during your rest period.
Increased heart rate and breathing: By the end of your set or during rest, your heart will beat faster and you'll need to breathe more rapidly.
Mental focus: Towards the end of your set, you'll need to really concentrate on finishing. Your mind can't wander—you have to focus on the work.
Challenge level: The set should feel challenging, but not easy and not impossible. You want that sweet spot.
Using Reps in Reserve (RIR)
One of the best ways to monitor your intensity is the reps in reserve strategy. This means ending your set when you feel like you could only do a certain number of additional reps before your muscles completely fail.
General guidelines:
Building muscle: End when you could do only 1-2 more reps
Deloading or returning from time off: Leave 3 reps in reserve
Testing your limits: Occasionally do AMRAP (as many reps as possible) sets to gauge your true capacity
If you're new to fitness, it may be difficult to sense how many reps you have left. In that case, do an AMRAP set with your chosen weight, maintaining good form at about 2 seconds up, 2 seconds down. Go until your form breaks down or your muscles give out. This will give you a baseline for future sets.
The Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale
I use a 1-10 scale with my clients:
1 = Super easy, barely any work
10 = Maximal effort, couldn't do any more
For muscle building, aim for an RPE of 7-9:
RPE 7 = 3 reps in reserve
RPE 8 = 2 reps in reserve
RPE 9 = 1 rep in reserve
RPE 10 = 0 reps in reserve (AMRAP sets)
At these intensity levels, you should feel your working muscles burning. For squats, that's primarily your quadriceps, possibly your glutes and hamstrings. For RDLs or good mornings, you'll feel it in your glutes and hamstrings.
Building Your Mind-Muscle Connection
Use high volume training as an opportunity to get familiar with your muscles. During each set, practice naming and paying attention to the muscles you feel working. If you feel any muscles stretching, identify those too.
This awareness—called proprioception or mind-muscle connection—will help you perform exercises with better technique, minimize injury risk, and maximize your gains.
Red Flags: When to Stop Immediately
While burning in your working muscles is normal and expected, watch out for these warning signs:
Sharp pain, especially in joints: Acute pain is never something to push through. This indicates a problem with your technique, too much weight, or a potential injury that needs attention.
Form breakdown: If you can't maintain good technique throughout the entire set, stop immediately. Practicing bad reps with poor form only reinforces bad technique and increases injury risk.
Dizziness or nausea: This means you're overdoing it. You don't need to push yourself to the point of passing out to make gains.
Extreme exhaustion: If you feel like you can't do any other exercises after your set, you've pushed too hard. You should always finish workouts with energy in the tank—your body needs that energy to repair your muscles and help you get stronger.
Signs You're Not Pushing Hard Enough
On the flip side, you'll know you're not challenging yourself enough if:
Your sets feel easy throughout the entire workout
You don't experience any muscle burn or fatigue
You're not breathing harder by the end of sets
You finish your workout feeling like you didn't really work
Remember: some muscle discomfort is important. Feel the burn, feel your muscles fatiguing, and feel like you have to exert effort. That's what working out means—that's what it takes to build muscle. You have to challenge your muscles for them to get stronger.
Finding Your Sweet Spot
The key to effective resistance training is striking the right balance:
Aim for an RPE of 7-9
Leave 1-3 reps in reserve at the end of every set
Take your rest periods to recharge your muscles
Push enough to stimulate muscle growth without exhausting yourself
Follow these guidelines in your muscle building workouts, and I guarantee you'll make gains.
What's Next?
In the next episode, I'll cover what it feels like to push yourself in high-intensity or heavy lifting resistance training. This is a more advanced style of training that I don't recommend attempting unless you've been doing high volume training for at least six months. When you do start practicing heavier lifts, you'll need to adjust your expectations about what it feels like to challenge yourself at higher intensities.
Ready to take your training to the next level? I'm currently onboarding new clients for one-on-one coaching. Check the link in the show notes to apply and work with me today.
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