Achieving results in the gym requires the appropriate amount of stress on the body, weights that are challenging, reps that are challenging, volume that is good enough and intensity that is hard enough.
How to choose the weights?
You should have a training plan, that usually defines the rep ranges that should be targeted. Ok you see that it should be 12-15 reps, now anyone can do that with a weight of 1kg, is that enough? Probably not.
RPE
There is one type of evaluation that you can use, it is called the Rate of Perceived Exertion or RPE for short, this is a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the maximal effort, your 1 rep max; then practically smaller numbers are used to refer to how many more reps you could do. For example RPE9 means you could do 1 more repetition, RPE8 is for 2 more, RPE7 is for 3 more and so on.
If you have a good training plan it should contain this requirement as well, but usually the plan is to start with RPE6, work with RPE8 and finish with RPE10. While I mentioned the 1 rep max, RPE10 doesn't mean you must pick a weight that you can only lift once. The plan can say you need 8 reps with RPE10, that means you should be doing 8 reps and not be able to do the 9th rep. The 8th rep should be the kind of rep that takes 3-5 seconds at least, feels very heavy and you might not be sure that it will happen.
Trial and error
Now these are quite subjective measures, therefore sadly everyone needs to trial and error his own weights, that's why a training plan will not and should not have the weights mentioned. It even depends from your daily energy level, with practice you will be already able to see what weights will you be able to work with from the first warm up set.
Remember progressive overload? Weights should get heavier every week! That's how we progress, training hard enough to stimulate muscle growth, so we can challenge them even more next time.
Want someone to shout the knowledge at you while reviewing his younger self?
Coach Greg is your man for that. I have been watching him for countless hours, if you can bear with his style, you can get a lot of good information from him.
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