Is it good to lift light weight work for a month then do heavy 5 rep sets for two weeks then switch back to light for 4 weeks?

[_sideways_]

Just repeating that cycle im curious what the results would be.
All things being equal.

 

[Captain Redbeard]

You can certainly alternate between strength focused training and hypertrophy. I would stick with each for longer though. Something like 12 weeks to get maximum adaptations before switching

 

[Money & Muscle]

It's fine to do that, but basically wasted time to be lifting light weights unless HIIT or CrossFit.

For muscle building purposes, heavy weights in the range of 6-12 reps is ideal.

Volume should only ever be an amplifier of the work you're already doing - never the goal.

 

[_sideways_]

It's fine to do that, but basically wasted time to be lifting light weights unless HIIT or CrossFit.

For muscle building purposes, heavy weights in the range of 6-12 reps is ideal.

Volume should only ever be an amplifier of the work you're already doing - never the goal.

Explain this more please.

 

[EyeBRollin]

I used to alternate light and heavy workouts because it seemed to help recovery from the heavy sessions. However, I did it between each workout, not every couple weeks.

 

[Money & Muscle]

Explain this more please.

If your goal is to build muscle, you should be looking for mechanical tension (read: load). Anecdotal and scientific evidence suggest working in the 6-12 rep range is ideal for hypertrophy purposes as it allows for high tension, but also has enough overall time under tension to cause metabolite buildup. Consider 6-12 to be your ideal rep range... take a weight you can only lift 6 times, and do that. Next session - lift it for at least 7. Then 8, and so on. When you reach 12 reps, increase weight be 5-10lbs (less is usually better here) and see where you land on reps; my bet is you hit 8-9 reps before failure. This is your progression model.

Volume is not as important as intensity. Intensity meaning "proximity to muscular failure". You should be aiming for failure on every set, and only need a few sets to failure per muscle, per day, to achieve maximum results. Volume (meaning "number of sets") can be increased or undulated throughout mesocycles to achieve continual progressive overload.

An undulating volume system may look like:
Weeks 1-4: 2 sets to failure per muscle, per week.
Weeks 5-8: 3 sets to failure per muscle, per week.
Weeks 9-12: 4 sets to failure per muscle, per week.
Weeks 13-16: 2 sets to failure per muscle, per week.
And so forth.

Your progression model does not change, so you would continue to run your 6-12 rep progression, but undulating volume will allow you to increase your workload capacity (made up term to describe how much work you can do before you lose effectiveness).

 

[Pierce.Manhammer]

The truth is in weightlifting as long as you’re adding weight to the bar every time and you practice some consistency. Anything is going to work.

All this obsession about exactly how to lift doesn’t apply to 99% of the men out there. It only applies to guys that have already reached most of the pinnacle of fitness and they want to tweak stuff.

It’s like guys that are weekend bicycle riders, shaving their legs because they think that the hair on their legs is going to slow them down. Seriously. Or gear hounds….

 

[Ricky]

Some people do deload weeks.

lots of info out there.

 

[Pierce.Manhammer]

Some people do deload weeks.

lots of info out there.

My deload weeks are the result of “oh fack my it band is hurting again”.

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Truthfully your diet should be way dialed in before your adjusting your gym time like this, just get your gym time in and focus all this energy into your diet instead, remember this is 80% Food 20% Workout

Also eat for function, if you did do light weights you should be eating less carbs because you need less fuel than lifting heavy in my opinion, again talking about the food here is gonna be way more productive than the gym time.