What If You Could Lift Any Weight You Wanted?

 Yes, Superman is real for today, and he wants to go to the gym for a good workout. Let's just skip over the 20’s, 40’s, where are the 100 kg dumbbells for a guy like Superman? Surely that's enough to give him a good workout-

Nope! He's juggling them. Who cares? It just goes to show how crazy strong he is, but there's a catch. As muscular and huge as that character is, we now understand one thing. He simply would not be able to make progress in the gym. The answer as to why is pretty easy, for him 100 kilos is nothing short of a bottle of water. For a guy like Superman, what might challenge him is lifting the weights of two countries, as dumbbells of course. Now because such a thing challenges him, tests his body, and eventually leads him to failure, that is a sign that he would hypothetically grow in mass and strength if he were to use this as a workout.

All this fun discussion has been to reach this point of the topic, what does it really mean if you can lift heavy? It means you have to lift even heavier to make any more progress. That is the real game that is played in weightlifting.

If your muscles are not challenged, they do not break down, if they do not break down, there is nothing to come back stronger from. So as strong as Superman is, the sad fact is that he might not find a gym in the entire galaxy that can challenge him, and help him improve his physique.  

Sorry, We Tried.

As long as you are able to reach the optimal amount of repetitions for growth, which start from around 6-8, and fail upon further repetition attempts, you are guaranteed to force hypertrophy in your muscles and cause them to grow. People who do not lift heavy simply increase the amount of repetitions until they cause their muscles to fail, that failure tells you that you pushed your body to its limits and that it needs to recover now, which is a job well done on your part.

“You can lift lighter weights, and as long as you lift them with a high degree of effort, they're as good as heavier weights in making you bigger,” he says. Using a home gym machine or even just your own body weight, like with push-ups or lunges, works. The key is simply to get pretty close to what personal trainers call “failure,” or the point where you feel like you can’t keep going any longer. That could take up to 25 to 30 reps, and you’ll still build muscle, says Dr. Phillips. (Source: https://www.gq.com/story/how-to-get-bigger-muscles-1)

The Benefits of both, Lifting Heavy and Lifting Light

Remember, as long as you have to put in effort, you are good to go. Lifting heavier, but barely being able to do it more than twice , is not cool, it is dangerous and can cause unnecessary injuries. You should only test yourself with a higher weight when you have conquered the ones before it, that is what real progress is.