You don’t ‘need’ to lift heavy weights to benefit from resistance training.
PMID: 28834797
But you DO have to challenge your body.
So, if you’d like a challenge, without the ‘heavy weights”, try adding ECCENTRIC or PAUSED reps to your set.
What’s an ECCENTRIC rep?
Take a ‘moderate’ weight and lower the weight S.L.O.W.L.Y., possibly to a count of 5.
This slow lowering of the weight works on the lengthening of the muscle under control and its very challenging. It’s thought that this ‘eccentric’ phase of the movement is the ‘strengthening’ phase. In any case, it will make even a light weight feel heavy.
What’s a PAUSED rep?
A paused rep is exactly as it sounds. You pause the rep at a point in the movement when you can’t use momentum or the stretch reflex of the muscle to get the weight going in the opposite direction. Again, this is challenging and should be done with a lighter weight.
Of course the added benefit of both these strategies is less load.
So if you don’t have access to a lot of weight, or you don’t particularly like lifting heavier weights, these are great options.
PS. Just a reminder that you can lift ‘heavy’ but light to moderate resistance training will give you results too – it’s all in the effort – as long as you’re 1-2 reps shy of failure, you’re golden!