Do I need to lift heavy to get lean?

Terpnista84

I eat a calorie deficit (about 1,500 calories) do cardio (nothing strenuous but burn between 500-800 throughout the day according to Fitbit) and I do strength training as well.

I lift as heavy as I can (to failure). I've seen other people get results without using heavy weights or none at all. My goal is to get lean (burn the fat and reveal the muscle). Will I get more benefits by using heavy weights? Or can I just use my body weight for squats, lunges, etc and still maintain my muscle and get lean?

cwolfman13

"heavy" is in reference to a rep range, not necessarily the weight...a "heavy", traditional strength program will have you working in a 1-5 rep range usually...within that rep range you're going to be working at anywhere between 80% - 95% of your 1RM.

Lifting "heavy" is optimal for building strength most efficiently...it has nothing to do with you being lean or not. Your diet is going to dictate how lean you are. Look at a lot of power lifters...they *kitten* fat as *kitten*...others are lean...the difference is their diets, not their lifting.

urloved33

no

Ironmaiden4life

Body composition will be determined by your diet and macro breakdown.

Lifting to failure is just one training variable, it's a tool just like set & rep range, super sets, giant sets, rest pause, slow negatives, amount of rest time between sets etc

Plenty of people who use just body weight exercises have amazing physiques so yes if you choose to use just body weight exercises with the right program you would be able to maintain muscle size and get lean in combination with the right diet.

Karen_can_do_this

I think it all depends on what works for you. If you want to just use bodyweight then check out convict conditioning. What do you mean by lift heavy to failure?

Terpnista84

mrsfitzyv8 wrote: »

I think it all depends on what works for you. If you want to just use bodyweight then check out convict conditioning. What do you mean by lift heavy to failure?

Max reps that I can do with that weight while maintaining form.

Ironmaiden4life

cwolfman13 wrote: »

"heavy" is in reference to a rep range, not necessarily the weight...a "heavy", traditional strength program will have you working in a 1-5 rep range usually...within that rep range you're going to be working at anywhere between 80% - 95% of your 1RM.

A widely used phrase for females is to 'lift heavy' ... came about once us girlies started putting down the pink barbie weights and bedazzled headbands a la Jane Fonda and started lifting something heavier than our handbags LOL

tomatoey

Ironmaiden4life wrote: »

Body composition will be determined by your diet and macro breakdown.

Lifting to failure is just one training variable, it's a tool just like set & rep range, super sets, giant sets, rest pause, slow negatives, amount of rest time between sets etc

Plenty of people who use just body weight exercises have amazing physiques so yes if you choose to use just body weight exercises with the right program you would be able to maintain muscle size and get lean in combination with the right diet.

I feel like there's an upper limit on how far people can get with bodyweight exercises.

Tag on - It also seems to me that some of the progressions are fairly gymnastic, or maybe not so possible for some people (i.e. people working around injuries), e.g. the movements require a fair range of motion, etc. Like there's no way I can do a handstand in the near future.

1mumrevolution

tomatoey wrote: »

Ironmaiden4life wrote: »

Body composition will be determined by your diet and macro breakdown.

Lifting to failure is just one training variable, it's a tool just like set & rep range, super sets, giant sets, rest pause, slow negatives, amount of rest time between sets etc

Plenty of people who use just body weight exercises have amazing physiques so yes if you choose to use just body weight exercises with the right program you would be able to maintain muscle size and get lean in combination with the right diet.

I feel like there's an upper limit on how far people can get with bodyweight exercises.

Tag on - It also seems to me that some of the progressions are fairly gymnastic, or maybe not so possible for some people (i.e. people working around injuries), e.g. the movements require a fair range of motion, etc. Like there's no way I can do a handstand in the near future.

I agree. There is a massive amount of gymnastic moves in the body weight conditioning I do. Handstands, levers, flares and handsprings.