This blog was inspired by Jen, a long-time member who has been training at ELEVATE since 2015 and training at home for the past 2.5 years. Our training conversation this morning was about effort throughout a session.
How hard should a set feel?
Should you add more weight if something feels manageable?
Should you stay where you’re at?
The simple answer is to challenge yourself when it’s appropriate and let the exercise dictate the goal. Nothing in training needs to be pushed to the limit all the time.
If a weight feels right for a movement like lunges, that’s often a cue to shift your attention away from adding load and toward execution.
Can you stay stable?
Can you control the programmed tempo?
Can you make every rep look the same?
Sometimes the challenge isn’t lifting more, it’s doing the exercise better.
It’s also important to understand how effort early in a training session affects all the exercises to follow. If you push your first main lift (or two) hard, anything after that may feel heavier, less “crisp,” and more fatigued. You’re not doing it wrong, it now means you have options to consider.
You might want to start lighter, build up over sets, stay moderate and keep the weight the same to dial in your technique. Each of those are depend on how you feel that day and session.
A helpful framework is to let the first main lift feel like an 8-9 out of 10 in effort. You’re fresh, working very hard, but you finish the set knowing you could still perform 1-2 high-quality reps if needed. This is the skill of pushing yourself without crossing the line into failure or sloppy technique.
The rest of the session should feel more like a focused practice. You’re aiming for a 7 out of 10, where you have a few more great reps in reserve. You still feel like you worked, yet you also feel confident you could train again in a repeated effort after a rest/recovery day.
Remember, the goal isn’t max effort start to finish. The goal is repeatable, high-quality work you can return to session to session and week to week.