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Weightlifting 101 | How heavy is heavy? You’re on board with lifting heavy. You know the benefits and you’re ready to start crushing workouts. But how do you start? How do you know how heavy to lift? Here, we go over just how heavy you should be aiming to lift and where to get instruction on lifting technique. But first, a science lesson. Heavyweights to build muscle When we lift heavy, we stress and fatigue our muscles, causing microscopic tears. This is a natural and necessary process. It is also why after exercise we feel soreness. In the recovery stage, our bodies overcompensate in repairing these tears, resulting in bigger muscles. This process is known as muscle hypertrophy. There are two schools of thought on how to achieve this process and build muscle. The first is working with low weights at higher repetitions. For example, doing 12+ reps at 30- to 50-percent of your one rep max. The other is working with heavier weights at low ...