When you progressively grow your muscles, do things either start to feel less heavy, or does lifting things just becomes easier while maintaining the same sense of weight?
In: Biology
For me the heavy weights still feel very heavy but I can lift them more easily and the light weights just feel lighter
Sort of both. There is relative load and absolute load. Relative load is the sensation you’re describing in the first part of your question. Factors such as when a muscle is fresh vs fatigued, or how developed your muscles are, or the amount of leverage you have over a particular movement (i.e. outstretched vs close to the body) affect how heavy the weight *feels*.
Absolute load is what the second part of your question describes. A 300lb squat is a 300lb squat no matter who is lifting it. Whether or not your muscles can physically manipulate the load, your joints and nervous system will still be taxed by X amount because it’s 300lbs on your back no matter how you look at it. As lifters become stronger, they can actually tax their bodies MORE because of the heavier weight used despite the fact that it may feel easier to them compared to less seasoned lifters. That being said, seasoned lifters know how a certain weight feels in their hands, and have a sense of how much force to apply to the lift as their muscles have gotten used to the sensation of needing to apply that much force.
More weight lifted = more absolute fatigue accumulated throughout your joints and nervous system. More seasoned lifters accumulate fatigue faster over a given period of time because they consistently use higher absolute loads, so the weight can quickly go from feeling easy to feeling hard if overall fatigue is not managed properly.
For me things like shopping bags, speakers/amps (i’m a musician) just feel lighter. Like no sweat to move around. Things that years ago felt heavy I am now surprised at when I lift because it doesn’t feel as heavy anymore. They feel lighter.
I found I could lift heavier things more easily, and do it for a longer time without getting winded or tired.
Given you aren’t fatigued… when your muscles grow stronger from exercising, lifting things doesn’t necessarily make them feel lighter, but it does become easier to lift the same weights because your muscles are more powerful and efficient.
Your sense of weight becomes more acute, you’ve been regularly working out and “sensing” each level of weights.
You’re likely better at guessing how much something weighs and it takes less effort to lift.
I’d say I’m semi fit, I do lots of power lifting and endurance training… People say I make lifting heavy objects look easy, but it still feels heavy, I need to still use proper form.
This year I went from lifting 15 lb dumb bells to 35 lb dumb bells. Things feel less heavy and it’s noticeable when you need to start exerting yourself it’s easier. Carrying in stuff less than 10 lb, no difference, as the weight goes up things feel lighter 100%.
Thing is to keep growing you have to increase weight so everything feels always difficult all the time. That’s what makes progress so difficult, it bever gets easier, you ha e to keep making it harder
When I was in the best shape of my life I was constantly breaking bolts while working in my car because I wasn’t used to it being that easy. It’s part of why I use a torque wrench for everything these days.
It become a matter of perspective, the definition of “heavy” changes in your mind as well as your body. What was once impossibly heavy, it cannot be moved, eventually becomes your 3 rep max and then even later is your 10 rep set. It’s still just as much pressure on your hands to move it, but you are now familiar with that level of pressure and effort, so it is no longer intimidating.
To me, it is a matter that you still feel the weight, but it is less effort to lift or move the weight. Whether it is a bag of groceries or dead lifting the lawn mower, the weight feels like weight, but the effort to move it is much less.
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