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
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.
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