How Often Should You Add Weight When Lifting
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts explains when and how to increase the weight used in strength‑training workouts. He begins with a light‑hearted anecdote about a band‑aid, then stresses that every working set must approach muscular failure; if the last few reps are easy, the load is too light. Roberts introduces two primary progression systems: (1) Linear progression for compound lifts, where beginners add roughly 5–10 lb each week, and (2) Double progression for accessory and isolation movements, which uses a rep‑range (e.g., 8–10 reps) to first add reps, then increase weight once the top of the range is reached. He expands on double progression with concepts of top sets and back‑off sets, showing how heavier low‑rep sets followed by lighter higher‑rep sets can improve mental focus on weight increases. The video emphasizes meticulous tracking of sets, reps, and loads—highlighting his Clubhouse coaching platform and its built‑in logging app—as essential for recognizing progressive overload. Finally, Roberts warns that weight should only be added while maintaining proper form, recommending video analysis to catch technique breakdowns and noting that the nervous system may need a week or two to adapt to a new load. The overall message is a practical, step‑by‑step framework for safely and consistently adding weight to become stronger.
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In this video, let's cover how often you should be increasing the weight you are lifting in your workouts. You might be wondering, first off, Eric, why the hell do you have a Band-Aid on your face? First off, the Band-Aid is Nemo, so— but second, no, I promise I did not get into a bar fight. I didn't get punched in the face. Apparently, I'm 14 years old again and cut myself while I was shaving. You can see the nice big cut. Oh, no. Baby face shave. And I'm on a bit of a time crunch to make this video. So as opposed to waiting until the bleeding stops and just, or just like letting it just bleed everywhere and have you watch that in this video, figured just slap Nemo right on there and we'll be good to go. If you like my Nemo bandaid, go ahead and let me know below. Now diving into today's video, I'm going to give you my 2 favorite ways to learn how to increase the weight you are lifting. It's a little bit of a framework, so to speak, if you will, that you can take and immediately implement into your workouts. That's going to be a little bit later in the video, as well as at the very end. There's actually a few different strategies I really like within the framework of what I'm about to tell you that you can literally, again, implement into your workouts starting in the next workout that you do to increase the weight you are lifting, get stronger, and see more progress. But first, before we dive into the framework stuff, I want to just make this very clear because I think a lot of people question whether they should be adding weight or not. And let me make this abundantly clear. If your last couple of reps in your set are not looking like this right here, you absolutely need to lift heavier weight. So let's say you're doing a set of 10 reps. For example, if by the 8th, the 9th, and the 10th rep, you aren't struggling to get that weight back up, you are not lifting heavy enough and you absolutely need to increase the weight you are lifting. Again, I'm going to teach you how to do that and the frameworks on that a bit later in the video, but just know these last couple of reps should be involuntarily slowing down on the way up of an exercise. Or if you're doing like a lat pulldown, for example, it would be on the way down, just on the concentric portion of the exercise, which is again when you're actually performing the exercise, the weight, the speed of the rep should be involuntarily slowing down because this lets you know that you are going close to failure with your muscles, which is what you need to have happen if you want to see results in your workouts. You cannot just be going into your workouts like sipping a Starbucks f— foca mocha mochoca cafe latte cappuccino and like, you know, talking to the sisters and the homies on the in-between mid-set. Like, We need to be pushing ourselves in here, people. I know you're busy. You only have so much time in a day. You always tell me about how you're so busy and you got this and you got that. So when you're doing your workouts, you need to be making sure you make the most of your workouts so you can see the most progress humanly possible. So one last time, if you're lifting 40 pounds for 10 reps and that is not challenging, you, my friend, need to lift heavier weight. And this is for every Working set. Let me make this very clear as well. You are going to have warmup sets and working sets. Warmup sets are kind of like, again, we'll use that same example. You're doing chest press with 40 pounds for 10 reps. When you're doing 25 pounds kind of warming up, that does not count as a set. So if you do 25 pounds and it's not that hard, and then you do 35 pounds and it's still like not that hard, but you finally do 40 pounds and that's difficult, You didn't do 3 sets, you did 1 set. Okay? So every single one of your working sets needs to be close to failure. So when you see on your workout program 3 sets of 8 reps, that is not the first set's kind of easy, the second set's kind of difficult, and the third set is finally difficult. No, all 3 of those sets need to be difficult sets. You got that? Cool. Now, what is the framework for actually increasing the weight That you are lifting. There's gonna be 2 of my favorite methods I'm gonna explain to you. The first one is gonna be called linear progression. If you know what linear is, it's just in a line, right? So this works— this is essentially just like, let's say you're doing squats and you're doing 100 pounds for 5 reps. Keep it very simple. Week 1, you're doing 100 pounds for 5 reps. Week 2, you're doing 105 pounds for 5 reps. Week 3, you're doing 110 pounds for 5 reps. Week 4, 115 pounds for 5 reps, and so on and so forth. You're just kind of like cruising along here, adding 5 to 10 pounds every single week when you go into your workouts. This is called linear progression, and it is very good for beginners to intermediates and compound lifts. What is a compound lift? A compound lift is something like your Deadlift is something like your barbell back squat or a barbell front squat or a bench press, a barbell bench press, a barbell shoulder press. These movements that are compound in nature where they're using multiple muscles, multiple joints, right? Like think about a squat. You're not just using your legs, you're using your ankles, your ankle joint, your knee joint, your hip joint, your core, your upper back to stabilize yourself. It's pretty much an entire full body movement, right? You're using multiple joints, multiple muscles to perform that exercise. So on those bigger compound movements, it is a bit more realistic in the beginning stage to be able to add 5 to 10 pounds every single week. And you should be, especially if you are a beginner, you should be trying to add roughly 5 to 10 pounds a week to your compound lifts. Sometimes this will happen for other movements as well, like sometimes Romanian deadlifts, sometimes Bulgarian split squats, sometimes bent over rows, maybe even lat pulldowns. Like sometimes it'll happen, But for the majority, it's going to be those bigger compound lifts. Uh, hip thrust, for example, you can probably add 5 to 10 pounds on a hip thrust pretty easily every single week, especially in that beginner stage. So those bigger compound movements, and even past the beginner stage in the somewhat intermediate stage, you usually should be able to add roughly 5 pounds to 10 pounds every single week. You don't necessarily want to go much more than adding that though, usually, because if you make too big of jumps, then what's going to end up happening is your form is Probably going to suffer and then you're probably not going to have the best form. You might get injured. You just won't see the best progress humanly possible. Again, we're going to talk about that a little bit later in the video of, you know, what happens if you increase weight, but then your form kind of decreases. Should you keep it? Should you not? We'll talk about that a bit later in this video, but linear progression compound lifts for the most part. So that's the first way. And you can utilize that. I, when I program workouts inside of our clubhouse, which again, it's just my like, uh, It's just my online coaching program. So you can feel free to check it out if you want to. It has exercises, it has all the workouts, it has all the reps, all the sets, technique videos, in-depth, every single thing. Check it out if you want to. But when I program my workouts inside of there, I will use that method for a lot of our workouts where if we are doing a barbell squat, we're trying to have a linear progression, so to speak, with it. So it's a very good strategy. The second strategy, and this is probably my favorite strategy I like to use for Pretty much everything else than compound lifts. And even still, I will use it sometimes on compound lifts as well. It is going to be called double progression, the double progression model. What is the double progression model? So remember linear progression was week 1, it's, you're just, you're, you're 100 pounds for 5 reps, 105 pounds for 5 reps, 110 pounds for 5 reps. You're just adding weight. Reps are staying relatively the same. Double progression is like this. Let's say you now give yourself a rep range. So let's say for example you are doing 8 to 10 reps. That is your rep range you're working for, for a lat pulldown. For example, let's say week 1 you do 50 pounds for 8 reps. Week 2, 50 pounds for 9 reps. Week 3, 50 pounds for 10 reps. You have now gotten to the top end of the rep range because you're in that 8 to 10 rep range. So you go, 3 sets of 8 with 50, 3 sets of 9 with 50, 3 sets of 10 with 50. So you built up, built up, built up. Once you get to the top end of the rep range, you then decrease the reps. I'm sorry, I almost confused myself. You decrease the reps but increase the weight. So now you're at 55 pounds as an example. So 55 pounds for 8 reps, 55 pounds for 9 reps, 55 pounds for 10 reps, Cool. Once again, you've hit the top end of your rep rate. Decrease the reps and increase the weight. This way, methodically, slowly and surely, you are going to be able to increase the weight you are lifting over time via adding reps. And this is why I like giving yourself a rep range for a large majority of your exercises, because inevitably you're not going to be able to go into the gym every single week and add weight. Number one, because it's unrealistic. Like we would all just be lifting cars And houses if that was the case. But also number 2, think about a movement like a bicep curl or a tricep extension or a shoulder raise or even like bent over rows and stuff like that. It's just not realistic for you to add 5 to 10 pounds to your bicep curl every single week or your shoulder raise every single week, like 5 pounds or 10 pounds on a shoulder raise. You might be there for a tad while, right? So this is a very realistic way to continue making progress and having what we call this Progressive overload. And again, if you don't know what progressive overload is, it's just, you're just trying to do more, right? So again, let's take for example, we're using a shoulder raise. If you're doing 8 reps with 5 pounds and then 9 reps with 5 pounds and 10 reps with 5 pounds, and then, you know, you got, you get to 10 reps and now you're going to 7.5 pounds, 7.5 pounds for 8 reps, 7.5 pounds for 9 reps, 7.5 pounds for 10 reps. Slowly but surely you are working your way up. And this is a great way for all of those kind of like what we call accessory and isolation exercises. So we had the compound exercises, which is our bigger compound movements, multiple joints, multiple muscles. We have accessory movements, things that are still pretty large in nature, whether it's, you know, a lunge, it could be a Bulgarian split squat, could be a kickstand hip thrust, could be a lat pulldown, could be some sort of a bent over row variation. But those are still pretty big workouts and big exercises you're doing, but not necessarily like a deadlift. Or a barbell squat or stuff like that. So with the accessory and the isolation exercises, again, isolation, bicep curl, shoulder raise, leg extension, those sorts of things, the double progression model is my favorite way to continue to progress those movements. And now there is a couple of things to add with this double progression model. The number one thing is going to be, remember, you don't always have to do all of your sets. And so we just learned earlier, if you're doing 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps on a Lat pulldown. Okay, let's say week 1 you did 3 sets of 8 at 90 pounds. Let's say week 2 you did 1 set of 9 and then 2 sets of 8. And then week 3 you did 2 sets of 9 and then 1 set of 8. Week 4 you did all 3 sets at 9 reps with, with that same weight. Remember, that is still progress. That is still progressive overload. And over time, what you're going to end up doing is, we'll just use that same example. You go from 3 sets of 8, 1 set of 9, 2 sets of 8, 2 sets of 9, 1 set of 8, and then 3 sets of 9. And then you go 1 set of 10, 2 sets of 9, 1 set of— 2 sets of 10, 1 set of 9, and so on and so forth, right? Eventually over time, what are you going to do? 10 sets of 8. You're going to add weight because you've gotten to the top end of that rep range. And again, making this very realistic because, you know, some days you're going to go into the gym and like maybe you didn't get the best night's sleep or maybe you're just, you know, you're exhausted that day from work or whatever it is. This way it's, it's very realistic to try to just, if you can add one rep on one set, most of the time we can do that in our workouts. We might not always be able to add weight every single time, But this is why if you can add reps over time, you will be able to add weight. And then number 2, you're still going to be able to see progress because remember you're having progressive overload. You're doing more progressive overload. Just means did you do more? So even if you did one more rep on one more set for every single exercise, that was more than last time. So your body is going to say, oh shit, this is okay. This is, this is more than what we did last time. This is a new stress. This is a greater stress that we have to adapt to and change and build muscle and get stronger. And this is one of the main reasons why you need to be tracking your workouts in the gym. How many reps are you doing? How many sets are you doing? Like, again, going back to the clubhouse, I created an entire app for the clubhouse. One of the main things I made sure of inside of the clubhouse app was you— that I wanted to make sure people had the ability to track their weight, track their sets, track their reps. Also, we kind of have this really cool thing where you can see your progress over the course of months and years and all those good things. You can see your personal records, see how much weight you increased. I think it's really cool. I put that in there and I spent the time and energy and effort to make sure that was in there because it's very important that you are tracking all of these things because that way you can ensure you know when it's time to bump up the weight and continue to make sure you can see progress. Nothing is worse than going into your workouts and not feeling like you're making progress. And especially from a physical perspective, it's going to be very hard to see these changes in your body week to week. But this is why it's really cool. If you are tracking your workouts and writing down your sets and writing down your reps and writing down how much weight you used, you can make progress literally every single time that you step into your workout. Because if you did 1 or 2 more reps than last time, or if you lifted 5 more pounds than last time, that is clear physical progress that you are making. You are getting stronger and you can see it on paper, so to speak. Whereas again, in your body, you might not see these changes in your body for 2 months, 3 months, 6 months sometimes. But if week to week you can see that you're making progress by tracking your workouts, That will keep your motivation going to keep showing up and keep doing your workouts and keep pushing yourself, which will then lead to the long-term physical changes over the long haul. So that was that. 2 other kind of side notes to this double progression. So this is getting a little bit in depth here, but if you're still watching, I'm sure you want to know these things. I'm sure you enjoy learning, which if you are still watching, I appreciate you. The 2 things we're going to touch on is going to be Top— so the first one is top sets and back-off sets. And really briefly, what is a top set? What is a back-off set? Let's say, for example, instead of doing 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps on a dumbbell shoulder press, right? Let's say instead of doing that, you do 2 sets of 5 to 7 reps, and then you do 1 set of, let's say, 8 to 10 reps. So you have 2 top sets where you are— because you are lifting less reps, 5 to 7 reps, you are inherently going to be increasing the load, the weight that you are lifting. And then you'll have a back-off set of 8 to 10 reps where you can't lift the same weight that you were lifting for 5 or 6 reps for 8 to 10 reps. And so again, as a, as an example, let's say for your 2 sets of 5 to 7, you are doing 40 pounds on a shoulder press for 5 to 7 reps, and then you're doing this back-off set of, let's say, 30 pounds for 8 to 10 reps. Why am I bringing this up to you? This is also a really good way to mentally add weight in your workouts because you know those 2 sets of 5 to 7 reps, those are meant for you to push the weight Those are meant for you to be a little bit heavier sets. And I've just seen coaching people for the past 7+ years now, mentally, if you know those are your top sets and you're supposed to go heavier, you're much more likely to add weight and push yourself. You can still use the same frameworks that we just talked about, but if you can have a top set and back off set, it's a much better way. I don't know if it's better, but it's a really good way to be able to increase the weight you're lifting and like mentally get yourself in that zone. to increase the weight that you are lifting. And then again, when you're doing this set of like, again, if we're going to use 5 to 7 reps and 8 to 10 reps, 8 to 10 reps isn't like a walk in the park. It's not like you're not still trying to lift heavy. You are still trying to lift heavy for the 8 to 10 reps. You're still going close to failure, all of those things. But again, inherently you can lift heavier weight in a little bit of a lower rep range. And so if you want to work in some top sets and some back-off sets into your workouts. Again, all still close to failure, but a great way for you to push yourself in the weight that you are lifting. And the second thing within that double progression framework is now going to be remembering— we'll just use the same thing. If you are using, let's say you're doing a squat and you're trying to do 5 to 8 reps, just as an example, remember not all 3 of those sets have to be the same weight for the same reps every single time. And I will give you an example of just myself. When I'm doing my flat dumbbell chest press, I am trying to get within a 5 to 8 rep range. So what I'll do is I'll do a couple of warmup sets, you know, to kind of like just get my body going and I will work up to my heavier sets. My first working set, Is with 130-pound dumbbells and I'm usually getting about 5 to 6 reps if I am lucky. Now after I do that, that's my first working set. I am not staying there for my next 2 sets because I just wouldn't be able to. That fucking weight is too heavy. I can't do 2 more sets of 5 to 6 reps on that. So what do I do? Okay. I then back off, not because I'm not trying to back off the reps, but I just know I can't lift that heavy again. So I'll do 120 for probably about like, again, 6 reps, let's just say. And then again, I do those 120s and I'm like, fuck, this is heavy. I probably can't do this for 5 or 6 reps again. If I can, I'll stay there. But let's just say I can't. What I'll then do is I will back off once again to, let's just say, the 110s, just as an example. And I'll probably be able to get, you know, 7 or 8 reps with the 110s. And so I did 3 different weights within that 5 to 8 rep range, but the first set I'm trying to go as heavy as I can. I just got done my warmup sets. I'm looking to push myself. If I can do that weight and I can stay there and it's fine, awesome. I will do it. Right? But if not, it is okay to slightly back off the weight. If you know you really pushed yourself in that first working set, And that's like almost opposite from what most people think. They're like, oh well, I'll work up to my heaviest weight. I don't like that. If you're doing 3 sets of an exercise and you're trying to like work up to your heaviest weight on the last set, I don't like you doing that because if you can do the heaviest weight on your last set, you are already fatigued from set 1 and set 2. That means you can clearly do this heavy weight. You can clearly do that for your first set, which means you could probably do more than that because you're not fatigued. So if you were lifting 75 pounds for your heavy set on your last set, you should lift 85 pounds on your first working set because you're not as fatigued, so you can push yourself. So instead of now doing 65 pounds and then 70 pounds and then 75 pounds, you're now doing 85 pounds and then 80 pounds and then let's just say 75 pounds because you're starting off when you're fresh at your heaviest weight where you're pushing yourself as hard as you can. You will see way better progress that way. So those are the main frameworks and also the kind of the, you know, the, like the tree branches off of those frameworks. The last thing I want to tell you and kind of touch on here is form because sometimes when you increase weight, it's kind of hard to tell Should I increase weight? Is my form still really good? And the main thing I want to tell you here is we should still be trying to make sure we maintain our form. So if we'll use a squat for example, if you're going all the way down in your squat to 90-degree parallel, which is where you should be going, and you add 10 pounds and you now stop halfway, absolutely not. Do not just add weight to add weight. That is not going to get you the results and it's probably going to leave you injured and just Not having fun. Don't just add weight to add weight. Make sure you add weight and keep your form. Now, what I want to talk about here is like there might be a little bit of like quote-unquote form breakdown or it might just feel like you need to like have a second, and I say a second, but like have a week or 2 to kind of like get used to the new weight you're using because If you go from lifting 100 pounds to 110 pounds and you've never really lifted 110 pounds before, your central nervous system has to somewhat adapt to this new weight, this new load you are putting on yourself. And so that's why sometimes if you ever increase weight, like the first set might feel really fucking hard and like really heavy and like you can't control it. But then almost after that it gets better. It's almost like your central nervous system is just kind of adapting and getting used to the new weight that you are lifting. So yes, you want to keep form as you increase your weight and you want to make sure you can still control the weight. Again, same thing. If let's say you're doing a bench press, for example, if you add on more weight but you now just like can't control the way down and it just like absolutely just buries you, like gravity and the weight just like crushes your chest. Um, you probably should not be lifting that weight. Probably back off a Tad bit and make sure you still can control the exercise for the entire range of motion. And the best way to go about doing this is just film yourself in your workouts. Like, again, the last thing I'll say about the Clubhouse, but inside our Clubhouse Facebook group, we have a ton of people who are just like posting their videos, posting technique videos day after day after day. And you know, I, like myself and all of my coaches are kind of in there looking over, hey, how does your form look? So on and and so forth, but the members are also doing that for themselves. They're looking at their squats. Okay, cool. Did I get low enough? Did I not get low enough? Should I increase weight again? Should I stay here for 1 or 2 more times? You're not going to know unless you know. I think so many times people want the perfect answer to this. There is not really a perfect answer. There is just more a, hey, try it and kind of see what happens. Most of the time, a lot of you who are going to watch this, You're way stronger than you think you are. So you being able to like add 5 or 10 pounds, you'll usually be good. But take the technique video, look it over. If your form is good, keep it and keep going. If not, that's okay. Just slightly back off the weight. Maybe stay at that weight for 1 or 2 more weeks. Really make sure you can control it. Really make sure you have good form and then be able to increase the weight from there. Again, kind of using, maybe using that same double progression model. That we talked about earlier. Maybe you add an extra rep or 2 here and there before you go and add more weight. And that was the video. Thank you so much for watching. I sincerely appreciate it. If you enjoyed the video, please feel free to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. Again, if you are interested in joining us inside of the clubhouse and getting your workouts taken care of for you and having a group of coaches and supportive members who, you know, are in the journey with you doing the workouts with you, you can feel free to head to the clubhouse. It's just erfclubhouse.com. And let me know below what was your favorite takeaway from this video. Maybe it was just my Nemo band-aid. But whatever it was, let me know below. Thank you for watching and I hope it helped.
