To think some women could lift heavier in the gym?

@lljkk I guess if you’re worried about injury or technique, don’t attempt to find your 1RPM. Your example re experiencing pain immediately afterwards would most likely be due to poor technique. I wouldn’t count it as a 1RM if I was in pain straight afterwards!

You could also find an estimate of your 1RM by other means. eg do 10 deadlifts to failure (or 8 or 12 or whatever) and then use an online calculator to calculate the 1RM.

Clearly you have to learn technique before attempting a 120kg deadlift! It took me 3 years of regular lifting generally at the 5-8 rep range, starting with 30kg.

Stacy Sims advocates a couple of SIIT sessions - sprint interval intensity training, as well as resistance training and jumping.

If you’re interested she does a lot of free stuff on her YouTube channel and in various podcasts.

Interestingly I’ve been training with a PT who gives me this mix of lifting and metabolic conditioning for almost 10 years. I’m 67 and in the shape of my life. And injury free as well as much less prone to viral infections

Thanks @Waitingfordoggo .... so next question is... you wrote the heaviest weight you can possibly lift for just one repetition ... what does "possibly mean". What if you "possibly" lift it but then your back goes out a few minutes later probably as a result of the heavy lift (my back has gone out after lifting things). How does anyone find the safe "possible" kg? I also wondered, Does "possibly" mean holding it up for a certain number of seconds?

I personally also have a history of tendonitis everywhere so would be reluctant to push-lift-pull harder than is what I know is comfortable, I don't think it would be safe for me to find out what is "possible" except maybe by very small increments over months or years.

@SurferRona : the bits of the article I understood were the statistics: ANOVA adjusting for age & something else at baseline. The raw endpoint results were not statistically significant for almost all outcomes and only significantly different in the adjusted (ANOVA) results for a few of many outcomes looked at ... The point of an RCT design is they shouldn't have to adjust for those baseline differences though. Understanding all that makes me cynical about whether anything was proven.

In that passage, it’s pretty clear they mean “1 Repetition maximum “. That is, the highest amount of weight you can lift for 1 rep only.

The “maximum” refers to the weight not the number of reps.

My one rep max in a deadlift is 107.5 kilos (I’m aiming to get to at least 110kilos soon). I can’t do more than one at a time, whereas I can pretty reliably pull 3-5 reps at 90 kilos without a break.

80% of my 1RM is 86 kilos.

I’m 67 and weigh 70 kilos - I’m hoping for strong bones and doing burpees into my 90s

So I weigh 60kg and if I deadlift I can lift say 80kg for 10 reps in a row. But load the bar with 120kg I can lift it once. If I want to lift again I’d need to take a break. So 120kg is my 1RM.

I don’t understand either. A read of the actual research paper includes: HiRIT was superior to CON for bone mass, FN geometry, and physical function compared with a low-intensity home exercise program serving as a positive control. In essence a very closely controlled, close supervised (1:8 ratio) deadlift, overhead lifts and squats programme twice a week was better for bone health than low intensity at home twice weekly15mins lunges and stretches. The study design looks ok, albeit a small group and I think it could have done more on the confounding factors impact - but I think my reading is at odds with notthisrecord summary. And I have no idea what ‘big barbell ‘ conspiracy is either 🤷‍♀️. Would love to hear more about that!

Yep @Octomingo- classes are great for people who don’t want to have to think about the science and maths side of things. You can assume that whoever put the class together has already thought about all that!

And this is why I go to classes and just have people tell me what to do. As soon as going to gym involves yet another thing that involves having to make my brain work, I switch off. Same as nutrition: anything involving weighing and macros and whatever, I'm done.

Re park run. Surely it depends where it is? I can do 5k in28 minutes on a good day on the flat. No way in hell could I do that on my park run course! The muddy hills total me.

Really? I have 2 teen girls and they are not like that at all. They both perform in their respective sports at a very high level. I think the attitude you mention is more of a personality thing than a societal thing TBH.
I despise running. Not because society has told me to be uncompetitive, but because I’ve tried it many many times (I used to work in a team where you only ‘fit in’ if you banged on about running and PBs all the time 🙄), and never found it anything except mind numbingly dull.

@lljkk It means ‘1 rep max’- so it is the heaviest weight you can possibly lift for just one repetition, for any given exercise. Obviously most people don’t just do one repetition of each exercise when they are doing weight training, but it’s a useful measure of your pure strength for different muscle groups/exercises as it can be used to estimate suitable weights for your workout.

So as an example, say a person can do 1 rep of a deadlift with 70kg. 70kg is their 1RM for deadlift.

The text you quoted suggests a warm up consisting of 2 sets of deadlifts at 50-70% (doesn’t say how many reps but I assume that info was in the text). So you would calculate 50-70% of your 1RPM (70kg) which gives a range of 35-49kg for the deadlift weight for the warm-up.

And half the battle is finding something you like. So if a plod around parkrun with your friends on a Saturday morning makes you happy AND your active then it’s win win.

But by people harping on about how slow some people are, or how they are doing the wrong exercises or the wrong weights people are encouraging the negative attitudes.

Instead of looking to pick fault we should be celebrating that people are trying.

Just to keep harping on park run I am not even fast but regularly came in fifth or sith woman in a field of 100 women and 90% of them were younger than me. That's not a humble brag but surprise and I observed that many British women I know were raised without any inherent desire to achieve or compete, and often were discouraged from sport. Then I saw the same with my teen daughter - nothing cool about being the best or fastest but more like bonding with her friends over how rubbish girls are at sport. That is a sad message in 2026. So I get depressed when women make a lot of excuses, as if all those other women running could be idiosyncratic cases.

@NotThisRecordNotThisRecord , can you explain what the lifters did in that experiment? I can't quite understand what an RM is. The explanation seems to say that 1 RM = 1 repetition. RM is defined like this which sounds like a measure of frequeny not a measure of "intensity"
...osteoporosis exercise guidelines typically recommend only moderate-intensity exercises (70% to 80% 1 repetition maximum [RM],

The physical programme is described like this, where an RM is a measure of "intensity"
Resistance exercises (deadlift, overhead press, and back squat) were performed for the remainder of the intervention period in 5 sets of 5 repetitions, maintaining an intensity of >80% to 85% 1 RM. Participants performed up to 2 sets of deadlifts at 50% to 70% of 1 RM to serve as a warm-up,

I'm feeling very confused trying to understand what is 1 RM !

This person probably wouldn’t be going to the class that OP does though.

Can you explain what will? Genuine question? My understanding is that in ‘mid life’ which is me now mid 40s strength plus hill walking and Pilates type stuff is actually ‘best’ for my body…but I may well be wrong. That’s what I understand from recent reading and learning. So zone 2 cardio is best and then strength is important. Maybe not ‘lift as heavy as you can’ but I do understand you need to have a certain level of effort / resistance to get benefit. I personally have a heart condition that means I literally can’t lift super heavy but that’s rare…I know where my sweet spot is. Just wondering if I’m missing something? Also when I say ‘best for my body’ I mean that’s what I’m hearing from various sources but personally my approach is ‘do what I enjoy’ and keep my muscles going. Sometimes I don’t walk I dance or I swim for example…depends how I feel!

She was being just at all. Just curious.

i think women need to be a bit more fuck you about other people in the gym an what they Amy or may not be thinking. And just get on with it.

We have all been there. Nervous, overweight, older - all that.

Obviously injuries etc are going to inhibit progress.

She doesn’t say that’s all women should be doing. She’s quite clear fhat she’s talking about what’s optimal for women who want to maximise results in the most efficient way. Her point is often women do a lot of endurance exercise and complain they aren’t losing weight or changing body composition. She rightly points out that training for long periods in zone 2/3 won’t achieve that result, especially in older women.

This.

OP, as well as judgemental, you also seem to not know very much, or be able to think beyond your own narrow world view.

Women like you are the reason so many other women don’t access fitness, I’ve only just started at 50- so please stop judging and focus on yourself instead.

What if people don’t see running a park run in the fastest time possible as an ‘achievement’? They literally just want to go for a run around the park.

How on earth can you tell that someone could easily run Parkrun in 25 minutes just by looking at them? You sound just like OP who instinctively knows that the other women in her class could be lifting as heavily as her, just by the fact they are there.

For parkrun particularly I am not sure there are any additional health benefits by pushing yourself to your limits to finish a bit faster. More chance of injury certainly.

I agree. I’m not sure why gaming and reading Are considered “having a life” and exercising isn’t. I do all of the things mentioned there and go to the gym. And work ft. I don’t just stare at the ceiling when I’m not at the gym.

I know. I’m doing lots of them. I’m not quite sure why box jumping has got so many people’s backs up. It’s one thing I do as part of a well planned and varied gym programme.

Parkrun rightly saw the fact the average finish time has increased as something to celebrate because it showed that those who aren’t speedy runners are still going out there and doing it. Someone finishing a parkrun in an hour is still someone getting out and doing something!