#129: FAQs: Training to Failure, Lifting Heavy, Rest Between Sets, Training with Arthritis & What About Cardio?

In this episode, I’m answering five frequently asked questions that come up again and again in my programs, my inbox, and my DMs.

These questions cover the nuances of strength training in midlife, and I share practical advice to help you train smarter — especially if you're new to lifting or have unique concerns like arthritis.

You'll hear my take on:

• Do you really need to train to failure?
• How to know if you’re lifting heavy enough
• How long to rest between sets (and what not to do in your rest period)
• How to train if you have arthritis or joint issues
• Whether cardio is still necessary when you strength train

This episode is a great refresher for anyone wondering if they’re doing this “right” — or just looking to optimize their efforts.

Enjoy the show!

Transcript

#129: FAQs: Training to Failure, Lifting Heavy, Rest Between Sets, Training with Arthritis & What About Cardio?

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach. And today we are going to be answering some of the frequently asked questions that I have been getting around strength training, and they have to do with training to failure checking whether you are lifting heavy enough.

About resting between sets. What about if you have arthritis? And also a question about do you actually need to be doing cardio if you are strength training? So let's get into it. 

So the first question is, do I really need to train to failure? Now, this is a great question and my answer immediately is no.

You absolutely do not need to be training to failure. In fact, it has been recently shown that [00:01:00] when you train to failure, you actually are making the recovery process take longer. You don't need to go all the way to failure to trigger muscle growth. You can stop one to three reps from failure. So in essence, in your normal training sessions, you don't need to go to failure.

And if you do, you need to pay attention to giving yourself enough recovery. Now, having said that, I will say that. How do you know where your failure point is? How close to failure you are if you have never trained to failure? So for that reason, I do think it is very useful to spend some period of time actually training to failure and only though on exercises that are safe for you to do so on. So I would not do it on something like a squat [00:02:00] or an RDL or a deadlift, these kinds of things. But it is very safe to do on things like a bicep curl, on a pull up, on a pull down machine. These kinds of things where, if you can't go all the way, you are not in danger, right?

You're nothing's gonna fall on you, you're not gonna hurt yourself, it's not gonna be your back. That gives out those kinds of things. So that would be my advice is to practice going to failure on some safe exercises where you won't hurt yourself. So really imagine, you know, how can I hurt myself going to failure on a particular exercise if you think there is some chance of hurting yourself, then don't go to failure on that exercise. Don't practice on that one, practice on something else, and you'll begin to know what it feels like when you're getting [00:03:00] close. Now, one thing that you will notice as you when you get closer is this involuntary slowdown, and that is a really good indicator that you are getting close.

So video yourself and look at how fast your reps go in the beginning of your set versus towards the end of your set. And if they're looking exactly the same. Then you're not going close enough to failure because you're not seeing the involuntary slowdown. 

So to summarize, you do not need to train to failure normally, and I don't necessarily recommend it because when you train to failure it, it requires more recovery time to recover from that session. So training to one to three reps away from failure is enough. And then on the other hand, it is good to sometimes test training to failure, so you really understand where that line is, and [00:04:00] then you can accurately guess where your one to three reps from failure might be.

So next question. How do I know if I'm lifting heavy enough? Well, let me tell you a story about what I witnessed in the weight room the other day, which was two women. One was on the leg, , curl machine lying down, and the other one was on the seated leg curl machine. And as they were doing their reps, they were having a conversation.

Well, let tell you, neither of them were lifting heavy enough, okay? Because they could talk at the same time. It really wasn't taking much effort for them. 

You know you're lifting heavy enough if your last rep is requiring effort and you are feeling that slow down. Another way to look at this would be make sure you're tracking and that over time, [00:05:00] so over the weeks you are able to do more reps or increase the weight or both.

 As you go, so if you are doing the exact same. Weight and doing the same number of reps week after week. You are not lifting heavy enough, you're not really challenging your muscles. So that would be my recommendation there and that's why I think it's really interesting when online you see some, some.

Fitness influencer will show their exercises that they're doing, and then they're like, do three sets of eight of this, three sets of eight of this, and three sets of 10 of this. And I'm like, okay. But if they did three sets of eight of it and they just did that every week, they would have no progressive overload.

They would not be challenging their muscles and they wouldn't get results. So it's kind of a. An empty way to, [00:06:00] or a useless way to, to give somebody the instructions on how to do that exercise. But anyway. 

Alright.  Next question is, how long should I rest between sets? And I think this is also a really good question and brings up an important point, which is that you do need to rest between sets.

You should not be doing jumping jacks or burpees or jogging in place, or you know, throwing a medicine ball. You should be allowing your body to recover. And my general rule of thumb is to rest between one to two minutes if you're doing an upper body exercise and between one and three minutes for a lower body exercise.

Now that's kind of the starting point. It will depend on whether that's enough time for you to recover and come back strong for the next set. [00:07:00] And how intense your set is. So for example, when I'm doing unassisted pull ups, which is really hard for me and I am going to failure, when I do them or , I am going to failure because I don't have another rep in me.

That is hard, so in that case, even though it is an upper body exercise, I take a full three minutes to recover. I mean, it is a heck of a short set right, but it's very intense. So I take the three minutes. So it actually takes me quite a while to get through my, my sets of, pull-ups and. Yeah, so, so see what it takes for you.

They say that women recover a little bit faster between sets than men do, but that would be my general rule of thumb. And then play with that. If you're doing really long sets of some leg exercises, like maybe you're doing split squats [00:08:00] or Bulgarian split squats, and you've got, you know, an eight to 12 rep range that is.

Like cardiovascularly already quite a workout. You do one leg, maybe you take a minute break and you do the other leg then, then you may feel like it takes you longer than three minutes to recover your breath so that you're really ready to go hard again in your next set. So. So to summarize, one to two minutes for upper body, one to three minutes for lower body, and adjust that as you need, depending on what is the exercise that you're doing and whether you notice that maybe you need a little bit more time to recover.

And one more thing I will add here is that when you are doing supersets, okay, so let's say you're super setting antagonist muscles. In other words, you're doing, two muscles that, do the opposite movement. So biceps and triceps [00:09:00] are great. Pair to superset. So there, you know, you, you could do your bicep set and then go straight into your tricep set and then do your rest period.

Now. If you are really outta breath after doing your biceps, or you feel like, oh, my arms are, you know, like half dead, then maybe you wanna wait a little bit longer before you do your tricep superset. So, but that is, a place where you don't need to do the full one to two minute recovery before doing.

The next set because your next set is gonna be a different muscle group. And same thing if you are training like upper body, lower body split. So for me, for example, I will do an RDL, super setted with shoulder presses. So in one, I'm using my upper body and the other, I'm using my lower body. So I will do the shoulder presses first because they're less [00:10:00] cardiovascularly tiring for me.

And then I will set up and do my Bulgarian split squats, and then after I've done the Bulgarian, I'll take a full three minute break before going back to the shoulder press. So, but it's something you can definitely play with.

Those are just some guidelines to start from. And if you're a newbie, then I would stick to at least the minute and, and then see where that goes.

 So the next question is, can I strength train if I have arthritis? And here I would say that 99%. Of the time, yes you can. If you have any concerns with that, I would consult a healthcare provider before starting strength training, but I have arthritis in my knee and that has been MRI and declared by an orthopedic surgeon.

[00:11:00] And then the next thing he told me was, and this was when I couldn't even bend my knee because I had swelling in it. He was like, okay, get back into the, into the weight room as soon as you can and start doing what you can. Because it is very important to support those joints. And the way you support those joints is by making sure that your leg is strong, that you have strong legs.

Supports your knee joint and strong loots. It helps to support your hip joints and and on and on. So as much as you can do, and of course if you have arthritis, I think. In general, given that we are not 20 anymore, we do need to listen to our bodies. And it may be that your range of motion can't be as great as what it was when you were younger, and it may be that you need to start with a shorter range of [00:12:00] motion.

In other words, let's say you're doing split squats, maybe you don't split squat down quite as far and then you gradually are able to go lower and lower and lower as you get stronger. Or it may be that at some point you just can't go lower. 'cause you notice that your arthritis in your knee starts to act up and therefore that is your.

Range of motion and then you start loading that range of motion. So for me, what I've like just a living example of this is. For me, it's actually interesting because I can do, the Bulgarian split squats full range of motion, no problem. My knees are fine and happy with that, but when I do leg presses there, I have to be, I have to do a little bit smaller range of motion.

It doesn't tolerate it quite as well. I don't know. I don't know why. And then the other thing is with, leg extensions there, I do a little bit smaller range of motion. So instead of [00:13:00] starting with my feet or my legs a little bit less. So if you think about the angle of my cabs to my, the back of my thighs as I'm sitting in the machine.

My, , that angle is gonna be 90 degrees instead of maybe a little bit less than 90 degrees. So, so, you know, modifications that you can do, but the point is that, you know. Hopefully you try to work with your body and to do what you can. And it might mean eliminating certain exercises, modifying others, and if you have questions about your particular circumstance, then get in touch with a physical therapist, who can work with you and come up with the ways of working with your specific, situation.

All right, but don't let it stop you from starting strength training. And once you've gotten the, the advice from your physical therapist, then if the advice is that [00:14:00] yeah, you can do this, just always do a little bit lower range of motion or whatever, then, then go and train, you know, and use that.

Those tips and then maybe meet with them again in half a year and reassess the situation. Something like that. Okay. But I would, I would really hope that everybody would walk away from the answer of this question thinking that, yeah, I have arthritis, but I can do something. Because something is always, always, always better than nothing, because we don't wanna become weak and frail as we age.

Okay. And then question number five is, do I need to be doing cardio at all? If I'm strength training and. The answer to this is yes, you, you do, you do need to be doing cardio. Strength training is not a replacement for cardio. I know there are a lot of influencers online, myself included, who don't show [00:15:00] a lot of the cardio that they're doing.

And I mean, I think there are a lot of them that don't do cardio. I do do cardio. I do also prioritize strength training. So if I only have time to do one or the other, then I'll do the strength training because I know that the cardio is easier for me to, you know, bring back like my cardio fitness versus building muscle back up if I lose it.

Oh my God, that is a, a real hack, you know, to work, work that. But ideally you'll be doing two. Or maybe three cardio sessions a week and two or maybe three weight training sessions a week or, you could do a little bit more. Like, for me, for example, 'cause I, I love to weight train and it is important for me to build the muscle and I'm kind of into that.

So for me, I would strength train four days a week and do cardio twice a [00:16:00] week. That would be kind of my ideal. And one of those. Days of cardio would happen on a strength training day, and one would happen not on a strength training day, so that I still have the two recovery days. But if you, if you wanted to start from somewhere, I would say like do two days of strength training.

I mean, honestly, you will get so many of the benefits just with that. You do not need to become a gym rat. You do not need to become like bodybuilder looking or anything like that. Two days a week is really amazing. You will notice a, a big change in how strong you are and how your body feels, and course your body recomposition, you know, as you build more muscle, then it will change for the better, and then do at least one day of cardio.

And then if you can do two, then that's great. You know, do two. I think I would say that like yeah, I know people wanna know the [00:17:00] optimal, but cardio has such a huge variety of things you can do that you just, because you enjoy moving your body and I want to encourage you to do the things that you enjoy doing.

I would. In an ideal world, do one sit session, so sprint interval training session, so that's like 15 minutes to a half an hour where you're really like focusing on going all out and really raising your heart rate and challenging your self cardiovascularly, and then the other, do whatever it is you love to do, you know, just.

Break a sweat, you know, get your heart rate up and, and it can be a dance class, it can be, playing tennis or hiking up a hill or jumping rope, what, whatever it is that you enjoy doing, but something to get your heart rate up. You shouldn't just do strength training, and this is actually something that I have such a hard time with my boyfriend because he does strength training and he [00:18:00] is never been into cardio.

He's never run, he's never been like an athlete where he's been sprinting up and down a field like I have. My whole, my whole previous life has been all about cardio. So he like, hasn't gotten used to that in his, of course, 60, what is he now? Two, three. And, I'm trying to get him into that. Slowly but surely, and spinning has been the easiest way in because it is fairly straightforward.

You can stop whenever you want. I mean, running is a little bit, maybe more intimidating. Got hills and you need sneakers. I don't, I don't know, running shoes. But yes. Long story short, yes, you do need cardio, even if you're strength training. 

Okay. And so that wraps it up for this time of frequently asked questions.

If you have a question that you want me to cover in a future episode, then please submit it. I mean, you can send it to me in Instagram as a [00:19:00] dm. That's probably the easiest way. Or email me at lynn@befitafter40.com and with that, I leave you until next week and wish you. Happy training.