How heavy should I lift?
Heavy enough that the final rep of a set is genuinely difficult but still done properly, and no heavier. For most working sets that lands somewhere around 70–85% of the most you could lift once, but the percentage is a description of the effort rather than something to calculate from.
The practical test: if you could have done four or five more reps, it is too light. If your technique broke down before the set ended, it is too heavy.
Why
Percentages of a one-rep max are useful for writing a program and almost useless for deciding what to put on the bar today. Your one-rep max is not a fixed number — it moves with sleep, stress, how long since you ate, and how hard yesterday was. A percentage of a number that moves is a number that moves.
Use the set, not the arithmetic. Pick a weight where the prescribed reps are hard at the end. If the program says three sets of eight and the eighth rep of the last set is comfortable, the weight was wrong — not the program.
It should not be the same weight for long. If the load has not changed in a month and the reps have not changed either, nothing is being asked of the muscle that it has not already adapted to.
This is the specific problem Train Smart was built around: most programs hand you sets and reps and leave the weight to you. Train Smart calculates an actual number in kilograms for every working set, from your own last top set on that movement and where you are in your four-week block — and it moves on its own when you hit your reps.
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OpenA program that already answers this for you
Train Smart builds your week around your sport, your season and the days you actually train — with the weight to put on the bar on every set, and the reason each movement is there.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.