Tina McInnes Coaching

I completely agree.

Too many people are attempting deadlifts before they've developed the movement skills to do them well.

A deadlift is a highly technical lift. Small breakdowns in technique can substantially increase the stress placed on structures that weren't meant to bear the load.

The same is true of the barbell back squat.

These are lifts to earn, not rush into. Build the mobility, stability, and movement quality first, ideally with guidance from a knowledgeable coach.

And remember: you don't have to train the same lifts forever. Rotating in variations and accessory exercises often builds the strength, stability, and motor control that make you a stronger—and safer—lifter when you return to the big barbell movements.

“I lift weights, but I’m not getting stronger.”

This is another common thing I hear from women.

Often, when we look more closely, the issue is that the weights are not heavy enough, the sets are not challenging enough, or the workout ends before the body gets a strong enough signal to adapt.

Lifting weights is not automatically strength training.

Strength training requires effort that is appropriate to the goal.

Your muscles respond to tension. They need to experience enough challenge to have a reason to build more strength, more muscle, and more capacity.

This does not mean every set needs to be dramatic.

It does not mean training to failure every workout.

It does not mean turning every session into a test of survival.

But it does mean that most working sets should feel like work.

A useful question is:

How many more good reps could I have done?

This is the concept of reps in reserve (RIR).

If the answer is 5 or more, the set was probably too easy to drive much change.

For most strength and muscle-building work, you usually want to finish with only a few good reps left in reserve.

Hard enough to create a signal.

Controlled enough to maintain good form.

Repeatable enough to recover and train again.

This is post 5 in my summer series on what actually works in women’s strength training.

Because structure matters. Consistency matters. Progression matters. Volume matters.

But eventually, the set itself has to be challenging enough to count.

Like this post if it helped you think differently about effort.

Follow for the rest of the series.

Share this with a woman who is lifting weights but not seeing results.

“How much strength training do I actually need to do?”

The answer is probably less rigid than many women think.

In strength training, volume refers to the amount of work you do. Practically, I’d frame it this way:

How many hard working sets am I doing for each muscle group across the week?

This matters because muscle needs enough repeated stimulus to grow.

The newer thinking is interesting: muscle growth may begin with as few as about 4 hard working sets per muscle group per week, often split over 2 workouts.

But those sets need to be hard enough to count.

And in my coaching experience, many beginners are still learning how to find that level of challenge. Movement efficiency, range of motion, confidence, coordination, and load selection all matter.

So while 4 hard sets per muscle group per week may be enough to start producing results, 2 sets in a workout may not function that way for every beginner.

This is why minimum effective dose is not the same as optimal dose.

A small dose may produce some results. But if the goal is faster or more visible muscle growth, many women will likely do better with more weekly volume — often closer to 8–12 hard working sets per muscle group per week.

More is not always better.

Recovery, effort, exercise selection, sleep, nutrition, and stress all matter.

But too little volume is still too little volume.

Your body needs enough work to justify building.

This post was informed in part by a topic review of PMID 40129908, brought to my attention by 🙏.

This is post 4 in my summer series on what actually works in women’s strength training.

Like this post if it helped clarify training volume.

Follow for the rest of the series.

Share this with a woman who is lifting but wondering whether she is actually doing enough.

Comment “volume” if you want me to cover how to count your weekly sets.

“What used to work isn’t working anymore.”

This is a common complaint I hear from women.

But when I ask what their workouts actually look like, the answer is often some version of this:

"A little bit of this or that".
"Whatever class was available."
"Whatever felt hard that day."
Whatever the algorithm served up.

The problem is not effort.

The problem is that the training is not progressive.

Progressive overload is one of the most important principles in strength training. It means the demand placed on your body needs to increase over time.

Your body is efficient. Once it adapts to a certain level of work, that same workout becomes less of a stimulus.

At first, almost anything can feel challenging. But over time, if the exercises, reps, sets, loads, range of motion, and effort stay the same, your body has less reason to keep building.

Progressive overload does not mean adding weight every single workout.

It can mean adding reps.
Adding sets.
Improving your range of motion.
Controlling the movement better.
Resting enough to lift well.
Choosing a harder variation when you are ready.

The goal is not to constantly chase harder for the sake of harder.

The goal is to give your body a clear, progressive reason to adapt.

This is post 3 in my summer series on what actually works in women’s strength training.

Follow along if you want clear, practical teaching on the principles that actually move the needle.

Because strength is built when the signal is repeated — and gradually moved forward.

Even the smallest, crappiest workout matters.
It may matter most, because it’s the thread that holds the good days together.

Those repeated signals create a chain of progress—and over time, that progress accumulates into results.

Keep showing up.