The weight feels heavy because it’s supposed to. If it felt light, it wouldn’t be building anything.

Resistance is the mechanism, not the obstacle. Something that costs you nothing leaves you where it found you, in the gym and everywhere else. The discomfort at the hard part of a set or a chapter is the signal that you are at the edge of what you can currently do, which is the only place change happens.

Stop reading difficulty as evidence that you picked the wrong thing. Ask instead whether it is the productive kind that recedes with repetition, or the kind that comes from doing something in a way that hurts you. Keep the first and fix the second.