It’s a commonly held axiom in strength-training that the greater the weight you lift, and the less reps you do (insofar that you’re still exercising and not just doing fewer reps for the hell of it), the more growth you’ll experience. Additionally, it’s said that if you do more reps with less weight, you contribute to definition of your already existing muscles, as opposed to size.
Is there any truth to this?
Go ride a bicycle a thousand miles; you’re not going to build much in the way of muscle mass.
Go to the gym and start doing squats and other leg exercises involving weights that limit you do about a dozen reps, and you will build mass.
Many years ago I did something similar, though not quite as extreme. I spent the summer riding a bicycle. Fast, on the edge of my aerobic limit. Ten miles a day, maybe four times a week. About once a week my buddy and I went out for a 30-mile ride.
Near the end of the summer I went with my family to Switzerland, where we began a 10-day backpacking trip around Mont Blanc. Our packs were heavily loaded with most of the food we would need (we did buy some bread and cheese along the way). Despite being at a peak level of aerobic fitness, my legs were unprepared to carry me and a 40-pound backpack up and down steep slopes like that; it was a totally different workout for my legs. At the end of the first day my legs were wobbly. The next morning they were extremely sore and stiff, and I could barely walk. After a few more days the soreness subsided as my leg muscles recovered and got used to the high forces involved.
This was about 20 years ago, so I can’t tell you for certain that I built muscle mass in my legs by the end of the backpacking trip. My main point is that low-force/high-rep activity is very, very different to your muscles from high-force low-rep activity.
Yes, at least for the first part. The second part is more true for endurance than for definition. I think either can lead to definition id coupled with relatively low body fat.
See page 509 of that linked pdf for the American College of Sports medicine’s official guidance and feel free to read their citations provided.
If you do lots of reps, you’ll tire your muscles out and they’ll start to adapt in ways to prevent them from getting tired as easily. You can’t do a weight that’s really heavy for you very many times. By doing a weight than you can only do 5 times, you’re stressing your muscles to near their limits of strength production and they start to adapt to get stronger. At first, a lot of this happens in the nervous system, but to continue getting stronger, the muscle needs to grow.
If you’re doing something like 10-15 reps (ie still a decent load, not like biking/long distance running), your muscles will still grow, they’ll just adapt in a different way. Bodybuilders, whose goal is to achieve maximum muscle size, will typically do more reps than someone training for strength, so this kind of repetition range works fine for that purpose as well, and according to some, even better. I don’t know much about bodybuilding, but I think successful bodybuilders do a fair amount of lower-rep training too, so maybe high rep isn’t enough to get past a certain point.
To the first part, yes. The muscle fibers that have the most growth potential are only used in very heavy movements, so you need to go heavy to train them.
The second part is not so true. See ExRx’s myths page for more detail.
For pure strength, low-reps (anywhere from 3-6) are the ideal rep range. For muscle mass, you need to increase your rep range in order to recruit as much muscle-fiber activity as possible. This is best done in the 8-12 rep range. The idea of doing high reps (over 15) in order to “tone” the muscles is misunderstanding how muscle is formed and maintained. You aren’t going to build much (if any) muscle using weights that you can perform that many reps with, actually what you are doing is simply getting a sort of aerobic workout (and thus burning calories) from the high-level of activity that high-reps sets entail. So when you see a bit of “toning” as a result of this kind of workout, one might think it had something to do with the muscle-sculpting secrets of high-rep sets. You really are just removing the fat surrounding the muscles.
*What is key, regardless of however many reps you are doing, is intensity. Make sure that if you are doing 6 reps or 15 that the last rep in the set takes every little bit of effort that you have.
This is very widely believed, but I’ve never seen any research support for it, and given that this rep range doesn’t recruit the muscle fibers that have the highest hypertrophy potential, I sincerely doubt that I ever will. Anecdotally, if you give a beginner a program like Starting Strength, that’ll put on a hell of a lot more muscle than anything following this recommendation.
There is scientific evidence for the ideal number of reps to do for muscle growth, although it’s not just “lower reps, more growth”. An extensive study on the issue is here. It goes through all the elements of a workout, and says the optimal level of weight, number of reps, number of sets, rest time, rep speed, training frequency, etc, depending on whether you’re trying to maximise strength, power, endurance or muscle size (known as ‘hypertrophy’).
The best way to maximise muscle hypertrophy is not to do very low reps. Rather it’s to focus on the 6-12 rep range, rotating a different number of reps in that range each time.
The study also outlines a whole bunch of other information for the best way to train for muscle hypertrophy: the weight should be above 70% of your one-rep maximum, the rest periods between sets should be between 1 to 3 minutes, number of sets should be between 3 to 6, you should train between 4 to 6 days per week, and so on. It’s all there in the study at the link and it’s quite easy to read. I’ll quote the introduction and the relevant part about reps.
Well I know everyone here loves a scientific study to back up what they say but when it comes to lifting weights and getting results, the proof speaks for itself. I have been living in a gym for more than a decade and have been a competitive bodybuilder for more than 4 years. Why do you think there is not a bodybuilder alive who trains with extremely low-reps? Or at least predominantly trains that way. An argument can be made for incorporating very low-rep training into a mass-building plan as a foundation for strength but not for building muscle. Conversely, why do you think there is not a competitive powerlifter alive who trains for hypertrophy and uses mid-range reps? They train exclusively for strength and they train in extremely low-rep ranges (predominantly).
And, with all that being said, you really can’t say “so and so number of reps works best for everyone” because many things (aside from genetics) influence the effectiveness of a given number of reps in a set. Like the speed of those reps, the quality of those reps, the intensity of those reps and the range of motion of them. So while general terms can be laid out, it really does depend on the individual, their execution of the exercise and their specific genetics (which can influence a person to respond better to lower reps, although not typical).
Well I hope you can afford an apartment soon.
Anyway. isiah’s post and link is more complete than mine. The fundamental principle is that that high reps lower weight builds endurance but not mass. Strength and power, which are a function of both muscle mass and the manner in which that mass is utilized (referred to as “neuromuscular adaptation”) cannot be optimized by high rep work alone. If you want strength, power, and/or mass then relatively lower rep higher weight gets thrown in. For those purposes your 8-12 reps is low enough.
Now getting more detailed it gets more complicated. You are right that it depends on the individual and how already trained they are. Hence the different guidelines for the advanced like you and the novice to intermediate lifter.
More sets with shorter intervals helps more with mass (hypertrophy). But the theme throughout the sports medicine literature is both the obvious that progression is required to keep making gains, and fairly conclusive evidence that variety is best. Traditionally that gets called “periodization” and the usual sort, “linear periodization” - starting with higher volume lower intensity sets and over weeks adding more weight and decreasing volume, has been shown to be inferior to mixing it up lots more - “undulating periodization” as it is called. Here is one of the studies.
How that gets played out in the ACSM guidelines varies according to the goal. Again, if the goal is mass then multiple sets with short rests is key, but while the focus should be on the 6-12 rep sets, adding in high weight lower rep and lower weight very high rep sets helps. For power you’ve got to throw in some explosive movements.
That isn’t proof. Things that athletes always used to do that are now recommended against:
(1) Stretching before activity. This is now shown to cause more injury.
(2) Not drinking any water during activity.
(3) Drinking a metric shit ton of water. This and above have been discarded in favor of
(4) Adding fat/dieting in a build up/slim down cycle. Body builders used to do this, but a balanced consistent diet has been shown to be the most effective.
Everyone here loves a scientific study because they like their facts to be proven.
Depends on what you mean by “extremely low”. Dorian Yates won the Olympia half a dozen times, and he repopularized High Intensity Training of the sort that Nautilus and Mike Mentzer used. This kind of training does very few sets, but lots of negatives and forced reps.
If it were simply a matter of “low reps build size”, there wouldn’t be any flyweight powerlifters. Conversely, Tom Platz was known to squat 225 for ten minutes straight, and squatted 500 for 23 reps. Or Ronnie Coleman, for that matter.
People vary in their response to exercise, and at the super-elite level, a lot of the champions grow no matter what they do, and sometimes even in spite of what they do.
Of course, much of this has to do with anabolics, but that is another thread.
Regards,
Shodan
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CCUQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bodybuilding.com%2Ffun%2Flayne45.htm&ei=5W0qToLMDqjL0QGsrunVCg&usg=AFQjCNEVrR1L-mZzs-DtK6X5xhv2L5VA9A
Here they refer to peer-reviewed studies which confirm the claim that sets in the 6-12 rep range generally produce the most hypertrophy.
My point wasn’t that I couldn’t find scientific evidence to back up my claim, what I was saying was look at the end result: a bodybuilder. Their physiques are the evidence for the effectiveness of the 8-12 rep range, THAT was what I was saying. Not that the fact that most bodybuilders trained in that fashion was in fact that evidence.
And futhermore, these are just general principles, like with Mike Mentzer’s training technique, many things can influence what impacts “a rep”. Not all reps are created equal.
“(4) Adding fat/dieting in a build up/slim down cycle. Body builders used to do this, but a balanced consistent diet has been shown to be the most effective.”
I just glossed over these the first time I read this after the first couple and I didnt see number four clearly. You are absolutely entirely mis-informed here. I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “adding fat in a build-up cycle” but a bodybuilder who is undergoing a mass-gaining (muscle-building) cycle will indeed add fat as well as protein and carbohydrates; in other words calories. Not indiscriminately of course, far from it. A dedicated bodybuilder will only eat the foods that he/she knows will give them the best results and the best results come from good, healthy things. And conversely, a bodbuilder who is preparing to compete in a contest diets OUT OF THEIR MIND for months just for 90 seconds on stage. This diet, while not one that should or could be maintained indefinitely, isn’t necessarily unhealthy, if done right.
Well no, it’s not another thread, not really. Because those anabolics have a very big impact on the effectiveness of those training techniques. And each and every one of those athletes (except maybe one I’m not sure about) were heavy anabolic-steroid (and other illicit anabolic drug) users.
As per the report I cited above, evidence shows the optimal way to train for muscle hypertrophy is to rotate between 1 to 12 reps, focusing more on the 6-12 rep range. Focusing on the 1-6 rep range - which is the optimal range for increasing strength rather than muscle hypertrophy - will still produce hypertrophy, just not as effectively.
And my point is that this isn’t sound logic. I could have used the same argument to support those false premises I posted before. “Elite athlete X doesn’t drink water while training, but just look at the results. It must be true!”.
I mean they get fat while bulking up. Putting on 10-15 pounds of fat in addition to building muscle. They then go on a diet and lose the extra fat in a cutting/slimming mode. Supposedly it allows you to build muscle faster than simply eating a balanced diet and adding solely muscle.
I think what you discovered was that the muscles you use to ride a bike are not the same ones you use to walk/run. You’re walking muscles were out of condition. Bike riding is not necessarily lots of reps, low force, it depends on what sort of gearing you use and what the terrain is like. Someone doing a lot of hill-climbing on a bike is essentially doing relatively high force low rep activity, but they’re still going to run into the same problem you did with your backpacking trip if they don’t do walking/running as well as bike riding.