I started lifting on a regular basis in May, and I’ve been pretty good at getting to the gym three to four times a week since then. I’ve been trying to build bulk by using the heaviest weights I can in descending pyramids generally with 8 reps for the first set and 4 for the third. Two weeks ago I decided to try creatine out and the results have been quick and impressive. I’m satisfied with my arms but still hope to increase my chest size.
My question is, can I continue with the creatine and bulk training for my chest while switching to lower weight/ higher rep endurance training for my arms? Or do I need to stay consistent with my entire body?
There is no right answer to your question, only theories. Whenever in doubt over little things about loads and rest times, I just focus on intensity and effort, because those are the two things build the muscle.
You can do what you said, because if you do, that would be exposing your tri’s to some heavy weight on the bench and lighter on the direct work… and that’s a good one-two punch for some mass. But, change this up periodically.
Since you are a beginner, stick to the basics for the most part. Just because one body part is lagging relative to the other parts doesn’t mean that what you are doing is not working. Messing around with different reps can work for a small amount of time, but the basics will always work. (By basics, I mean one rep range for the whole body, cycling month to month.)
Keep in mind, though, that your arms are pretty heavily involved in your chest workouts, so they’re also going to be exposed to whatever protocol you have your chest on.
Lastly, it’s damn difficult to build arm size without putting on mass all over your body. The absolute best arm exercises are the heavy, full-body exercises: the deadlift, the clean, the snatch, and so on.
What do you expect to achieve with high rep sets for arms? You certainly aren’t going to gain any sort of endurance. You want endurance, do cardio. You want muscle, low to medium rep weight training. If you’re happy with your arm size, just do less sets for arms (or stop arm exercises) and monitor how proportionate you are.
This is one of the sillier myths that’s perpetuated. Doing anything for successively longer periods of time will lead to greater endurance, weightlifting and aerobics included.
Ultrafilter, do you really think doing *arm *exercises for reps (I don’t think the OP was talking about sets that last a half hour) are going to build endurance? Thanks for saying I am perpetuating silly myths oh Brilliant One. Ask any pro athlete the best way to build endurance and see if your answer isn’t doing traditional aerobic exercise. I’m pretty sure it will never be doing high rep curls.
Doing high reps with a light weight of any exercise (even arm curls) will help to increase capillary density in that muscle, which allows nutrients to get to muscle cells more quickly.
Training one body part isn’t good for full body endurance, but it is good for endurance in that part.
Do pro athletes know this? I don’t know. Do I care? No.
You can train 3 different energy systems for endurance. Aerobic conditioning is probably the least useful to weightlifting. The two most pertinent are probably the phosphagen system (which is boosted by your creatine supplementation) - this is for short bursts of power and will get you through your rep, and the other is the glycogen-lactic acid system which last for about a minute and will help you get through your set. Aerobic will certainly help recover between sets. You can also train your muscles to maintain higher levels of resting ATP. Endurance is a vague and generally useless term. You can read something about the different energy systems here: