Less reps more weight or vice versa?
teknosprite
Posts: 50 Member
So im a female (if that matters in this) trying to lose weight but tone and strengthen as well. Ive heard conflicting things - some ppl have told me to life lift more challenging weights and just go until i cant anymore, then repeat (which results in a diff number of reps each time usually). Should i do this or use a lesser weight (but still challenging) so that i can set my reps, say 3 sets of 15-20ish?
Sorry if this has been asked before but if it has i couldnt find the post. Thanks all!!
Sorry if this has been asked before but if it has i couldnt find the post. Thanks all!!
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Replies
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well why not try both and see what you prefer. as long as you are challenging yourself and eating at a deficit then you'll lose weight0
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I struggled with the same question! I lifted regularly back in my 20's and going with the flow, learned the how's and how to's. But 20 years ago iwas IN my 20's, so it didnt take a lot of work to see results!
But now, at almost-44, I had some extra unpleasant body parts. Like you, my goal is to be lean and toned (again) and with help fom people here on MFP and some research, what ive learned is that to get to where I want to be is less about losing what I have as it is to strengthen muscles that have gone to flab. And of course, I changed and am still changing eating habits. For right now, I am focused on rebuilding muscle mass....which BTW could mean gaining some wait. And then lower my weights, pump up the reps andeven up the cardio a bit to sculpt and tone.
Of course, that's just my story and my thoughts....hope it helps!0 -
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yes0
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It depends on what your goals are.
Do you want to build muscle (which is a good place to start), or endurance?
Alternating months of each goal would make sense.
This is from my blog post about exercise:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/2014-06-08-exercise-667080There are 3 goals or types of weight training.
Most people should start by building muscle.
After a month or so of that, you can add in building endurance.
Going for power is a more advanced technique, which I'll leave to the competitive weightlifters.
...
No matter which you're doing, you need to know the maximum amount you can lift, called the one-repetition maximum or 1RM.
For building muscle, you want to do 1 or 2 sets of 8-12 repetitions of a weight that's 70-85% of your 1RM.
For building endurance, do 1 or 2 sets of 15-20 repetitions of a weight that's 50-65% of your 1RM.
Either way, start low on both weight & reps and work up.
You should just be able to do the last 2-3 reps.
When it gets easy to do the maximum # of reps, add 5 pounds and go back to the minimum # of reps.
(From the American College of Sports Medicine's book "Resources for the Personal Trainer, 4th edition".)
Remember to work both sides of a joint (or the body) - if you're doing bicep curls, also do tricep extensions or dips. If you're doing quadricep extensions, also do hamstring curls. If you're doing abdominal curls, also do lower back extensions.
Don't work the same muscle group 2 days in a row.
They need time to heal, which makes them grow in size & strength.
BTW, most weight loss comes from controlling calorie intake."Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake. However, evidence shows the only way to maintain weight loss is to be engaged in regular physical activity."
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html
Also, you might find that at first the scale doesn't change much, but your clothes are looser (you're taking measurements, right?). Muscle is more compact, sleek, fat is more puffy, so for weighing the same you'll be slimmer & not jiggle as much. :happy:0 -
Yes to which?0
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My suggestion is to find a training plan and follow it. No need to reinvent the wheel.0
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So im a female (if that matters in this) trying to lose weight but tone and strengthen as well. Ive heard conflicting things - some ppl have told me to life lift more challenging weights and just go until i cant anymore, then repeat (which results in a diff number of reps each time usually). Should i do this or use a lesser weight (but still challenging) so that i can set my reps, say 3 sets of 15-20ish?
Sorry if this has been asked before but if it has i couldnt find the post. Thanks all!!
Don't go above 10 reps and if your last few reps of the final set isn't a struggle your not lifting heavy enough, there is plenty of info about0 -
I have a book, Joan Pagano's "Strength Training for Women". In it she talks about deciding what you're trying to do: Increasing weight helps you increase strength, and increasing reps helps you increase endurance. So what I've been doing is starting out with 5 pound weights (I was pretty weak starting out) and doing 2 sets of 10 reps. Then I started adding reps with each workout, until I got to 2 sets of 14. Then I moved to 3 sets of 10, and kept increasing the number each time I worked out. Once I got to 3 sets of 15, I switched to 10 pound weights, going to 2 sets of 10 again. Today I did 2 sets of 14 reps at 15 pounds in each hand, so on Thursday, I'll go to 3 sets of 10. So each of my workouts is either more reps or more weight than the previous ones. I want to increase both strength and endurance, so I'll keep going with this for a while.0
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It depends on what your goals are.
Do you want to build muscle (which is a good place to start), or endurance?
Alternating months of each goal would make sense.
This is from my blog post about exercise:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/2014-06-08-exercise-667080There are 3 goals or types of weight training.
Most people should start by building muscle.
After a month or so of that, you can add in building endurance.
Going for power is a more advanced technique, which I'll leave to the competitive weightlifters.
...
No matter which you're doing, you need to know the maximum amount you can lift, called the one-repetition maximum or 1RM.
For building muscle, you want to do 1 or 2 sets of 8-12 repetitions of a weight that's 70-85% of your 1RM.
For building endurance, do 1 or 2 sets of 15-20 repetitions of a weight that's 50-65% of your 1RM.
Either way, start low on both weight & reps and work up.
You should just be able to do the last 2-3 reps.
When it gets easy to do the maximum # of reps, add 5 pounds and go back to the minimum # of reps.
(From the American College of Sports Medicine's book "Resources for the Personal Trainer, 4th edition".)
Remember to work both sides of a joint (or the body) - if you're doing bicep curls, also do tricep extensions or dips. If you're doing quadricep extensions, also do hamstring curls. If you're doing abdominal curls, also do lower back extensions.
Don't work the same muscle group 2 days in a row.
They need time to heal, which makes them grow in size & strength.
BTW, most weight loss comes from controlling calorie intake."Most weight loss occurs because of decreased caloric intake. However, evidence shows the only way to maintain weight loss is to be engaged in regular physical activity."
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html
Also, you might find that at first the scale doesn't change much, but your clothes are looser (you're taking measurements, right?). Muscle is more compact, sleek, fat is more puffy, so for weighing the same you'll be slimmer & not jiggle as much. :happy:
Why only 2 sets?0 -
A lot of the newest lifting programs out there have different rep ranges built in. This is because you get different benefits from all of them. The amount of time you spend doing each one will depend on your goals but the answer is you should be varying your workouts to include multiple rep ranges.
This was posted just today and Shoenfeld sums it up nicely.
http://youtu.be/aY-nEcCLBdE?t=2m34s 0 -
Strength: 1-5 or 6 reps working at a relatively high % of your max
Hypertrophy: 8-10 reps working at a relatively moderate % of your max
Endurance/Stamina: 12-15 reps working relatively light.
Ideally, for general fitness purposes you would want to cycle through all of the above throughout a given year. If you are specifically training for something that is a different story all together...and some people in general just prefer training for strength or hypertrophy or endurance and ignore the rest which I wouldn't recommend.
I would also recommend following an actual program rather than trying to program your own...you don't have the requisite knowledge to program your own routine which will ultimately lead to imbalances and likely overuse/over train injuries.0 -
I'm a woman who does 8-15 reps of most exercises, generally. That's my sweet spot. It makes my workout go by quickly because I'm lazy as hell, but it's light enough that I won't run the risk of injuring myself doing it.0
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A lot of the newest lifting programs out there have different rep ranges built in. This is because you get different benefits from all of them. The amount of time you spend doing each one will depend on your goals but the answer is you should be varying your workouts to include multiple rep ranges.
This was posted just today and Shoenfeld sums it up nicely.http://youtu.be/aY-nEcCLBdE?t=2m34s
Was going to post that.
A variety is best IMO. I like lower reps for big compound movements and higher reps for isolation stuff.0 -
such muscle. very wow.0
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If you are wanting to build strength and mass, use heavy weights with few reps but let's look at the calorie maths.
Here's an example: If the max you can do is five reps with (say) 55Kgs on a particular exercise you will use 5X55=275 calorieunits working against the force of gravity. But you can probably do 15 reps by dropping the weight to 50Kgs and so use 15X50=750 calorieunits working against gravity.
So to burn calories, it is more effective to drop the weight a little below your max and do more reps. You will still improve strength and mass but burn significantly more calories.
Of course you must not exercise so quickly that you begin significant puffing. Once it has exhausted its blood and liver stores, your body will demand energy from your body's energy stores. These are fat and protein stores. Fat stores are a slow way to get energy and, if your body needs energy faster than the fat stores can supply, it will demand energy from a faster supply source and that is from the protein of your muscles. You do not want this and so keep your exercise to the point where you can still carry out a conversation.
Remember, if using weights, to maintain correct posture at all times and get someone to make sure you are lifting correctly to minimise injuries.0 -
Right now I am doing what I guess are medium reps but varying the weights. So for dumbbell rows I would do:
12 @ 22.5#
10 @ 25#
8 @ 27.5#
As many as I can @ 22.5#
Once I can do 15 on the final set I move everything up 2.5#.
That's for rows, squats, deadlifts, and bench press. Other more isolation exercises like tricep extensions I only do 2 or 3 sets and the weight doesn't increase as quickly.0 -
Mix it up. That way you'll keep your muscles guessing, and you won't get bored. If you always do the same routine, your muscles will get used to it and gains can slow down.
For each body part, I generally pick one main exercise and do a warm-up followed by 4 sets. Most often I do a series of 15, 12, 10, and 8. Sometimes, however, I'll do 20, 15, 12, and 10, or 10, 8, 6, 4. Obviously for lower rep progressions I'm generally increasing weight as I go, for higher reps I'm going lighter weight and keeping it the same. Sometimes though I just do straight sets of 10 or 12. I believe lower reps with higher weights is better for strength building, which is not my goal, so I generally don't go for the real low rep sets.
For supporting exercises (not the main per body part) I'm generally doing pretty basic 3 sets of 10-12, but can go as high as 15.
My general goal is to always try do just a bit better than my last workout. So I'm either trying to add a bit more weight (I love the 2.5 pound plates for this reason) or get a few more reps.
I'm pretty hard on myself after a workout if I look back and know I didn't go 100% for my full workout and could have done a bit more or took it easy. I can't tell you how often I tell myself "one more" during a workout when I think I'm starting to lag. One of my favorite adds, not because of the product though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHl99RyDjNY 0 -
Mix it up. That way you'll keep your muscles guessing, and you won't get bored. If you always do the same routine, your muscles will get used to it and gains can slow down.
Muscles are dumb pieces of meat. That don't need to be "confused" or mixed up or anything like that.
My general goal is to always try do just a bit better than my last workout. So I'm either trying to add a bit more weight (I love the 2.5 pound plates for this reason) or get a few more reps.
This is correct. Progressive tension overload (more reps, sets, volume basically) is the most important factor. There are many ways to skin a cat 0 -
Mix it up. That way you'll keep your muscles guessing, and you won't get bored. If you always do the same routine, your muscles will get used to it and gains can slow down.
Muscles are dumb pieces of meat. That don't need to be "confused" or mixed up or anything like that.
My general goal is to always try do just a bit better than my last workout. So I'm either trying to add a bit more weight (I love the 2.5 pound plates for this reason) or get a few more reps.
This is correct. Progressive tension overload (more reps, sets, volume basically) is the most important factor. There are many ways to skin a cat
Adaptation
Over time the body becomes accustomed to exercising at a given level. This adaptation results in improved efficiency, less effort and less muscle breakdown at that level. That is why the first time you ran two miles you were sore after, but now it’s just a warm up for your main workout. This is why you need to change the stimulus via higher intensity or longer duration in order to continue improvements. The same holds true for adapting to lesser amounts of exercise.0 -
If you are looking to build muscle it's a combo of diet and hypertrophy, lifting at a higher rep range to failure.
If you are looking to build strength it's all about lower reps, 3-5 being a good example, and never going to failure. Pick a weight that you can do within the 3-5 rep range that will allow you to leave a couple reps in the "tank". Strength training will build some muscle of course but it's purpose is more focused towards your CNS. Strength is basically the ability to create tension, though that's not the most scientific explanation.
As far as tone goes, I think it's one of the worst terms ever introduced to the world of exercises and fitness.
Tone = residual muscle tension in a non-flexed muscle. It's something you always have unless of course you are a victim of a spinal injury and no longer have use of your lower extremities for example.
If the muscle innervation is shot you don't have any muscle tone in the corresponding muscles.0 -
Thanks all! I'm trying to decipher all the answers
basically what I think I'm getting is that as long as it is a challenge, it is good. To build muscle mass faster, do less reps and more weight (approx 2-3 sets of 8-10ish) with a weight that allows me to do so, but does leave me feeling like I'm doing the max reps I can. For endurance, a lower but still challenging weight and more reps. Free weights are the best. What I'm trying to do now is build muscle. Toning is not a thing! Haha I think people say that someone looks "toned" and so "toning" has become a term, but really it's just what happens when one builds back.
/builds new muscle.
So some follow up questions:
I usually do stretches, then hit the weight room and work my upper body. I do about half free weights (I am still learning proper form, etc. I have a friend helping me ) and half machines. I work my inter thighs (problem area for me) and gluteus. I then do about 30 min on eliiptical. I feel like the elliptical is working my lower body so that's why I don't specifically do strength exercises on my lower body. Should I be doing lower body strength training in addition to the cardio?
Also, what are good ways to alternate upper body muscles? I tend to just try to hit them all the best I can, but it sounds like it is not a good idea to work them again the next day. Right now I generally go to the gym 5 days a week, and the other days I walk.0 -
You should probably get on a program instead of just trying to make it up as you go along.
Inner thigh machines are fine for strengthening those tiny little muscles in there but wont do anything as far "problem area". You can not spot reduce or tone an area. Those little muscles there would get a lot of work from squats, lunges and dead lifts an those lifts would actually be getting you towards your goal.
Elliptical is not enough work for your lower body. Burns a few calories but wont do anything for muscle growth or strength.
The book Strong Curves is great and has all the info you need and a program to fit your needs.0 -
Alright, thanks! I'm gonna look into something more of a program, that way I'm not just flying in the wind. Thanks for all the input!!0
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