Heavy Lifting Vs. Lean Muscle... I'm confused!

hesn92

It confuses me too. I pretty much just try and do 8-10 reps ish on all of the exercises with the weights. Even the ones where he says "everyone does 16 reps" ... If I pick a weight and end up doing 14 reps, I just pick the next heavier weight the next time I do that exercise. I don't know. I'm not expecting to get all ripped and build muscles with this program...

Sharyn913

Saving this thread for later

jacksonpt

Here's the bottom line when it comes to reps.

The more reps you do, the more the exercise becomes cardiovascular. Which is fine, but know that you are doing cardio work, not strength training. The fewer reps you do, the more the exercise becomes about strengthening.

There is no one definite, defined number at which you go from strength training to cardiovascular training. Most people generally say 12-15 reps, but that's just a guideline. IMO, if you're doing strength work, you should be in the 5-10 rep range. if you're doing cardio work, 20+.


As for the heavy lifting vs lean muscle... you're talking about 2 different things, or at least using the wrong terminology. It should be heavy lifting/low reps vs light lifting/high reps OR blindly bulking vs adding lean muscle.

The first comparison I explained in the first part of this post. The second I'll explain now.

Both address (or elude to) the issue of growing new muscle. For all intents and purposes, this only happens on a calorie surplus (there are a very few, very limited exceptions to this, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just leave it at that). So you lift heavy, you eat at a surplus (including lots of protein) and you'll "get bigger." I say get bigger because the weight you put on will be a mix of fat and muscle. How much is fat and how much is muscle depends on a lot of things. The biggest one that you have control over is the aforementioned surplus of calories. The smaller that surplus is, the less fat you'll gain along with the muscle. The greater the surplus is, the more fat you'll gain with the muscle.

So heavy lifting vs lean muscle is apples and oranges, and probably part of the reason why you're confused.

Does that help?

steve1686

trust me, you won't build significant muscle doing p90x

Hmm..I've done pretty well.

what i meant was she will NEVER look like a roided up female bodybuilder by doing p90x, which is a myth a lot of women believe when they start doing any kind of muscle building routine. Yeah, you can build some muscle and certainly gain strength, but not to any extreme. And yes, it appears you have done quite well!