Weight Lifting Reps + Sets - Question

Graelwyn75

Curious as someone I know who is incredibly fit and lean does workouts involving 18 sets,not sure the reps, and I am curious about whether there is some advantage of doing that number of sets, as opposed to someone doing, for example, stronglifts 5x5 ?

toddis

I believe that many sets is for people that are doing isolation exercises, and that still might be excessive. That sort of training is for advanced lifters (ie, 5+ years lifting).

5x5 is more for beginner-intermediate lifters.

that's my guess.

j75j75

5x5 is more for powerlifting, 18+ sets is an aweful lot of volume and is geared more towards bodybuilding. Sounds like they may be using the German volume training method. It was made popular by lifting coaches in Bavarian countries (ie: Germany, Austria), and used by such bodybuilders as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Graelwyn75

5x5 is more for powerlifting, 18+ sets is an aweful lot of volume and is geared more towards bodybuilding. Sounds like they may be using the German volume training method. It was made popular by lifting coaches in Bavarian countries (ie: Germany, Austria), and used by such bodybuilders as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Which is more appropriate to simply build a little muscle, lean out and lose a little fat, without doing the whole bulk/cut cycle?

aelunyu

This is a complicated question, and the consensus is still out. The reason why stronglifts 5x5 is a good beginners program is because it teaches the neural pathways of compound movements, which you'll eventually need down the line. Single joint movements that you do 18+ sets of are great of general aesthetics, and generally the best way I've found is to rotate a strength based program with a volume/hypertrophy one.

The reason being, something like 5x5 will build alot of myofribillar muscle...that is the actual fibers tend get bigger. The "hardness and "density" of muscle is reliant to some extent on sarcoplasmic growth..which is how much water and plasma is in your muscles at any given time...

For starters, we always want strength to be the main concern, with volume workouts playing a secondary role. Once you have built up enough strength to really recruit fiber, volume should be added to induce more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

Your friend probably has years in the gym and already has a solid foundation of the functional compound movements involved with 5x5. If he doesn't he's basically all show, and no real functional strength. it matters very less if we can bicep curl 100 pounds. Much more important is if we can squat, pull, or push things in an efficient manner!

Mighty_Rabite

I would say there are as many worthwhile workouts out there as there are people to do them, personally!

I have for more than a year now been generally anywhere from a 16-32 set per resistance day workout guy, with the number of sets and reps variant on what I'm working out in a given day. These are my usual guidelines:

Chest / shoulders / triceps - six moves, 3-4 sets per move and 10-12 reps per set
Back / core / biceps - six moves, 3-4 sets per move and 8-12 reps per set
Legs / weights - 6-7 moves, 4 sets per move and 12-15 reps per set (exception of deadlifts which I stick to 5-8 reps)
Chest / back - 4-6 moves, 3-4 sets depending on the number of moves chosen, 10-12 reps per set
Shoulders / biceps / triceps - nine moves, 3 sets per move, 8-12 reps per set
Legs / non-weighted - usually in this case I'm doing some plyometric type of video

I'm a big fan of mixing compound moves with isolation moves - and I had no problem being the main driving force in a huge move today, a move during which I was constantly deadlifting, squatting, pushing, pulling, and lifting/lowering. Great to put results out into the real world!