High reps low weight/low reps high weight for bulk?
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All that blue just says that if you're lifting on a well-designed program, rep ranges aren't nearly as relevant as people like to think they are. Your body doesn't count reps and decide whether to gain strength or size - it reacts and adapts on a continuum to the workload being imposed upon it. It's not as cut-and-dried as some make it seem.
It's akin to substrate utilization during cardio - your body uses both fat and carbs for energy. People act as if there's a hard line where you're using exclusively fat below that line and exclusively carbs above it. Things aren't that neat. It's certainly more pronounced at the extremes, but there's a huge gray area in the middle between them. Same with rep ranges in strength training.6 -
I find the chart reassuring, actually. It says, to me, do the reps and you will be doing yourself good regardless of program design. So thanks for that.7
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Your goals and how you respond to things will drive what you can do. Personally, the program I designed has everything from 3 to 20 reps. And while I mainly do linear periodization, i periodize my cycles (3 6-week blocks).1
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Keto_Vampire wrote: »Include both high rep sets & low rep sets in order to gauge strength progress (does not matter if cutting or bulking; this is another broscience misconception that high reps tone, low reps bulk/build).
PHAT works well; however, I go with targeted exercises (mostly compound/multi-joint movements) for heavy, low rep sets with high rep, low weight "isolation"/single joint movements in the same lifting session (Jim Stoppani often advocates this type of approach). Experiment, but @ the end of the day, you need some way to gauge progress
Okay.. interesting thank you very much.0 -
I just stick to 8 for all my lifts. It's right in the middle so it takes all the guess work out of everything.2
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That chart is awesome. It shows (to me anyway) that regardless of lifting for pure strength or pure endurance you get residual benefits either way. Me personally, I have had success with increasing muscle using both heavy/low-light/high. Now I tend to mix it up. Some days I'll go heavy, some I'll go lighter. I also, when hitting a certain body part, go heavy/low rep on one exercise and light/high rep on the next to keep it interesting for me and I still see gains.1
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That chart is awesome. It shows (to me anyway) that regardless of lifting for pure strength or pure endurance you get residual benefits either way. Me personally, I have had success with increasing muscle using both heavy/low-light/high. Now I tend to mix it up. Some days I'll go heavy, some I'll go lighter. I also, when hitting a certain body part, go heavy/low rep on one exercise and light/high rep on the next to keep it interesting for me and I still see gains.
Interesting.. thank you.
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I travel to China on business. Trips are long enough that I join a gym here.
I noticed that the trainers in China focus almost entirely on light weight, slow reps, lot of reps.
I wad doing the rotary torso machine with the pin at max. A trainer came by and arrested mobbing the pin. He set it near the minimum. Felt like nothing. So I moved it back. I think he might have also judged base on my appearance which is not athletic. But my core is pretty strong.0 -
Hi all when bulking with the aim of getting stronger and bigger is it better to be doing high reps and low weight or low reps and high weight? What are all your opinions and tips about this?
Personally I found low reps high weight worked for me well but because I have been following the PHAT workout lately a lot of there exercises call for higher reps so I’ve had to lower the weight but I hope that over time I will work back up to the weight I was lifting when I was doing lower reps.
Both, I usually go heavy on compound lifts (3-5 rep ranges) and higher rep ranges (8-15 rep range for iso exercices (ex: BB curls)). You get the best of both worlds.0 -
The PHAT program is designed to both improve strength with lower rep higher weights sometimes, and hypertrophy with moderately higher reps and lower weight sometimes. That's how that program is designed. You went through a whole deal about what program and you picked that one just a month or so ago. Why are you second guessing it? Just follow the program. I'm guessing Layne Norton knows what he's doing.
Ya think? LOL! He maybe - and forgive the cliche cliche - has forgotten more about this stuff that most of us know! He knows from the weight room and from the class room! Not a bad combination.0 -
Hi all when bulking with the aim of getting stronger and bigger is it better to be doing high reps and low weight or low reps and high weight? What are all your opinions and tips about this?
Personally I found low reps high weight worked for me well but because I have been following the PHAT workout lately a lot of there exercises call for higher reps so I’ve had to lower the weight but I hope that over time I will work back up to the weight I was lifting when I was doing lower reps.
My opinion is you should perform training that your body responds optimally within the programmed volume.
Rep schemes of others lifters and their programs(even the same program) really shouldn't hold weight with what is best for you. The fact is you might be more or less male, more or less efficient at hypertrophy, have more or less of athletic background, etc.
Some people are resistant to certain rep schemes while others are good responders. Find yours and run it as long as you respond and add volume before reps are missed.
Agreed. Everyone is different. Everyone responds to the same stimulus differently. I am 51 and I keep hearing from younger people, "Dude, you can't do that. You are way too old to be doing that!". Okay....but watch me...and see these results? What do you say about that?".
I think, though, that people need to play with things and see what works best for them. You simply do not know without the experience. It does not matter what Aunt Sally did or what your colleague did....you may or may not follow suit.
So, perfect advice!0 -
Keto_Vampire wrote: »Include both high rep sets & low rep sets in order to gauge strength progress (does not matter if cutting or bulking; this is another broscience misconception that high reps tone, low reps bulk/build).
PHAT works well; however, I go with targeted exercises (mostly compound/multi-joint movements) for heavy, low rep sets with high rep, low weight "isolation"/single joint movements in the same lifting session (Jim Stoppani often advocates this type of approach). Experiment, but @ the end of the day, you need some way to gauge progress
Jim Stoppani has a lot of interesting programs.0
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