The effects of different rep ranges

[Danjo]

Interesting...I always try to mix up rep ranges etc.

[Rudee]

Back in the 80's when I was attending high school, there was a world champion powerlifter named Tom Magee that would come to our school in Calgary to teach strength training to our football team. At the time he had personal bests of 860lbs in the squat and 573lbs in the bench.  He was built like a brick.  6'5 and 300lbs, and he was lean and ripped.  Just a huge physical specimen.  His recommendations for building strength were rather simple:  pick 3-4 exercises for each bodypart.  First set is done with a light weight lifted at a very slow speed.  Second set is done with a medium weight lifted at medium speed.  Third set is done with a heavy weight lifted at fast speed.  When you get to the heavy sets you will find it difficult to lift heavy weights fast, but after a period of time you will gain enough explosive power to be able to do just that.  Our entire football team followed his advice the first year and sure enough, and every player on our team showed considerable improvements in strength and overall power in a relatively short period of time.  I highly recommend you give it a try.  One of the bonuses of growing up in Calgary in the 80's was that a lot of big named strongman would come to town and try their hand at wrestling with Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling, which was big thing at the time.  You'd routinely see legends like Ted Arcidi, Bill Kazmaier as well as all the other wrestling legends that honed their skills in Stampede Wrestling before going off to the WWE.  The good old days.


Tom Magee

[abijahmaniaco]

i'm not even gonna read this bullshit, but say: whatever effect rep ranges have is negligible. all drugs diet as always.

[NordicNerd]

this is old news to a degree... most bodybuilders will naturally pyramid up the weight they are using and reduce the number of reps per set in their workouts...
...
bench 135 x 15
         185 x 12
         225 x 10
         275 x 8

this style of lifting allows for optimal recruitment of both muscle fiber types IMO... direct targetting of one fiber group (using HITT or DC or whatever) seems short-sighted...
...

It IS not that simple. 135x15 is clearly not a set to failure, it is more like a warmup. What would the rep-scheme look like if all sets were to failure? For me, there would be far less difference in weight between the sets: Hypothetically, but based on rough estimates:

200x16
200x11
200x9
200x9
200x8

But you need to factor in the rest time as well. There is a huge difference between 1 minute and 3 minutes.

My guess is that in order to truly affect metabolic vs neural factors differentially, it would be better to go all out on the first working set of all exercises, but vary the weigh on different exercises/days.

NN

[kimo]

higher reps for slow twitch . like soleus lower reps for fast twitch like gastrocnemius. calves. lower than five for strentgh . between six and 15 for hypertrophy.

[kimo]

iu used to trai n heavy with medium to low reps and was always complimented by girls on my shape . so go figure . i was maybe type 11b muscle . type 11a and1 respond more to higher reps . .

[SupahStah]

I have always heard that the legs (quads and hams) can effectively grow in the 20+ range and that one should always train calves in the high rep range. Truth to these?

Not that I've noticed. I can't stand higher rep ranges, I feel like a dork that's not even working out. I know its absolutely ridiculous from a scientific perspective but I just really enjoy the 6-8 range; I sweat like a pig, and throw up moderately heavy weights for all the sets I desire. I'm not even on a traditional 'routine'; I incorporate a base compound lift into every split day, but other than that I kind of just do what I want and make sure that all regions of the target muscle group that day are taxed by exercise. And I am growin' indeed.

I really think it's best to have higher reps in there though; I think I'm going to alter my 'routine' so that after I'm done with my fun 6-8 rep exercises I'll do some 15-20 sets and eek out that last little bit of available strength in the muscle. I've had good luck with that before, gets me sore which doesn't happen unless I'm doing something different than usual, but I have trouble sticking to it. The PHAT program is pretty good about this, and with some modifications it works well while on gear; volume needs to be increased but you can throw in exercises of your choice to do that.


I should probably get my ass a regimen and stop playing around just doing what I want, but it actually ends up being a routine because what I want stays the same for a fair amount of time. After a month or so I want to do some different forms of the exercises so I switch it up. It's oddball as hell but it's working well.

[dj181]

according to lyle mcdonald and a few others, the best rep range for building muscle is 5-8

[kimo]

seems close to correct . as for maggee i doubt he ever squatted 860 pounds . his highes bodyweight was 290 pounds .

[lickitysplit]

So do most people here pyramid weight then, or stick with 4 x 10 type training instead. I get torn between pyramiding 12,10,8,6 reps or trying to do 4 sets of 8-10 with the same weight