Thread: high reps vs low reps

Actually,I always trained arms together and used a program which utilized the 10-12 rep range for every exercise,3 sets of each,and 5 exercises for each bodypart. After 4 months,I had gained roughly 4 inches on my arms, and I experienced the extreme fatigue, and was also disappointed with how quickly the pump dissipated. Stick with it and hang in there. Trust me, you'll know in a month if it works for you or not. The key to testing it is to run it for a full month, then judge by your own measuring stick. I am not using the old arm program anymore,I have since moved on to a 4 sets per exercise,6-8 per set,24 sets per bodypart. No matter what my program or bodypart,volume rules and intensity is ALWAYS the key. Don't worry so much about the weight if you are looking to build quality muscle. The strength will follow in due time.

I like to alternate rep ranges each week. Week one I will go for 5-8 reps and week two will be 8-15reps. This way my body does not get used to anyone rep range. The higher reps, especially in the 8-12 rep range, can be great for addding size and giving you that pumped look because you are getting alot of blood movement to the muscle, they are also great for depleting glycogen levels, which is good if you are cutting. The lower reps are great for strength increases as well as packing on size. Also there are different types of hypertrophy that can occur at these varying rep ranges. For the lower reps (2 to about 8) you are dealing with myofibriliar hypertrophy (think powerlifters). The higher reps (8-12) tend to lean more toward sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (think bodybuilders....the pump!!).

Also, one thing you will here people say is that they see better gains with higher reps for one group of muscles while another group group of muscles grow better with lower reps. This has a lot to do with your own personal neuromuscular effeciency and how well you can recruit motor units.

Cycling between the two rep ranges will be a good idea. You can try doing it in a variety of ways. I like week to week. Some people I train with cycle their rep ranges every 2-3 weeks.

peace,
patrick

Actually,when cutting up,you do not want to deplete glycogen stores because that is what helps to give muscles their "fullness". The main aim in cutting is to eliminate excess fat and water stores from the body. I do understand that glycogen is a form of a sugar/fat, but it is necessary for a full appearance.

I do have to agree with cycling rep ranges,but I tend to vary that by where my muscles are at in respects to where I want them to be. If I feel as though I am seriously lagging in size,but maintaining good definition,I may take reps as low as 4 per set. If I am thickened up,but losing definition,I'll take them as high as 25 per set. Regardless,the important thing is to maintain intensity,take as little rest as your body needs between sets,and focusing on form.

Cutting is when you want to deplete glycogen in my opinion because then you can get into lypolosis quicker (especially if you are doing carb cycling or low carb dieting). Yes, the glycogen fills out the muscle because of the water retention that comes along with it (for every gram of glycogen out body stores it stores and additional 3g of water). The main aim to cutting is eliminating fat (through lypolosis) and water (for every gram of glycogen lost our body drops an additional 2g of water). So how can you say that you want the glycogen but also want to lose water???

To maintain glycogen stores and ditch the water,we have diuretics. Simply enough. Not everyone shares my views,that's fine,but I'll usually add Butcher's Broom and burdock into my supplement regimen to help get rid of the water. The glycogen remains,trapping less water because (as common sense dictates) there is simply less water available. By removing one,the other does indeed become strained,but I found that with the methods I have touched upon here,I can maintain a denser,fuller appearance without a severe bloat. Not saying it works for everyone,but it does work for me. And may I ask what's up with the 3 question marks? I'm not here to p*ss anyone off.

Nothing is up with the three question marks, lol, I usually add three puncuations to my posts whether they are question marks or exclamtion points. I am not pissed off, I just wanted to clarafiy some of the science for our other readers here because I couldn't figure out what you were getting at because you failed to mention diuretics in your first post which totaly changes the scope of things.

peace,
patrick

OK,I am just used to ppl flying off the handle,and I apologized sincerely for failing to mention diuretics.You may also notice that I used strictly herbal/naturally occuring diuretics. Personally,and as silly as it may sound,I just do not trust synthetic and chemically-altered diuretics. I do have a question though.In my calf training,I have hit a sticking point. I've tried altering reps every 3 weeks,from moderate (10-12) to high/extremely high (20-25+). I'm not getting anywhere with them,they just will not grow. Everything else is responding nicely to my routines,but my calves are froze.Any suggetions? If you like,I can outline my routine for you.

please post your routine. Your rep ranges listed are also pretty high. I like a lower rep range for calves, have you ever tried doing sets of 6-8 reps?

I started doing 6-10 on calves,pyramiding up with weight,down with reps,but that brought no reasonable gains,so after 6 months of that,I went to running this routine

All reps are what I usually used

Standing calf raises 8 sets 15-20
Seated calf raises 6 sets 20-25
Donkey calf raises 6 sets
(with my training partner Matt [210] on my back) 15-20
(with galpal Dani [140] on my back ) 30-45

what am I doing wrong? I figure it is something obvious and of course I am missing it....

I'd bet the problem is overtraining... do you play any sports?

I'm not into any sports anymore...when i was boxing,I did half that routine, and when I wrestled I didn't do a thing for calves

Originally posted by EvilEdDanzig
Actually,I always trained arms together and used a program which utilized the 10-12 rep range for every exercise,3 sets of each,and 5 exercises for each bodypart. After 4 months,I had gained roughly 4 inches on my arms, and I experienced the extreme fatigue, and was also disappointed with how quickly the pump dissipated. Stick with it and hang in there. Trust me, you'll know in a month if it works for you or not. The key to testing it is to run it for a full month, then judge by your own measuring stick. I am not using the old arm program anymore,I have since moved on to a 4 sets per exercise,6-8 per set,24 sets per bodypart. No matter what my program or bodypart,volume rules and intensity is ALWAYS the key. Don't worry so much about the weight if you are looking to build quality muscle. The strength will follow in due time.

4 inches of muscle in 4 months on your arms? I'm sorry, but i'm not sure I believe that. Do you mean 4 inches total on both arms combined (so 2 on each arm which, also is pretty incredible)?

No,I gained 1/18 of an inch every week. I measured 4 days after every arm workout. I went from 11 7/8 to 15 15/16,hence ROUGHLY 4 inches.

There are so many philosophies out there its confusing. I dont know whether i should do just 8-12 reps by either doing 2 weeks on 12-10-8 then break it up with a week of 4-6 reps, then go back to the periodized weeks. OR

Do i do 12-10-8 in each exercise, and then one week just do 4-6 reps for strength?

or what?

In the beginning,start out with a weight you can get 10 reps out of,and use the same weight until you are easily getting 12 reps for all 3 sets.as soon as you can get 12 reps easily with that weight,use more weight. Up the weight to where you can only get 10,and keep going until you feel comfortable enoguh to go with a much heavier weight for lower reps if you are looking for strength and mass, or a much lighter weight for far more reps for definition.

that's just my strategy,but it works for all 5 of my students in addition to myself. It may very well be what you are after

Originally posted by P-funk
I like to alternate rep ranges each week. Week one I will go for 5-8 reps and week two will be 8-15reps. This way my body does not get used to anyone rep range. The higher reps, especially in the 8-12 rep range, can be great for addding size and giving you that pumped look because you are getting alot of blood movement to the muscle, they are also great for depleting glycogen levels, which is good if you are cutting. The lower reps are great for strength increases as well as packing on size. Also there are different types of hypertrophy that can occur at these varying rep ranges. For the lower reps (2 to about 8) you are dealing with myofibriliar hypertrophy (think powerlifters). The higher reps (8-12) tend to lean more toward sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (think bodybuilders....the pump!!).

great idea man

I like the sound of changing around my rep range every few weeks, but say for example i'm benching 30kg dumbells, and push out reps of 4-6, when i want to increase my reps would i just keep lifting till i can get 12-15 out? or do i drop the weight down to 26kg and go for 10-12 reps?

for some reason I feel I would just lose the strength by dropping the weights down, maybe if I was to hit a plateu I'd try it for a while, but i tend to respond best to around the 8 rep mark, I got my best chest development from 4 sets of 8 on the chest press machine back in the day (might try 4x8 again for a bit)

peace

No, drop the wieght down and get the reps when it is a high rep day or when/if you run out of gas while you are doing your heavy weight. Don't worry about losing strength, the thing is that you don't need to always pyramid weights/reps. I have seen amazing gains by doing things like working with weight in which I could only bang out 10reps no more no less (my true 10 rep maximum aka 75% of my 1 rep maximum). Why didn't I lose strength? Because what I am looking at here is total amount of weight moved and total energy output. If I pushed through my 10RM and after a few weeks it became easy for me and I was now doing 12 reps at that weight (making it my new 12 rep maximum aka 70% of my 1 rep maximum) then I have effectivly gained strength without increasing load or pyramiding reps...get it?

Ten years, start with using your 10 rep max and go from there, like I jsut explained above. Then play around with pyramiding weight with in the rep range in which you are working that week, just make sure that you stay with in the given rep range.

EvilEd, it looks like your calf routine is pretty heavy. I would lower the volume a little bit. I train calves only once a week and use only about 6-8 sets and my calves are huge. But calves are really just genetics. A lot of people have short tendon attachments which means they have to work really hard to try and make that muscle look big because there is less of an area to increase size. As opposed to someone like myself, who has really long attachments (my calves run the whole length of my lower leg and attach almost all the way down at my ankle). So I have a greater area to deal with and more room to add size. Not to mention the fact that since my tendon is so long I have greater neuromusclular effeciency to contract that muslce.

Ah,I see. I myself have shorter attachments in my calves, and the mass is generally at the higest portion of my lower legs. I just want to bulk them up further because they just do not respond PERIOD. it's not even as much as problem of the short attachments,but rather that the muscles generally do not respond at all. I'll give a shot to the volume reduction,run it for a month and let you know how it turns out. Thanks for everything P-funk

P-Funk: When you say you do a low reps week does that mean you use reps of 4-6 for every muscle? even biceps and triceps etc? For some reason i dont allow my self to do reps of 4-6 on exercises like bicep curls or dips or watever, because i dont feel it works them enough. I usually stick to a rep range of 4-6 with comounds liek military press's, db press's, etc. Is this wrong?

I did back and tri's today, 12 reps, wow. It was like a cardio with the 60-90 second rest. I felt like i was burning too much calories and was breathing harder then I was pumped, i dont know if 12 reps is for me. I was actually contemplating doing this:

4 sets = 10-10-8-8

on my 3 sets do: 10-8-8

do that for a month...and on the 5th week do a strengteh routine of 8-6-6-4

what do you all think

I'm 5'10.75" almost 5'11" 185lbs, mostly lean muscle, my goal is to hit 225lbs of lean muslce, gain size, i'm 40 inche chest 16.5" biceps, and my goal is 50" chest and 20 or more inch arms, so im looking for mass/hypertrophy, i'm an ectomoroph with the potential to be an ecto/meso because im skinny but muscular, i'm just trying to find the best way there, strength is great but size is more important and so is weight/mass.

any thoughts on my question?

Originally posted by perfecto
P-Funk: When you say you do a low reps week does that mean you use reps of 4-6 for every muscle? even biceps and triceps etc? For some reason i dont allow my self to do reps of 4-6 on exercises like bicep curls or dips or watever, because i dont feel it works them enough. I usually stick to a rep range of 4-6 with comounds liek military press's, db press's, etc. Is this wrong?

Yes I even go down to 5-8 rep range for bi's and tri's....why not? Just because you don't feel/think that it works them enough (in your head) they are getting hit really hard. The lower the reps the more muscle fiber recruitment you are tapping into. What you are doing is not wrong at all but I am just offering up a new idea (call it a tool) as a means to change up your workouts, prefent accomodation and hopefully spark some new growth.


Tenyears, chill out man, you just started the new rep range, don't be so quick to shoot it down. Hypertrophy occurs in a rep range anywhere form 6-12 reps (and even as low as 4 reps), just stick with it and give it a chance. The fact that you say that it is like carido tells me that your muscle endurance is probably not what it should be so working in this rep range will be something completely new and foreign to your system which may be a good thing, especially where the endocrine system is concerned and the release of hormones.

Another thing you may want to try is recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible, through heavy warm up sets where you are only hitting singles, and then dropping the weight down and going for your reps. So here is what I am talking about:

Lets say i am doing squats for my hypertrophy week (8-12 rep range). I would warm up with a lot of pyramids of heavy weight and only hit singles, so it would look like this:

135x1 (warm up)
225x2 (warm up)
315x1 (warm up)
375x1 (warm up)
405x1 (warm up)

then, after those warm up sets (which start to get really hard towards the end and really start to recruit some muscle fibers) I drop the weight and go for my reps...like this:

315x12
275x10-12
225x8-10
(225x8-10.....only if you have anything left)

Then, my strength week would be really heavy and all doulbles and triples and maybe some 4s and 5s.....like this:

(*after a warm up*)
455x2-3
455x2-3
405x3-5

cheers P-Funk, ive been meaning to switch my workouts around so i might just give the high reps 1 week and low reps 2nd week a go, sounds similar to gopros workouts..

P-funk,my hat is off to you. I dropped my calf routine to consisting entirely of

Donkey calf raises (w/ training partner on back) 4 sets 8-10 reps
Standing calf raises 2 drop sets starting 20 lbs from whole stack

and already,I have seen a VERY noticable change...they've definitely grown. I do this routine 2 times a week, usually after I train hamstrings.

Many thanks once again.

For what it's worth I do BOTH, high reps and low reps.
For example on lat day I always start with light pull downs, maybe 20 reps 1st set, then pyramid down to about 8. Then when I heat low rows I might do 8 - 6 - 4 -2.
On chest day, after warm up sets it's like 6-8 1st set then maybe 4-6 second and third set then 1-4 4th and 5th sets, BUT then when I hit the flies (after inclines) I go high reps.
Generally, for me, low reps on heavy compund movements and higher reps on isolation type movements.