Thread: reps

getting lean and cut is abotu diet, not rep ranges.

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

i want to get lean, cut and visible muscle but i need to know how many reps i shuld do with my weights? if i curl (i do this every other day and some people say its a waste of time but i like it) how much shuld i do in order to get lean, cut, visible muslces? shuld i do light weights with many reps, not to heavy weights (ones that are perfect for me) or heavy weights for less reps???? either way can someone tell me wat amount of weight works best and how many reps and sets???

Reps are not the answer, however they can help. Let's back up here and take a look at something much more beneficial and vital to your success at becoming lean and achieve a superior overall well-being.

Diet is the absolute most important piece in the fitness equation. 60% of the way you directly look and feel is diet related.

The rest in in the gym:
20% cardiovascular exercise and 20% weight resistance. Do not neglect the wt. resistance training as this will burn more calories and increase your metabolism more than cardio training alone. As far as cardio goes try performing, almost exclusively, interval training as this will greatly increase your metabolic rate.

As long as you eat a good balance of protein, carbohydrates(lower Glycemic index carbs), and dietary fat(coconut oil, seed oils, olive oil, peanuts and peanut butter/oil) you will provide your body with the nutrition it needs in order to recover in ample time.

I recommend that you eat 5 - 6 square meals a day. This will not only keep your metabolism going, but also offer much more energy to your body. Again each meal must consist of a balance of quality protein, (i.e. lean meats, eggs, fish, etc.) carbohydrates (low Glycemic indexed), and dietary fats based on not only your body weight and type, but also your fitness goals.

TO FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION ON DIET AND NUTRITION PLEASE SEE THE A.B.1 SYSTEMS SMART NUTRITION BOOK.

Eat your 5-6 meals throughout the day every 2 or 3 hours and this will put you on a good track to a great and healthy body.

If you are someone who does not eat very many fruits or veggies, like me, then I recommend you take a great multivitamin that will supplement your lack of nutrients. No matter how extensive your workouts are your body will require some sort of micro-trauma healing within the muscles- especially your heart.

Now back to your original question of how many reps. You can perform a higher amount of reps such as 15-100 per set and be able to achieve a great endurance and conditioning goal as well as become stronger. You can also perform low reps such as ranges below 15 and as far down as 3-5 over a few sets. The later is more likely to bulk you; however diet is the ultimate factor in getting and staying lean.

I hope that helps. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

You should do both light and heavy rep workouts. Do some tension work at 4-6reps then more metabolic work at 8-12 reps. Mix it up. You can see which your body responds to best and do that the majority of the time but your body adapts quickly so essentially its best to switch things once in awhile. Periodization is the key.

Getting cut up is all about diet! Go over to the diet forum post your's and get some valuable responses. Remember to post your stats too. Good luck!

ooo but someone told me 100 was too much and my arms would shrink becuase i work on my arms every other day

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

ooo but someone told me 100 was too much and my arms would shrink becuase i work on my arms every other day

In my opinion, and I have been personal training for about 9 years, is that you are greatly overtraining your arms. In fact if you took a week off from performing direct arm exercises my bet is that you will not only get stronger in your arms, but also grow in size too.

Always remember: Recovery Proceeds Growth!

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

ooo but someone told me 100 was too much and my arms would shrink becuase i work on my arms every other day

Nobody can determine how it will work for you! There is way too many variables to predict how you it will turn out. Such as diet/nutrtion, lifestyle, recovery ability, the rest of your programme, sleep.

IMO training arms directly every other day, is overkill and would probably actually be detrimental for myself and I'm sure many others too. Post the whole of you training programme so we can have a better idea of how your doing and help point you in the right direction.

Post your routine and read the stickies.

What you're doing now is about 0.25 times as effective as what you could do, probably.

Curls suck.

I think(and hope) this basic principle assists you with your program design.

-The F.I.T. Principle-

The effectiveness of your exercise depends on three factors:

*how often you exercise
*how hard you exercise
*how long you exercise

at each workout session.

These ingredients make up the FIT Principle which stands for:
Frequency, Intensity, and Time.

To achieve fitness you need to meet minimum standards for each FIT factor.

Remember when training- Less Is More.

Do your absolute best to never train a sore muscle as this can lead to overtraining. Soreness comes by muscle hypertrophy. When intense resistance exercise is performed the muscles undergo a sort of micro-trauma. When this occurs they leak hydroxyprolene-acid. This acid is what makes muscles sore.

In order to overcome soreness and quickly relieve it one must stay over-hydrated by drinking a lot of water and allowing the body to get plenty of sleep(at least 8-9 hours a night).

Since recovery proceeds growth one MUST sleep well and rest well when not sleeping.

NEVER resistance train a sore muscle as this will simply put damage upon damage. Cardio conditioning and stretching exercises are fine while sore as this will assist the recovery process in flushing out the acid as well as re-lubricating the joints. ALWAYS allow for recovery time or over-training will occur. Over-training is indeed a syndrome that many athletes experience and often times never realize it. Signs of over-training will be a loss of appetite, irregular sleep to insomnia patterns, constipation, head-aches, continued sore muscles, progress plateaus, decreased immune system(illness or colds possible), muscle loss, and increased chance of injury to name a few.

It is one thing to train hard and quite another to train smart.

Originally Posted by Witchblade

Post your routine and read the stickies.

What you're doing now is about 0.25 times as effective as what you could do, probably.

Curls suck.

I couldn't agree more. I NEVER do them.

Allow me to quickly compare functional form of strength to a non-functional form of strength through a particular exercise. Take the bicep curl, in its many forms- it is a non-functional exercise as you almost never do anything in life that requires just that part of your body to move in that exact way. Now picture the pull-up with your palms facing you. This is definitely working the bicep, shoulder, back, forearm grip, and most of all abs/core strength. This is a functional exercise and one that will produce some of the absolute best overall results.

Actually, we don't know what muscle soreness is. We do know that it's not directly related to hyperthrophy though.

You can train your muscles when they're sore, just don't overkill it. And don't do it when they're extremely sore.

The advice about rest, diet and overtraining is good however.

wat do u mean by soreness? after i lift i feel some stretch or tenseness in my muscles...is that ok?? and if i dont feel that the nex day i workout can i lift that day??

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

wat do u mean by soreness? after i lift i feel some stretch or tenseness in my muscles...is that ok?? and if i dont feel that the nex day i workout can i lift that day??

Soreness is the achy and tender feeling your muscles get after training. Most people experience some degree of soreness, but there are those who never do. This is merely a genetic ability to rapid recovery or even to simply flush out the toxins causing soreness. Diet & rest is vital to constant progress.

so wats the tenseness/stretch i feel?

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

so wats the tenseness/stretch i feel?

The tightness of the muscle directly after it has gone through the eccentric & concentric movements during training.

can doing bicep curls rele make my arms and muscles smaller??

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

can doing bicep curls rele make my arms and muscles smaller??

a) what is your infatuation with bicep curls?

b) bicep curls aren't going to make you a better athlete on the football field.

well wat lifts can help me build my biceps and triceps??

i gave you that answer in your other thread. go read it. it is the first post.

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

well wat lifts can help me build my biceps and triceps??

Unles your are trying to be a Body Builder there is really no need, except in therapy, for isolated movements such as bicep curls.

Right now you or someone else(magazines maybe) have corrupted your thinking into believing that traditional isolation BB exercises are a superior form of training hen they are far, far from it.

As already mentioned you need to train compound movements such as snatches and closed chain movements such as pullups. These will develop your entire body synergistically as nature intends rather than one body prt at a time.

By training this way you will be a far superior athlete as well as human being than those who train otherwise.

Seriously, you need to start listening to what these people are saying and stop doing some many damn curls! You need to focus on a full body routine, if only you knew how much you would stand to gain if you dropped the 100 curls a day malarky and concentrated on working your whole body.

Originally Posted by StanUk

Seriously, you need to start listening to what these people are saying and stop doing some many damn curls! You need to focus on a full body routine, if only you knew how much you would stand to gain if you dropped the 100 curls a day malarky and concentrated on working your whole body.

Amen!

and if you did start working your arms effectively, youre going to look stupid if your arms are out of proportion to the rest of your body. "hah look at him, probably just goes to the gym every 2nd day and does curls...." Bodybuilders need big arms, normal guys need well proportioned physiques.

Originally Posted by slip

and if you did start working your arms effectively, youre going to look stupid if your arms are out of proportion to the rest of your body. "hah look at him, probably just goes to the gym every 2nd day and does curls...." Bodybuilders need big arms, normal guys need well proportioned physiques.

And on top of that, because I have worked in the gym environments for years, I can easily spot those guys who just train chest and biceps. It is very, very common and why they do this I will never know. Training for aesthetics is one this, but actually looking good is quite another- chicken legs, small tris and no back make up an idiot who thinks they lift hard.

Just because you have a big chest and get an occasional bicep burn doesn't make you a bodybuilder or even a good lifter.

Plus, titties and biceps makes for an awful physique on a man.

well u mean that titties and biceps that are out of proportion from other muscles in ur body are ugly rite??

because everyone is tellin me how much benching helps but now ur sayin that it looks ugly since it mostly works ur chest. and do u no any tricep exercises that i culd do at home wit free weights???

Originally Posted by BringDaBlitz94

because everyone is tellin me how much benching helps but now ur sayin that it looks ugly since it mostly works ur chest. and do u no any tricep exercises that i culd do at home wit free weights???

Military Press.

And what people are saying is that JUST benching and JUST doing curls at the expense of everything else will produce bad results.

You have other muscles - train them.

Try this simple routine for a few weeks -

Flat bench
Military press
Barbell Rows
Deadlifts/squats (alternate each W/O)


each W/O take ONE exersize from the first three(bench, military, rows)and do 10 sets of 3 reps, always rotating thru the list each W/O. Do 4(sets)x6(reps) for the the other two , and on deads/squats always do 6 singles (each set is a single rep)each W/O.

On 10x3's you want to use an amount of weight that you can only lift 6 times with good form if performed in a single set(what you would "fail" on the 7th rep with) rest as long as you need between sets, but each W/O strive to keep shortening this time even if it's only in slight increments.

On the 4x6's use 10-15% less weight (use a calculator) than you're using on the same exersize for your 10x3's.

On the deads/Squats always go as heavy as possible pulling back when you feel close to failure.

After each W/O take the next two days off for recovery(3 if nessessary).As a newb you will be able to put between 5-20 lbs. on to each exersize every W/O and will be able to continue this constant and rapid progression for at least 2-3 months before worrying about "deloading" or changing routines, ect.

Keep a notebook, pen and little calculator by your weights, record each set and weight along with date and how long each W/O takes.

try to complete the W/O in 30-45 minutes if at all possible , definitely under an hour.

Seriously, do this - keep it simple (as is) don't "tweak it" , and you WILL astound yourself.