More Weight or more Reps?

[stevius]

At the moment I’m training with two of my friends and getting them used to the idea of hard work. So, I’ve been explaining that resistance training is exactly that- go into the gym, train fast and heavy. I told them there is no point in pumping out reps for hours with medium weights. Warm up, estimate how many reps and what weight you want to use then split the reps up into as many sections as you need to cover the total number of reps.

Anyway, during the last session they were both on the incline bench performing dumbbell press, and changing the angle of the bench. Their idea was to take a medium weight, perform as many reps as possible, change the gradient of the bench and do the same again. They told me that by the time they had gotten to the lower angles they were struggling to get two reps out.

Well, I was tempted to starting preaching again about wasting energy doing reps with lower weight. I thought they had the right idea about training fast but continuing sets too long and burning out without actually doing enough work in a session.

The thing is I think I have the right idea but I can’t explain it to them well enough, so what am I really on about? I go by the method of high weight, lower rep counts, not to failure and fast workouts, but I don’t really know why. Does anyone have any ideas or links so I can explain to myself before I start shooting my mouth off to others?

 

[BOOEY]

My justification: Go big or go home

 

[altimus]

tell them that the most satisfying feeling they can get in the gym is..the pump. it is as satisfying as having sex with a woman and cumming...sorry, lil pumping iron reference, couldnt help it. it seems like they are judging the quality of their workouts by the intensity of their "pump", which is a side-effect, not the goal. the pump is fine and all, but not indicative of a killer workout. for ex. the waterbury 10X3 method. the weight is not necessarily heavy enough to get a badass pump, nor is the rep range high enough to get anywhere close to failure. it was light enough to complete explosive reps. yet the next day i was surprisingly sore, and during the lifts, i found myself going wtf is the point of this? well, the nexy day i found out. the chest definitely got worked hard. tell them to grade their workouts on pr's, big weights lifted, etc, and not how fatigued they can make each muscle group. sorry for my rant ... cheers

 

[kaukasion]

honestly i think working till u get the pump is just too much effort
ive noticed twice as fast of gains going heavy
i admit there are prolly alot of people that look bigger than me
but i can stroke some heavier weights and thats what holds up in the gym