Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below I read about Skip Lacour and his workout on his website. He says he never does more then 4 to 6 reps with EXTRA HEAVY poundage. I have noticed in the gym that I get alot stronger when I use very heavy weights. But I don't seen to grow very much, nor am I very sore the next day. I guess my question is it possible to make sizeable strength gains while using medium to high reps? Personally It seems to take me along time to get strength gains.
Poundage Vs. Reps
- Thread starter nodial1
- Start date
Since nobody wants to tackle this question I will. The answer to your question is yes!! The problem with so many people adopting this LIFT HUGE to GET HUGE philosophy is that half dont have the form or technique to properly utilize this low rep heavy pundage method. Medium weights with medium reps 8-10 are, in my opinion the way to go. Here are the reasons:
1. Med weight allows better form, period. Better form leads to proper developement of the muscle being worked, hence, muscle growth.
2. 8-10 reps is not HIGH reps, its more in the middle ground. This range allows the muscle a longer time to be in a state of tension, allowing blood to really pump up the muscle.
I would say in closing that you should mix it up. Incorporate a mid rep week with a low rep week. Vary your workouts to confuse your body and you will see results. One last thing is to adhere to a strict diet. All the workout techniques in the world wont do shit if your diet sucks.
1. Med weight allows better form, period. Better form leads to proper developement of the muscle being worked, hence, muscle growth.
2. 8-10 reps is not HIGH reps, its more in the middle ground. This range allows the muscle a longer time to be in a state of tension, allowing blood to really pump up the muscle.
I would say in closing that you should mix it up. Incorporate a mid rep week with a low rep week. Vary your workouts to confuse your body and you will see results. One last thing is to adhere to a strict diet. All the workout techniques in the world wont do shit if your diet sucks.
If your keeping the reps low more sets have to be performed. Look at the time duration of perfoming 2 reps 4 reps 8 reps, however many reps you want. Then analyse the energy system which is being predominately worked. Work out how long is needed for each energy system to be reasonablly recovered and base your program around this.
Liberator-
In theory that's true, but I was speaking to a guy about this the other day (who really knows his sh!t), and he said this is a common misconception: the difference in recruitment time can be measured in hundredths of a second. The fast twitch fibres are initially recruited in the very beginning of an explosive movement; the slow twitch fibres are recruited almost immediately afterwards.
Technically, if you did a hundred reps at extremely light weight in the space of two seconds or so, you would work the fast twitch fibres exclusively, but that's impossible. When you do a lift; fast or slow, high weight or low weight, for twenty reps or six, for all intents and purposes you're using all the fibres equally.
In theory that's true, but I was speaking to a guy about this the other day (who really knows his sh!t), and he said this is a common misconception: the difference in recruitment time can be measured in hundredths of a second. The fast twitch fibres are initially recruited in the very beginning of an explosive movement; the slow twitch fibres are recruited almost immediately afterwards.
Technically, if you did a hundred reps at extremely light weight in the space of two seconds or so, you would work the fast twitch fibres exclusively, but that's impossible. When you do a lift; fast or slow, high weight or low weight, for twenty reps or six, for all intents and purposes you're using all the fibres equally.
So there is no difference between
High reps, moderate weight
Low reps, Heavy weight
so the key is in the number of sets and not the reps/weight ratio?
So why is it that people who train low reps heavy weight do not have the stamina of someone who trains at the other end of the scale and vice versa?
Surely this also brings into play stabiliser muscles too, these will not be stimulated with high reps as much as higher resistance.
If I'm talking rubbish, then flame away.
I am just trying to learn.
High reps, moderate weight
Low reps, Heavy weight
so the key is in the number of sets and not the reps/weight ratio?
So why is it that people who train low reps heavy weight do not have the stamina of someone who trains at the other end of the scale and vice versa?
Surely this also brings into play stabiliser muscles too, these will not be stimulated with high reps as much as higher resistance.
If I'm talking rubbish, then flame away.
I am just trying to learn.
I dont think there is a right and wrong answer! Many of the old school bodybuilders were advocates of high rep excersizes. Its very individual. If your working out heavy and with low reps(4-6) and not feeling it the next day chances are your either doing the movement improperly or not training the muscle hard enough. This is not rocket science guys! 99.9% of lifting is instinctive, when you hit a muscle hard, you know it. Be honest with yourself. Muscle needs to tear to rebuild and grow stronger, BOTTOM LINE, so no matter what you do, experiment, impliment, evaluate!!! LOL
Liberator: The problem with weight that's TOO high, that I've noticed, is that people will cheat. Throwing your back into curls, lunging back on pulldowns, twisting and arching the back during bench, not using full range of motion during squats, etc.
Cheat like that, and you probably won't feel like you've really worked the muscle hard, because you haven't. There's a difference between benching 4 good sets of ten at 225 pounds, and gasping and torquing while cranking out 3 sloppy sets of four at 255. You're doing more tital work with better form in the first case. in the second, you may be pushing your body, but the lift itself is probably of inferior quality.
Moderate weight, moderately high reps is sometimes a good idea to mix up your routine or correct errors in form; I especially do that occasionally for squats. As my max goes up, my form sometimes goes to sh%t, so I'll spend the next session doing slow, controlled lifts at lower weight. Like the guy above me said, it ain't rocket science.
Cheat like that, and you probably won't feel like you've really worked the muscle hard, because you haven't. There's a difference between benching 4 good sets of ten at 225 pounds, and gasping and torquing while cranking out 3 sloppy sets of four at 255. You're doing more tital work with better form in the first case. in the second, you may be pushing your body, but the lift itself is probably of inferior quality.
Moderate weight, moderately high reps is sometimes a good idea to mix up your routine or correct errors in form; I especially do that occasionally for squats. As my max goes up, my form sometimes goes to sh%t, so I'll spend the next session doing slow, controlled lifts at lower weight. Like the guy above me said, it ain't rocket science.
I trained chest last night and only did 1 set that was above 4 reps. I did a set of incline dumbell presses with the 100's for 8 reps with my palms facing...because that is the heaviest I can make a dumbell here at home. All other sets were 4 reps or under. Yes...I am fairly strong, and fairly large too.
My ex-workout partner gains strength and size from going higher in reps though (6-10), but that is just the difference in body types.
B True
My ex-workout partner gains strength and size from going higher in reps though (6-10), but that is just the difference in body types.
B True
I guess that I should have gone on to say that I do feel that I would not be the size that I currently am had I not done a few training cycles of higher reps and even a few isolation movements here and there.
When I weighed 175lbs...I didn't need to be lifting with the 1-4 rep scheme...and when I did I ended up hurting my elbows, shoulders, back, and knees. My body wasn't ready for heavy weights.
Brooks Kubik, authour of "Dinosaur Training" talks about training the body for heavy lifting and that it does take time. Good read.
More thoughts???
B True
When I weighed 175lbs...I didn't need to be lifting with the 1-4 rep scheme...and when I did I ended up hurting my elbows, shoulders, back, and knees. My body wasn't ready for heavy weights.
Brooks Kubik, authour of "Dinosaur Training" talks about training the body for heavy lifting and that it does take time. Good read.
More thoughts???
B True
Before I came on this board I used low reps high weight, but all I got was consistant injuries and little gains. Since then Ive swapped to higher reps and moderate weight and have made excellent gains.
Its horses for courses, but you are right about the fact that when your relatively new to it all, low reps high weight is definately not the way to go.
The ideal is obviously to mix them up and use them all. But I think from a beginners perspective, form is paramount, so thats where higher reps come in.
Sometimes I will hit my max. no of reps for that exercise and think the form wasent good, so I'll drop the weight abit and next time hit the form right and maybe not hit the max reps, but my strength goes up more than when I used the heavier weight purely because I got the form perfect.
It took me a long time to learn it, but form is paramount.
The only thing that gets in your way is your ego, its the same with pre-exhausting. Ego again.
Its horses for courses, but you are right about the fact that when your relatively new to it all, low reps high weight is definately not the way to go.
The ideal is obviously to mix them up and use them all. But I think from a beginners perspective, form is paramount, so thats where higher reps come in.
Sometimes I will hit my max. no of reps for that exercise and think the form wasent good, so I'll drop the weight abit and next time hit the form right and maybe not hit the max reps, but my strength goes up more than when I used the heavier weight purely because I got the form perfect.
It took me a long time to learn it, but form is paramount.
The only thing that gets in your way is your ego, its the same with pre-exhausting. Ego again.
JollyRogers
New member
I like to keep things in the 1-5 rep range as much as possible, thats where msot my results come from 
I think I have some answers...
First of all, on the whole fiber type thing: different rep ranges generally doesn't recruit different fibers. The way the body recruits fibers is like a ladder. In other words, your body will always recruit the slow-twitch fibers first, and then add fast-twitch fibers on top of that as needed to complete the movement. But it's not so cut-and-dry. There aren't really clear divisions between slow- and fast-twitch, it's just like a continuum, ranging from very slow to very fast and a lot in between. And the body will usually use slow first and then add faster and faster as needed. ** The one exception is with really really fast movements. In that case the faster activation times of fast-twitch may cause them to be used almost exclusively.
People have noticed, as you have that the rep ranges someone chooses to train at affects strength and strength endurance. People often attribute this to differences in fiber type, but in actuality it comes from training the different muscle cell energy pathways. There are three possible sources of energy and they are ATP-CP (extreme short-term), glycolysis (medium term), and oxidative (long-term).
Which of those get used depends mostly on rep ranges as well as rest times between sets. Muscle ATP is greatly depleted after one set, but has 99% recovery in 3 minutes time. Powerlifters almost exclusively use this energy pathway, and as a result become quite efficient at it (also at neural factors relating to lots of maximal lifting).
From the bodybuilding perspective, rep ranges don't matter that much. What does matter is the number of total reps and the weight used. You can perform 30 reps at X weight as 3x10, 6x5, or whatever. People can and have built lots of muscle using anywhere from 1-20 reps. From strength perspectives, however, you want training to be sports-specific. If your sport is powerlifting, of course you should be doing low reps with a lot of rest. If you require more sustained strenght, up the reps and decrease the rest time. If you don't care, like I do, cycle the rep ranges so that you get a little bit of everything.
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