[Stun]

(10-21-2016 08:03 PM)MOVSM Wrote:  

(10-21-2016 03:53 PM)Stun Wrote:  

Low weights and high reps might be good for tone and endurance, but you will never build size.

I used to rep 135lbs 10x for 10 sets, for a total weight lifted of 13,500lbs.

I now rep 245lbs 5x for 5 sets, total of 6,125lbs.

I am twice the size now I was then, and I still eat the same amount.

I am seething jealous. My workout is above, some of my lifts are heavier than yours.
I eat more, workout religiously, and I barely added an inch to my shoulders.
I'm stronger though...

245x5x5 is my bench, but you are actually doing more than me on squats and deadlifts.

Hmmm. Since you are DL 335x5x3 I have no idea how you are not huge. If you're eating enough, that is.

I DL 225x5, 275x5 and 315x5 2-3 times per week and only squat once per week at 255x5x5. They all say to squat during every workout, but I get much more benefit from DL 2-3 times per week and squat once.

Press isn't a major part of my regimen, but I try to do 125 or 135x5x5 at least once a week. Keeps the shoulders strong.

When you mention eating more, what kind of diet are we talking about?

[Beyond Borders]

You'll find some interesting reading on the topic here: http://www.trainingscience.net/?page_id=301

The value is not to be found in the post, though; for the real gold, dig into the comments by the poster named "Michael." In fact, he's trashing the mentioned study and goes on to claim, "I gained 40 pounds of muscle in 3 years doing 1 set of 50-100 reps per bodypart, 3x a week (150-300 total reps per week)." He discusses other methods of leveraging the same approach, and I believe the beforementioned was an abbreviation of what he recommends.

He disappears later in the commenting, leading many to believe he's full of shit. I believe other commenters tried out his methods and were getting better results than with low rep training.

You be the judge - I'm just sharing what I found after doing some digging around on the topic earlier this year. I lean towards believing the guy, if it matters to you, but I'm not sold enough to fully defend it or anything.

I've come across other guys who are proponents of this approach. If memory serves me right, a couple of them were former, well-known bodybuilders who were getting older and found it easier on their joints. I think a few are mentioned in that comment log. There have been cases of guys in the limelight doing high rep training and being laughed at or called a liar by the bodybuilding community regardless of their results.

In my opinion, it's just one of those things where people refuse to listen to anything that goes against the commonly accepted paradigm. Say you can get big on high reps and people will treat you like you're stupid and quickly close their mind to anything you say. But as with most things in training science (and indeed in life), there's very little we know for sure.

Note: I don't do high rep training in my workouts, in case anyone is wondering. I do remember once, though, a personal trainer had me on a program of 20-30 reps per set, sometimes just doing as many reps as I could do in an extended time period, and I was surprised to find that I just kept getting bigger. It's not like I was huge at the time, though, so perhaps I was still riding newbie gains. I've thought about switching over to this kind of routine just for the purpose of experiment.

[Kieran]

Most successful programs I've ever done combine both approaches with heavy work for lower reps on the main movements, and lighter work for higher reps on assistance (for example 5/3/1 and WS4SB). I'd also add that programs such as the two I've mentioned, that involve ramping up to a max set on the main lift, are far more effective than those that use straight sets across for the main lift.

[Ezio31]

Try German Volume Training. 10 sets of 10 reps. I tried it, and it works well.

[RichieP]

BB - good post. I also read that high-rep anecdote, and tend to believe it.

From my n=1 with bodyweight squats, I definitely noticed regain of leg size doing those after a layoff.

It's one of those long-standing assumptions that people don't like to test. Alot of macho "heavy is better" stuff tied up in that.

Yet 20 rep squats are proven to pack on mass, and Dan John currently recommends 2 sets of 30 reps in his "Mass Made Simple". Kettlebell swings in the 50+ rep range are also proven to put some serious glutes on flat-asses. There's definitely something to it.

Intuitively, I tend to think that if you take a weight you can do for 12 reps, and over time extend that 25-30, there's just no way that's building pure "endurance" and no mass. The question of "what's optimal?" though, is still wide open.

[MOVSM]

(10-21-2016 08:53 PM)Stun Wrote:  

Hmmm. Since you are DL 335x5x3 I have no idea how you are not huge. If you're eating enough, that is.

I DL 225x5, 275x5 and 315x5 2-3 times per week and only squat once per week at 255x5x5. They all say to squat during every workout, but I get much more benefit from DL 2-3 times per week and squat once.

Press isn't a major part of my regimen, but I try to do 125 or 135x5x5 at least once a week. Keeps the shoulders strong.

When you mention eating more, what kind of diet are we talking about?

I made a mistake--deadlifts are done for only one set.

The diet is leangains, one pre-workout meal. I keep it low carb as much as possible. <20g of carbs on non-workout days, 100-150g of carbs around workout. I'm 165lbs, so I eat 2000-2500 cal per day. I'm 40 yo.

At this point, I chalk it up to my DNA--my mother is 95lbs still, at 65.
I was never able to lose or gain weight quickly.

[Tim in real life]

(10-15-2016 11:52 AM)Irenicus Wrote:  

Quote:

I don't have a "low weight" problem. I just wanted to know people's opinions on low weight/more reps vs. high weight/fewer reps. That's all.

It depends what you aim for.

1. If you want to get more muscle (bulk), then you do less reps, but with the highest weight you can handle safely. A good example of that program is Strongliifts 5x5 (which I use). Also, I have heard than Starting Strength is good, but I have never followed it's program. While you are at it, EAT lot's of meat, fish and milk. Avoid TRT if you are a newbie, or under 25.

2. Now, if you want to "sculpt" your body, then you do lots of reps (it depends on the program you will use), with lower weight (again, depends on the program). I am not too familiar with that (I am bulking), but I gave you the very basics.

1. I previously read that, via Mercola.com.

http://articles.mercola.com/peak-fitness.aspx

The term is "high intensity interval training (HIIT)": low reps, high weight.

2. I wonder if that would help with my gut sculpting, especially when I have a gym membership.

[Irenicus]

Quote:

I wonder if that would help with my gut sculpting, especially when I have a gym membership.

It will, Tim, if you avoid eating crap as well. Here, from the 5x5 site:

Quote:

Now cardio is great for speeding up fat loss because it increases how many calories you burn. But unless you’re training six hours a day like Michael Phelps, you can’t out-train a bad diet – you’ll have to eat right. And lifting weights should always have PRIORITY over cardio for fat loss. Here’s why:


Lifting weights burns calories. Your body burns energy to lift weights. The heavier the weights, the higher the intensity and the more calories you burn. Especially if you do full body exercises like Squats. This is why lifters can eat more than average people without getting fat.

Lifting weights boost your metabolism. They call this “afterburn” or EPOC. You burn more calories the hours after you’re done lifted weights. This helps you lose fat.

Lifting weights builds muscle. Cardio doesn’t. Nor does a low calorie diet. Only lifting weights does – the stronger you get, the more weight you can lift, the more muscular you’ll be.

Lifting weights prevents muscle loss. Low calorie diets and excess cardio BURN muscle. This leads to the unhealthy and unattractive skinny-fat look. Yet lift weights builds muscle and prevents muscle loss from dieting, aging, etc. It makes you healthier and more attractive while losing fat.

Lifting weights makes you look slimmer. Check the top picture again – muscle is denser than fat. So by lifting weights you’ll build muscle, lose fat and look slimmer than before – at the same weight.


There’s one more way Stronglifts 5×5 will help you lose fat. People who lift weights stick to their diet better than those who don’t exercise. Lifting weights has a domino effect. It motivates you to live healthier and eat better. By eating better you can lose fat with StrongLifts 5×5 without doing boring cardio.

Good luck!

[Fortis]

(10-22-2016 03:24 AM)Kieran Wrote:  

Most successful programs I've ever done combine both approaches with heavy work for lower reps on the main movements, and lighter work for higher reps on assistance (for example 5/3/1 and WS4SB). I'd also add that programs such as the two I've mentioned, that involve ramping up to a max set on the main lift, are far more effective than those that use straight sets across for the main lift.

I've been doing 5/3/1 "boring but big" modification and loving it. There is something to be said for lifting heavy and then doing solid assistance work.

[Putin Closes]

Yeah lift heavier weights with low reps, with an added bonus its much more time efficient.

[Thomas the Rhymer]

(10-21-2016 09:37 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

You'll find some interesting reading on the topic here: http://www.trainingscience.net/?page_id=301

The value is not to be found in the post, though; for the real gold, dig into the comments by the poster named "Michael."

Michael Wrote:

Michael on December 18, 2013 at 11:47 pm said:

Total rep volume per week for the 10×8 group: 240. Total weekly rep volume for the 10×36 group: 1,080. There isn’t a single advanced level pro bodybuilder that does that much volume per week. I have 18″ arms, a 52″ chest and 28″ thighs, and I’m still not fit enough to do 500 reps a week, let alone 1,080. That’s insane, even for an advanced lifter.

Just for reference, Kali Muscle does a 500 rep routine, doing as many sets of 20-50 reps as it takes to get 500. That’s once a week per bodypart, not 3x a week. Unlike the untrained individuals selected for this study, he’s a Mr. California title winning bodybuilder, with arms in excess of 20″, who can curl 275 pounds. Not even a guy at his fitness level would do over 1,000 total reps per week, because it would be overtraining.

Beginners shouldn’t be doing more than 250 total reps per week no matter what the rep protocol, let alone 1,080 reps. It’s amazing that they even grew at all from such a ridiculous workout. If they did the same amount of total reps using an 8-12 rep protocol, they’d lose muscle mass, which demonstrates that even when done improperly, high reps is still better than low reps. They gained strength and mass DESPITE overtraining. That in itself is remarkable.

I also know from personal experience that this study is flawed. I gained 40 pounds of muscle in 3 years doing 1 set of 50-100 reps per bodypart, 3x a week (150-300 total reps per week). That’s the same rate at which Kali gained muscle after he got out of prison, according to one of his detractors who claims he used steroids. It’s how I know he didn’t use steroids, because I’m natural, and I put on the same amount of muscle in the same timeframe using similar methods. I’ve never met anyone who gained 40 pounds of lean mass in 3 years on sub-maintenance calories doing 8-12 reps. That’s difficult to do with that rep range, even on drugs and a 6,000 calorie diet.

There are even steroid mass monsters like Rich Piana who swear by high reps; his arms didn’t blow up to 23″ until he started doing 40-50 rep sets for arms. He learned it from other bodybuilders that huge who figured out that they weren’t going to get any bigger doing low reps, no matter how much juice they shoot up.

There are better studies from both before and after this one that demonstrate that high reps is best for maximizing hypertrophy in the shortest timeframe. Google “myostatin” and “IGF-1”; there’s a few studies that examine the anabolic response from that angle, demonstrating that high reps = increased hypertrophy rates. Anything less than 16 reps is a waste of time, and anything between 20-100 is ideal.

Over the long stretch, lifting heavy is the slowest way to build muscle, despite what some untrained lifters might gain from it their first 3 months under the bar. That’s why they call them “noob gains”; no one gains muscle at that rate from strength training after the first 3 months, unless they throw in some metabolic work. Even the McMasters study (2010?) demonstrated that with proper volume protocols, high rep and low rep groups gain muscle at the same rate in their first 3 months of training, which renders the findings of this study irrelevant.

Metabolic work makes muscle grow, not CNS adaptation work. For a total noob, strength training engages them in a certain amount of metabolic taxation necessary to produce initial mass gains, but they quickly adapt to that limited level of metabolic taxation, and end up on a mass gain plateau that can last decades if they don’t switch up to higher reps. (Look at Hugh Jackman for example; he’s been a 3×5 guy for over a decade. He’s nowhere near as big as me). Low reps use glycogen for fuel, high reps use triglyceride and oxygen for fuel. Low reps also increase myostatin production (limits mass gains) whereas high reps decrease myostatin and increase IGF-1 production, and increase protein synthesis 60% over low reps. Strength training is not very metabolic. In fact, it actually slows down metabolic rate, causing increased fat gains when bulking, and it causes vasoconstriction, which contributes to high blood pressure.

Even combining low and high reps is a waste of time if your main focus is mass gains, because all those low rep sets are a waste of energy that could be put into building tissue post-workout. You still end up with a lower metabolic rate doing combo than you would if all you did was high reps, which means less total mass gains than high reps only. Heavy lifting also causes joint problems, spinal compression, rheumatoid arthritis, and nasty injuries like muscle and tendon tears. I can see how a high rep finisher set would be great for powerlifters to keep from plateauing in strength gains by increasing mass gains, but for someone interested in general fitness or bodybuilding, high-low combos are a complete waste of time.

Run all this stuff by a well-informed doctor or physical therapist. They’ll tell you the same. Light weights for high reps is the new black. You just can’t overdo it like the group in this study.

Michael on February 17, 2014 at 11:43 am said:

John: one set to failure for one exercise per bodypart, 50-100 reps. If you can, you want to try to add an additional 5 reps each workout by rest-pausing after you reach failure. You can work every muscle in isolation, or you can just do compounds; either way will work, but if you have recuperation problems, then compounds-only is best. All I do is bench press, bent row and squat, and that hits everything. I use dumbbells, so I use a hammer grip for bench press and bent rows, but if you’re using a barbell, a wide, supinated grip works best.

3 days a week whole-body is fine. When you do one set of high reps per bodypart, it doesn’t phase your recovery that much. You might feel a little sore on rest days at first, but you adapt pretty quickly. I had my 68 year old father try my routine 3x a week, and he wasn’t sore past the first week. his main problem at first was his shoulders, because he’s had shoulder surgery. He didn’t get much muscle soreness, though.

Because the volume is minimal, you can even train whole-body 6 days a week if you want. I have exercise intolerance from variegate porphyria, but I can still manage to train whole body 6 days a week this way. 3 days a week will work for awhile, but you eventually hit a plateau, and the only way to continue growing will be to either increase sets per workout or train more often.

When you train high frequency, it increases your recuperation rate, so if you can manage it, it’s actually better to train 6 days a week. That’s something I learned when I was getting therapy for a lumbar sprain. They had me do one set each of several high rep exercises, every day, and I recuperated very quickly. It’s like doing a set of pushups every day; you get used to it pretty quicky. Every day except Sunday, I do a half hour of aerobics, then the weights, and I don’t sore from it. I feel energized, and I actually have less lower back soreness training 6 days than I did when I was training 3 days.

I don’t know what sort of equipment you use, but if you’re stuck with free weights, you might want to try 25-50 reps for starters, until you know how you’ll fare on squats. When I started training super high reps, I couldn’t do 50 bodyweight-only squats, so I had to start in the 25-50 rep range. Same protocol: one set to failure. When you can do at least 50 squats without weight, move up to the 50-100 rep range.

Yes, your strength will increase in proportion to your mass gains, although it might not seem like it because you take longer to add weight with such a high rep range. Mass gains = relative increases in maximal strength potential. I can bench over 400 pounds now, compared to benching 200 for 5 reps when I first switched to high reps.

You don’t need to train heavy to get stronger. As long as you add reps every week and then add weight to the bar when you reach 100 reps, your strength will increase. If you compare results on PR’s of a typical low-rep lifter and a high rep lifter over several years, the strength increases are pretty much the same. The body can only grow so fast, and can only gain so much mass and strength over a particular length of time, no matter what training method is used. As long as you’re increasing reps and load, you can increase strength in any rep range.

If you can’t manage 3 days a week, then try cutting back to 2, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem with it. Give it a try; you’ll figure it out. It’s a hell of an endurance workout; that’s for sure. You’ll get real winded and a good deal of lactic acid burn, particularly on squats, but stick with it, and you’ll see results.

Michael on February 23, 2014 at 5:14 pm said:

If you started with your 5 rep max on the first set, you’d have to decrease poundage several times to get through all 15 sets.

Even if you started with a submaximal weight to make the first few sets warmup sets, it would wreak havoc on your body if you did that very often. Doing it once a week on a bodypart split would be worse than doing a 5×5 3x a week, because despite the additional rest time, you get repetitive stress injuries from trying to do all those heavy sets in one workout. Even doing 5×5 year-round can mess you up; take it from my personal experience with that. If you’re a total noob you’ll get some fast initial gains for maybe 3 months, but after that, it’ll taper off to almost nothing. You’ll also have the repetitive stress injuries if you keep it up.

Not even powerlifters train that way. They do some variation of periodization or pyramiding; they don’t lift maximal poundages for low reps year-round. Even so, most guys who’ve been training like that for 20-30 years have back, hip and shoulder problems (I’m one of them). The reality is that lifting in the higher rep ranges doesn’t offset the damage caused by lifting in the lower rep ranges; in the long run, you’re better off not lifting heavy at all, or only once every three months at the very most to determine PR’s.

Low reps (anything below 20) are for strength, higher reps are for size. Some people think they can trigger hypertrophy with high volume heavy lifting, because the longer you lift, the more you exhaust the fast twitch fibers and switch over to the medium and slow twitch fibers (the ones that have the greatest potential for size increase). To some degree it works, but by increasing the number of steps you have to go through to achieve the end effect, you undermine that effect. You have to do at least 10 sets of low reps to exhaust the fast twitch fibers enough to switch, so you’re basically doing a lot of wasted sets that cut into recovery and tissue growth.

With super high reps, you do it on every set, because fast twitch fiber exhaustion is time-under-tension dependent, not load dependent. For example, if you swing your arms around for more than a minute, you exhaust all your fast twitch and medium twitch fibers and switch over to aerobic activity (slow twitch fibers). They won’t grow because the stress isn’t enough at any point to trigger a hypertrophy response (i.e. you never achieve momentary muscle failure or come anywhere close), but it demonstrates that any activity of long duration will exhaust fast twitch fibers, regardless of load.

Contrary to all the slow-to-fast urban legends circulating on the internet, it works the same with weight training, going from fast twitch to slow twitch as you switch from glycogen utilization to triglyceride utilization (anaerobic to aerobic). When you do low reps, you have to do a boatload of sets to switch, because your TUT is never high enough in any single set to break through the glycogen barrier. You end up fighting against your own fast twitch recovery. With super high reps, you switch to medium twitch after the first 20 reps, and to slow twitch after reaching 50. If you fail somewhere in the 25-100 rep range, you get medium and slow twitch hypertrophy. You get bigger faster doing that than from doing less than 20 reps for a bunch of sets. You also get fast twitch hypertrophy by way of total anabolic effect, which is why you still gain strength even if all you do is high reps. It doesn’t work out that way if you train low rep; you just get strength gains with minimal hypertrophy.

It requires a lot more energy and does a lot more damage doing say, 10×10 (or your 15×5), than it does doing one set of 25-50 or 50-100 reps. In the end, you get less hypertrophy with high volume heavy lifting, because a) you still have all that myostatin buildup from heavy lifting suppressing hypertrophy, b) you don’t sufficiently fatigue medium and fast twitch fibers, c) you don’t get the increased IGF-1 production and increased protein synthesis that you would get from high reps, and d) because the energy requirements of repairing the damage caused by heavy lifting are too high.

When doing a conventional high volume, low rep routine, to get past the repair cycle into the tissue remodeling cycle, you have to eat a lot more food; plan on gobbling down 5,000-6,000 calories a day, which is hard on your system. The more damage done, the more repair required to get to the actual growth phase. The less damage done, the less repair is needed, and the more growth can occur, with less utilization of energy. You also have to consider that with heavy lifting, you get the increased myostatin production inhibiting muscle growth, and you can’t overcome that by simply increasing set volume. With super high reps, you don’t get the myostatin problem or the damage problem. All you get is the increased hypertrophy response from increased IGF-1 production and protein synthesis, muscular endurance conditioning, and cardiovascular conditioning.

My first 3 years of training super high rep, I gained 40 pounds of lean while on a maintenance diet. I never made gains anywhere near that significant doing traditional high volume training, even when I was gobbling enough food to get fat. Anyone who makes gains that good on a traditional program is on something; they’re spending a lot of money on supplements or drugs, because without them, heavy lifting simply cannot make a person grow that fast past their first year of training.

Also to consider is that heavy lifting is completely anaerobic, which means that you never get enough blood (and nutrients) to the connective tissues to cause sufficient connective tissue growth to keep up with strength increases. That’s why strength athletes and heavy training bodybuilders get muscle and tendon tear injuries. With high reps, everything grows in balance, so you don’t get those problems. Lifting light also offsets and even heals damage caused by arthritis due to the increased flushing effect, whereas heavy lifting actually increases arthritic damage. If you don’t already have arthritis, repetitive heavy lifting can cause it.

The body has structural limitations. If you don’t observe those parameters, you will do permanent damage that you will come to regret. If you’re into competitive powerlifting or strongman, have at it, but if you’re mainly interested in bodybuilding or overall, long-term fitness, you’re better off with high reps. Less damage, more growth, more health.

The human body was not designed for repetitive maximal load bearing activities; it was designed for short-term maximal load bearing activities (sprinting, lifting heavy objects) and repetitive minimal load bearing activities (walking long distances, and carrying/swinging light objects for long periods). Think about it: hunting requires tracking game for long distances, rendering a kill-strike to the animal, and then tracking it for more miles to find its dead body if the kill-strike doesn’t immediately cause its death. Gathering requires similar long duration exertion; so does farming. There is no natural adversity that would require us to rely on fast twitch, heavy load bearing activity for long periods of time. That’s why the musculoskeletal system is designed the way it is. If you don’t respect that, you will screw yourself up.

If you do a single set 50-100 reps routine, you won’t see quick gains on the bar, because you have to increase your reps by 50 before adding weight. But you do add more weight each progression than with a 5-10 rep progression range, so it all balances out. If you do a 5×50 rep routine, you’ll see the same gains on the bar as you would if you did a 5×5 routine, because the load-increasing parameters are the same as for 5×5. If you need to see that sort of thing to stay motivated, stick with 5×50 once or twice a week per bodypart. If you don’t need to see constant gains on the bar to convince yourself that you’re getting results, do the whole body, 1 set of 25-50 or 50-100 reps thing, 3-6 days a week. Either way, in the long-term, your strength gains will be the same.

Whether you lift heavy or light, your strength gains will be the same in the long-term, because strength gains are load progression dependent, not load size dependent. If you add 50 pounds to a lift, it doesn’t matter whether you used a 3-5 rep protocol, a 5-10 rep protocol, or some repetition range well above 20; a 50 pound strength gain is a 50 pound strength gain, regardless of method.

Michael on February 24, 2014 at 10:22 pm said:

Yeah, that works. Work it like a 5×5 program, but with 50 reps, each bodypart twice a week. Start with your 50 rep max, and keep using that weight until you can do all 5 sets for 50 reps, then add 10 pounds, repeat. You don’t ever go above 50 reps when you do it this way; you just make it your goal to get 50 reps on all 5 sets. That way, you don’t burn yourself out going to failure on every single set of every single workout.

You don’t want to go over 500 reps a week total, so for a 5x program, you have to stick with 50 reps on a twice a week schedule, or do a 10×50 for each bodypart on a once a week bodypart split (that’s totally hardass; I don’t recommend it unless you’re very advanced and you need a bodypart split to add in arm days and such). If you want to increase your rep range per set, stick with whole body, 1 set per bodypart, 50-100 reps, 6 days a week. That, or do a 5×100 once a week per bodypart.

If you can’t even get 50 reps doing bodyweight squats, try doing it 5×25 until you get your squat weight up enough to at least be able to manage 50 bodyweight squats. Super high rep squats are very difficult; I still can’t squeeze out more than around 70 bodyweight squats, and I have 28″ thighs. Keep in mind, an upper rep limit of 500 a week is advanced training, so you might want to start out with a 5×25 program anyways, just to get up the stamina to pull off a 5×50. Either that, or do a single set of 25-50 6x a week.

For a bulking diet, keep it simple; figuring grams per pound of bodyweight for each macro, eat your bodyweight + 100 grams of carbs (i.e. if you weigh 200 pounds, eat 300 grams), and around a gram per pound of bodyweight in protein. Make sure to get in enough fats, too; stick with whole fat foods so you get in at least a gram per pound of bodyweight in fat. You gotta have the saturated fat in your diet to fuel hormone production, and because it’s the easiest way to increase your calories (9 calories per gram, compared to only 4 per gram of carbohydrate). If that’s too much food and you gain more than a pound a week, drop 50 grams of carbs. If that’s not enough, drop 50 grams of fat. Go back and forth from there a little at a time until your weight gains are no more than a pound a week. You don’t want to gain any more weight than that per week, or you’ll get real fat. Some of it will be fat anyways at a pound a week, but that’s okay. It’s extra fuel for your muscle gains. If you’re not gaining a pound a week on my macro suggestions, add extra carbs.

For cutting, drop down to a total of 1500 calories per day, keeping your protein grams at around a half a gram per pound of bodyweight, and cutting everything else to get down to 1500 calories. Don’t go too low on fat, though; less than 30 grams a day is bad for your health. Decrease the sodium too, because that will keep your potassium up so you won’t get all crampy. Either way, bulking or cutting, be sure to get lots of water; I drink a minimum of 4 pints a day. Carbs and water bloat your muscles, which gives you room to grow, like blowing up a balloon in a plaster cast and then filling the space with meat.

You also want to do a half hour of light cardio before starting each workout, whether you’re bulking or cutting. That helps to tap into your fat reserves so that you have triglycerides and other stuff immediately available when you pick up the weights. It also helps to keep you from getting fat from the additional calories in your diet.

If you go all hardcore with the diet to maximize gains, you want to limit your bulks to 6 months and cuts to 3 months. If you bulk for a whole year, you’ll get super fat, and then have to spend a whole year cutting. I eat maintenance calories year-round; I don’t mind if my gains are a little slower, because I’m mostly doing this for overall fitness.

When you hit a plateau, just switch your routine up according to the parameters I’ve provided. For example, if you’ve been doing 5×50 for awhile and your progress stalls, you can try 5×25, 5×100 once a week per bodypart, or do a 1 set routine for awhile. The 1 set variations are good, because you can use rest-pause methods to make your progression in reps faster, which gives it extra shock value. For example, doing 50-100 reps, I aim to add 5 extra reps past failure on each exercise, every day.

Anyways, that’s what’s been working for me. I haven’t even been that serious about mass gains, just sticking with a maintenance calorie diet, but I still managed to gain 40 pounds the first 3 years, and an additional 10 pound this last year. I started with a 3x a week 1 set program; that held up for 3 years, then stopped working the fourth because I outgrew it. Then I upped my reps per week last year by hitting whole body 6x a week, and started gaining again. That 10 pounds came in 6 months.

It’s like any other training protocol; you’ll have intermittent periods of fast gains followed by periods of no gains. You just have to stick with it, and switch things up once in awhile to keep it fresh.

If you want to supercharge your workouts and increase your rate of gain, look into creatine. It’s also good for getting off of plateaus. I’ve seen guys make some serious gains on that stuff. Most people who use it properly claim it’s as good as steroids, but without all the dangers. You also get to keep all the mass you gained when you go off of it, unlike steroids.

Anyways, try this stuff out, switch it up a little if necessary to figure out which version you can tolerate for starters, and let us know how it’s working for you in a month. Just keep in mind this is a pretty hardcore method; don’t expect it to be as easy as low rep methods if you decide to do a multiple set routine.Michael on February 25, 2014 at 3:30 am said:

Hey John, if you’re going for 50 reps, use a weight you can pump for 50 reps non-stop. What you’re doing is called rest-pausing; you failed when you hit the last non-stop rep, and everything past that is a forced rep. If your rep range starts at 50, use a weight you can do non-stop for 50 reps.

Read my last response to Jimbo; lots of info there for creating a program that will suit you. If you’re not strong enough yet to manage a 50 rep program with the lightest weights you have, try a 25 rep program. This is an advanced training method; you have to build up your strength first.

You can do rest-pause reps to increase the intensity and speed up your progression in reps, but you gotta hit that lower end of your rep range first. That’s your foundation point.

Also, it’s pointless to try to lock out on every rep when you train like this; you could hurt yourself if you try. My range of motion is never more than 3/4. Always keep your elbows or knees bent a little when you extend you arms or come up out of a squat.

Also, focus on compounds; don’t worry about isolation exercises. I have 18″ arms, but I haven’t done curls for 10 years. That’s all from benching and rowing. Compounds work everything. All I do is bench press, bent rows and squats, but I’m not lacking in the arms, shoulders, calves, hamstrings, abs or forearms. Even my neck is thick. You don’t need to bother with stuff like curls and pressdowns until you have some serious mass, and even then, the only reason to do isolation exercises is for shaping the muscles. If you’re not a bodybuilder prepping for a contest, it’s a complete waste of time and energy.

Strength is strength. Your maximal strength potential will increase across the board if you used high reps to make the gain, because you increased your muscle mass to get that strength gain; mass is the bottom line determiner of force output potential. That said, you can’t just shuttle back and forth to test your max poundage in diversely different rep ranges. If you do that, it’ll appear that you’ve lost strength, because super high reps and low reps require a different neurological and energy system adaptation.

If you really want to know, train high rep for 3-6 months, then test for PR’s after training heavy pyramids for a week to adapt your brain to that sort of signal processing. Whatever you gain on your 50 RM, you’ll definitely see the same gain on your 1 RM, maybe even more. It’s not an exact correlation, so don’t expect pound-for-pound gains in different rep ranges.

That said, my bench press has doubled since I started doing this, so short answer, yes. Currently, I bench and row 50 pound dumbbells for 50 reps, up from 20’s when I started. On the barbell, I’ve progressed from 200 pounds 5 RM to 400 pounds 5 RM. It took 5 years, but that’s not bad for not even trying. Up until recently, my routine has been minimal, just for maintenance purposes. If I had done a 5×50 routine, I’d be a lot stronger.

As for Kali Muscle, he learned his current methods in prison. In prison, those guys don’t have time to spin their wheels doing anything that won’t make them as big as possible as quick as possible. In prison, image is everything; the bigger man has the power. They do high rep training for size, because it works. He trained heavy for football when he was in high school, but he didn’t get very big or very strong from it; he didn’t get jacked until he went to prison. I’ve never seen anything in any of his videos to indicate that he trained anything but high rep after learning it in prison. He lifts heavy in videos sometimes to show people how strong he really is, but he doesn’t train that way. He even tells people not to train that way, because it doesn’t work for size, and the risk of injury is too high. In his own words, he tries to keep all his working sets above 20 reps.

Anyways, look him up on Youtube. His story is fascinating. There’s other big guys who talk about doing high reps for size–Jason English, Rich Piana, to name a few. Shawn Ray once said he built his mass with 50 rep sets. Whatever big weights you see those guys pumping for super high reps, you can be sure that they can max out with at least 3x that much. I’ve watched Jason English do a 100 rep set of bench presses with a 135 pound barbell; he can max out at around 450, if I remember correctly. That’s pretty good for a guy who’s had shoulder surgery and has a bad elbow. His rep range is mostly between 20 and 50, unless he’s doing a collaboration video with someone who trains differently.

Strength doesn’t always equal size, but mass always equals strength. You can’t build a 54″ chest and 20″ arms without getting a 500 pound max bench press. Unless you’re talking about synthol, there’s no such thing as fake muscle. Focus on getting bigger, and the strength will follow. When you can bench 50 pound dumbbells for 50 reps, you’ll definitely see a difference in how much extra strength you have in your daily activities. Max strength is good for doing something maximally heavy once; it’s no good for things like walking up stairs or moving furniture all day. There’s really no comparison between the two.

Even powerlifters have to do higher rep ranges to up their mass (look up periodization and pyramiding), because without extra mass, they can’t get any stronger past a certain point. If you look at their total volume of work in each rep range, they actually do a lot more high reps than low reps. I’ve seen guys that get religious about a program like 5×5, and they get some good strength gains for a year, and then they don’t gain any more strength or size for 10 years. No mass gains = limited strength gains.

Anyways, I hope that helps.


If you want to see someone else’s take on this, look up Kali Muscle’s channel on YouTube. He has a series of videos that he calls his “500 hunnit” series, and lots of other videos with good info. He works out different than I do, but it all works out the same. All his working sets are at least 20 reps, and he aims for 500 total reps each workout. He’s way more jacked than I am. The biggest guys in prison train this way; that’s where he learned it.

Michael on February 25, 2014 at 2:38 pm said:

Yeah, no problem.

Yeah, using puny little weights is weird at first, especially if you train at a gym, but you get used to it. As I did, you’re getting that immediate relief of some joint pain, so that’s a good indication you’ve found something suitable to your needs. It also ups your energy levels, so you’ll probably notice that too after a week or so.

Your routine sounds about right, but yeah, you might want to lay off the arm exercises and let the rest of your body catch up. Compound-only routines are great for balancing things out. As long as you’re using a hammer grip or supinated grip, you’ll get more than adequate arm work from the pressing and rowing.

If you have shoulder problems, you should eliminate the upright rows as well, but if it’s not a problem, then no worries. Ab work is optional; anything else you do is going to work your abs as stabilizers, so most people don’t need to bother with crunches and whatnot.

Some say deadlifts are great, others not so great, but if they don’t bother your back, they can’t hurt. Personally, I’ve always had back problems when I do them, so I just get by with squats.

Also, try warming up with 30 minutes of light cardio, keeping your pulse somewhere in the 100-120 bpm neighborhood; that helps with weight management, and it preps you for the weights by tapping into your fat stores. Contrary to popular belief, the cardio also increases the anabolic response you get from the weight training, so even if you’re trying to bulk up, it’s always good to add that in. That has always made a huge difference for me, both in fat loss and muscle gain.

I don’t know your fitness, but if you’re obese and you really want to ramp up the fat loss, you can do an hour of cardio in the morning, then weights, then another hour of cardio at night. There are some people who say cardio is worthless, but from experience, I’ve never known that to be true.

Anyways, holler back in a month to let us know how that’s working out for you.

Michael on February 27, 2014 at 8:16 pm said:

25-50 reps is the protocol for a 1 set per bodypart workout. When you do it that way, you start with your fail 25 weight, and try to add reps each workout until you hit 50, then add 10 pounds, repeat. It’s just a general range, with 50 reps being the cap. You don’t go below 25 or above 50.

If you’re doing a 5x program, you want to do it 5×50: start with your fail 50 weight, and keep using that weight each workout until you can get 50 reps on all 5 sets. you don’t go over 50 reps as you progress in strength; you’re just working towards getting 50 reps on all 5 sets. When you achieve that, add 10 pounds on your next workout, repeat.

When you do multiple sets, you don’t need to go to failure on every set of every workout. Each time you get another 50 rep set, you get a little bit of a break with the non-failure sets of 50. That way, you don’t burn out from going to failure all the time, and you progress in strength faster.

Don’t worry about the total rep count when you do it this way; just hit each exercise twice a week, and make it your goal to get 50 reps on all five sets. Don’t worry about doing forced reps or rest-pause to get 50 on all 5; just go to failure on each set that you can’t get 50 reps, and keep using that weight until you can get 50 on all 5. Your total rep range per week and total sets to failure per week will be sufficient for growth, but not too much to cause overtraining.

Michael on March 4, 2014 at 10:44 pm said:

I was making great gains on the 6 days a week single set program. But I plateaued on that program a month ago, so I recently switched to 5×50. The progression protocol is different; you add weight to the bar more frequently with 5×50. I’ve only been doing it for a week, so it’s too soon to tell what my mass gains will be on the new program. I already made a 10 pound gain on all 3 exercises, so that’s a good sign.

As for slow reps, they’re nowhere near as effective for increasing strength or mass as lifting explosively. Here’s why:

Slow lifting: no force multiplication. Fast lifting: force multiplication. Fast lifting for high reps = pounds of force further multiplied by total number of reps. For a simple math example, let’s assume that the actual poundage is multiplied by 5 to get the actual pounds of force generated by explosive lifting: if you lift a 100 pound barbell for 50 fast reps (500 x 50), that’s a total of 25,000 pounds lifted. If you lift a 200 pound barbell for 10 fast reps (1,000 x 10), that’s only 10,000 total pounds lifted. If you’re lifting 150 pounds for 10 slow reps, you only get 1,500 total pounds lifted because there is no multiplication of force caused by acceleration.

The multiplication of force by way of acceleration is what causes the tissue damage that must be repaired, because greater force = greater impact = greater tissue trauma. Nothing to repair means no need for hypertrophy. So even though the higher TUT from slow lifting produces about the same amount of IGF-1 as lifting fast for high reps because lactate production during anaerobic glycolysis is about the same, there’s nowhere near as much tissue damage, so the rate of growth can never be the same. Those differences in force are why fast low reps are great for strength but not size (not enough reps to cause the energy pathway switch necessary for maximum IGF-1 production, not enough tissue damage), fast high reps are great for size (optimum IGF-1 production and tissue damage), and slow low reps (no significant tissue damage) are inferior for either. Even doing high reps slowly will not cause enough tissue damage to necessitate a significant hypertrophy response.

That’s why the only people you ever see with big muscles from HIT are on drugs. For naturals, it’s the worst way to train, because explosive lifting produces more damage, and therefore more hypertrophy. Even a sedentary person will gain muscle mass on steroids, so any program at all, no matter how stupid, will make a juicer grow faster than a typical natural lifter.

Check out Ellington Darden’s site sometime. He has lots of before and after photos of people using his brand of HIT, and he goes on and on about how significant those gains are for natural lifters, but if you compare their results to the results of people using other training methods, you can see he’s just talking out his ass. There’s lots of photos of people who lost some fat and gained just enough muscle to prevent a loss of inches on the arms and chest, but no significant growth.

Doing high reps, I gained inches on my arms while losing fat. I gained 40 pounds in three years, despite a reduction in my waist measurement. That means I had to gain a lot more than 40 pounds of muscle in those three years to compensate the fat loss. That 40 pound weight gain was actually 60 pounds of muscle gain and 20 pounds of fat loss. That’s why I managed to add 2″ to my arms in that time, despite losing a lot of fat off my arms. I gained another 10 pounds this last year and an additional inch on my arms, which means I had to gain 20 pounds of muscle, which means I lost an additional 10 pounds of fat during that time. I’ve never seen any natural lifter on a HIT program do anything remotely similar while losing fat.

Jones’ Nautilus experiments with Casey Viator are just plain fake. He claims Casey made huge mass gains in a month flat (28 pounds, which is physiologically impossible), and tries to back it up with some undated before and after pictures that look more like they were taken several years apart. Casey was on steroids during the experiment, and he admitted to after-hours training sessions off campus, using conventional high volume methods, so he did make some decent mass gains during that month. But even on steroids, it’s not possible for a person to gain 28 pounds of lean mass in single a month. There isn’t a single drug or any combination of drugs in the world that can cause such a rapid rate of protein synthesis and tissue remodeling, nor is there any training method that can cause that, whether or not drugs are involved.

So basically, HIT is a bunch of bullshit conjured up by Arthur Jones to sell Nautilus machines. You get some fast, short-term strength gains because of how your brain adapts to the change in time parameter by increasing signals to your muscles (great trick for convincing people that Nautilus machines work better than conventional weights), but that’s all it is: a trick. After a month or two, you plateau in strength gains, because there simply isn’t enough there to make your body keep adapting. It violates every weight training principle, as demonstrated in this article:

http://drsquat.com/content/articles/hit-hammer

Some of the science cited by Hatfield is outdated and doesn’t really apply to a high rep training protocol, but the principles are all still valid as it applies to the differences between slow lifting and explosive lifting.

HIT violates the Law of Individual Differences by assuming a one-size-fits-all training protocol: same sets and reps for all people, despite differences in gender, fitness, etc. SHRT (super high rep training) is an advanced set of training protocols, and has levels of intensity to suit different fitness levels of advanced lifters.

HIT violates the Overcompensation principle (nature compensating for trauma by hypertrophying muscles) by violating the Overload principle by eliminating explosive lifting. SHRT increases overcompensation by implementing the Overload principle.

HIT violates the SAID principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands) by presuming that one rep range works for everything, when the HIT rep range and tempo only works for short-term strength gains. SHRT observes the SAID principle by acknowledging that optimum hypertrophy is a demand-specific adaptation, reliant on maximizing force without overtraining.

HIT violates the Use/Disuse principle by focusing on one aspect of development to the neglect of others. SHRT can be adapted to maximally increase both strength and size gains by manipulating the repetition and weight progression protocols (i.e. 5×50 instead of 1×25-50 or 1×50-100). There are other ways to manipulate a SHRT program to extend periods of gain, such as utilization of the century set method, use of drop sets, changes in workout frequency, etc., all of which stimulate additional strength gains while stimulating mass gains.

HIT violates the GAS principle (general adaptation syndrome) by insisting on going to failure on every set of every workout, year-round, with no emphasis on the need for periods of decreased intensity or detraining periods. SHRT makes no such presumption; in the single set versions where failure is always utilized, if no intentional vacations are taken to detrain, one will naturally burn out and take time off anyways. With the 5 set method, there are undulating degrees of intensity, because not all sets are taken to failure every workout. HIT is not strenuous enough to require detraining periods, so the body readily adapts to the stress of going to failure all the time and enters a long period of equilibrium (the plateau).

HIT violates the Specificity principle by not utilizing explosive movements, and by not using rep ranges specific to hypertrophy, despite claiming to be ideal for hypertrophy. SHRT is primarily designed for increasing hypertrophy in advanced lifters who have outgrown lower rep ranges; strength gains are a secondary concern.

I’ve never seen clear evidence that HIT worked for anyone who wasn’t on drugs. Mentzer didn’t even get big using HIT; he got big doing high volume training and using drugs. Any gains he made from HIT while on juice were because of the shock value of switching programs during a plateau, not from any actual benefit of doing HIT. After he quit the juice, he shriveled up just like anyone else that stops juicing and continues to train heavy for low reps. In fact, his muscle losses were worse than most. He was completely average in his last years. In the last video he ever filmed, he was a mere shadow of his former self. That’s despite his application of his own training methods.

The principles outlined by Hatfield can’t be violated if you’re to maximize mass gains; there’s simply no way around that. SHRT doesn’t violate any of them. Most HIT programs violate all of them.

Darden tries to get around it by adding in some periodization features (increasing tempo or reps, specialization routines, etc.), but due to the violation of the Overload principle by eliminating explosive lifting, any differences in rate of gains or length of gain periods is mediocre.

HIT is useful as a shock technique to get off a strength plateau because it tricks your brain out of adaptation equilibrium, but anything more than a single mesocycle is a waste of time, because that’s all it’s good for.

Michael on March 8, 2014 at 10:50 pm said:

no; i only work each bodypart twice a week on 5×50. you have to keep things in perspective of total workload. if your upper limit is 500 reps a week per bodypart, you can split it up any way you want, as long as your split doesn’t put you over 500 reps per week. that’s why i could make gains doing 1 set of 50-100 reps 6 days a week; i never went over 500 total reps per week, or if i did, it was too brief a period to cause overtraining.

the higher the set volume, the lower the frequency, and the lower the set volume, the higher the frequency. either way, it works out the same; they’re just variations for accommodating fitness and routine. if you can’t handle multiple sets because you get too winded, you do a single set, whole-body routine every day. if you can handle 5 sets but not 10, you do a twice a week split routine. if you can handle 10 sets, you do a once a week bodypart split. any way you do it, you stay in the total rep range for the week. you don’t do 5×50 6 days a week per bodypart; that would be insane.

i don’t know if you’re getting this clearly, so here’s my current program:

bench press, 5×50: monday
bent rows, 5×50: tuesday
squats, 5×50: wednesday

repeat the sequence thursday, friday, saturday, rest on sunday.

as for rowing, either type of dumbbell row works just fine. i currently row with both arms simultaneously, but if i get a lower back injury, i use the bench for one-arm rows.

as for bending during unsupported rows, you don’t have to go up to 45%. that’s bad form, because you’re not really working your lats at that angle; it’s all trap work. just come up as high as you need to to feel comfortable, or switch to using a bench. when most people row, they come up from parallel as they lift the weight; when i row, i lower my torso towards the weight as i lift, to keep parallel. i don’t round my back to do it; i stay flat the entire time, bending at the hips.

you won’t have any problems getting arm development doing compound exercises, if you perform them properly. the best way is to use a wide, supinated grip, keeping your elbows close to you torso. that position fully activates all the involved muscles. you just need to remember to keep the bar going straight up and down over your solar plexus region when benching with a supinated grip; if you let the bar come up over your neck at the top of the movement like you would with a pronated grip, you lose control.

i haven’t done isolation work for 10 years, so yes, my current development is all from doing compounds. the need to work every muscle in isolation for balanced body development is a myth; if anything, it causes more muscle imbalances, not less. notice how a lot of big bodybuilders are arm-heavy? it’s because they overtrain those muscles by working them in isolation. when you do compounds only, everything grows in tandem. it’s impossible not to get upper arm, forearm and calf development from a compounds-only routine. that said, a bodybuilder who does curls will look better on stage, because that imbalance of arm-to-torso ratio looks better in a double biceps pose.

if you curl in competition, then you need to stick with the curls. that’s the specificity principle. if all you need is general strength and size for fitness purposes, you do a basic routine. if you need to overdevelop certain muscles for use in a particular activity, then you use exercises that focus on that one thing. that’s why baseball players all have big thighs and asses: they focus on lower body development more than upper body. that’s why ring gymnasts have great torso and arm development, but chicken legs; they focus on the muscles they use on rings to the exclusion of everything else. that’s why members of a rowing team have nice lats and traps, but are usually deficient elsewhere: they focus on rowing. it’s called streamlining.

this stuff all depends on your goals. general fitness and the fastest rate of overall mass gain: compounds-only routine. training for a particular type of competition that requires overdevelopment of a particular muscle: isolation work. you don’t need to be weak everywhere else, so you would just add in the curls on top of a compounds routine. if you’re competing for 1 rep max, then you stick with powerlifting training for curls. if you’re tired of doing curls, then you should stop competing.

i’m just some nobody who reads a lot of studies on the internet. i don’t even know if i’m getting all the details right; i’m not some college educated egghead. i just know the basics of how this stuff works from reading, and that when it comes to gaining size fast, super high reps are superior to lower rep ranges.

as for my training and size, i’ve had 30 years of trial and error experience with that. i’ve tried everything, so i know what works for how long, what the downside is, and what works best for particular goals. i know from my own experience, from my doctors, and from observing other veteran lifters that the conventional, low rep training methods are detrimental to health past a certain training age. i know from shoulder and back injuries that certain exercises (deadlifts, overhead presses, lateral raises, upright rows, pulldowns behind the neck, etc.) are bad for most people, and totally unnecessary for balanced muscular development. that’s pretty much all there is to it.

there’s the story that the supplement and drug industries want people to hear, the stories that gung ho iron game athletes are pushing, and then there’s the story that broken down athletes, doctors, therapists, etc. are telling. i just tell it like it is, from my personal experience, and from the experiences of others who have learned the hard way or were smart enough to listen to those who have figured things out. i learned the hard way about super high reps; guys like kali muscle were taught.

Michael on April 2, 2014 at 1:31 am said:

you can do both low and high reps and get good strength and size gains, but it’s not necessary. as long as you structure your workout to incorporate regular weight increases on the bar (i.e. 5×50 instead of 1×50-100), you gain strength and size at around the same rate. doing stuff like 5×5 is only necessary if you’re training for powerlifting competition or you’re in some other sport that requires a high power-to-bodyweight ratio; it really doesn’t serve any useful purpose as part of a general health regimen.

the main idea of high reps is safety and longevity. if you have impingement issues, then you need to lay off the heavy training entirely, and stop doing shoulder exercises. i have the same problem, which is why i switched. if you keep your reps over 25, you get rehab effects. i’m not saying you’ll get rid of your impingement problem entirely, but along with therapeutic exercises for impingement, it helps to undo the damage you’ve done to yourself from heavy lifting and bad form.

all your muscles will respond well to high reps, as long as you structure your routine properly, keeping in mind rep totals, set volume per workout, recovery time, etc. there are plenty of high rep bodybuilders out there: rich piana, kali muscle, tom platz when he was competing, shawn ray when he was competing, albert beckles, serge nubret, jason english, markus ruhl, etc. even CT fletcher does high reps for size, although he’s mostly a powerlifter. there’s others that have admitted to it, and most of the pros have implied at some point that they do high reps for mass, or have been filmed training that way. juice or no juice, all the biggest iron game pros are mass freaks because they do high reps; none of the juicers that train heavy all the time ever get that huge unless they’re genetic freaks.

i’m in my 40’s, but i’m already pretty big, and i have an endo-mesomorphic body structure; i can expect to achieve 20″ arms at some point, if i can keep up the eating. you shouldn’t expect to get that big if you’re over 50 and smaller than me, unless you’re on some serious HRT and have an appetite to match.

what a lot of people don’t understand is that regardless of how you train, trying to get huge takes a toll on your health because of the amount of food you have to eat to get massive, and because of the strain on your organs and joints from weighing over 200 pounds. i weigh 230 right now, at a height of less than 5’9″; regardless of my bodyfat percentage, that’s potentially dangerous. not everyone can get as big as me, let alone as big as a pro bodybuilder; it’s difficult to do, and difficult to maintain. it gets tiring eating 6 meals a day, and i have to worry about stuff like atherosclerosis from all the overeating. i know that l-arginine therapy gets rid of that, but it’s risky and expensive, so any way you look at it, getting big has health risks.

i’ve been getting chest pains and pulse irregularities for the past few years; every muscular guy who weighs over 200 pounds has those types of issues, no matter how good of shape they’re in. my resting heart rate is 60 bpm and my blood pressure around 120 over 80, but there’s days when my pulse will jump up to 120 bpm and my head feels like it’s going to pop from my blood pressure going sky high. my doctor says that all my tests indicate that i don’t have a problem, and i know that it’s just a reflex reaction that keeps my blood pressure and heart rate from dropping too low during periods of inactivity, but that’s some scary shit to have to deal with on a weekly basis, because you never can tell whether it’s something normal or a medical emergency. i also get flank and lower back pains a lot, even though my kidney and liver function tests all came back normal. this is the kind of stuff that drove lou ferrigno to see his doctor once a month when he was competing, to make sure his vitals were all good.

i don’t want anyone getting any wrong ideas here; high reps may build mass better and faster than low reps and be easier on the joints, but there’s nothing magical about it. if you can’t eat at least 6 meals a day and walk around like you’re walking on eggshells to prevent impact injuries that come with weighing over 200 pounds, don’t expect to get freak muscle, or to not get health issues. all superhuman achievements have their price.

[BelyyTigr]

(10-14-2016 09:42 PM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

I've read a lot of advice around here saying that you should lift as heavy as possible and do less reps if necessary. When I lift, I usually do the opposite. When I bench, for example, I don't raise the weight unless I can do 3 sets of 10 at the current weight. Once I can do 3 sets of 10 at a specific weight, I add 10 pounds the next time.

I notice the guys in there who do lots of weight and few reps usually look more like body builders than athletes. What I mean is that they have these big, bulky muscles that don't quite look natural. When you look at a professional boxer or athlete, their bodies have a more natural look, as opposed to body builders, who have bulkier muscles and look like they take steroids.

I almost posted the above topic a while back.
Here's my thoughts.

1)Even the ultra pros can't give exact answers. Look how much bodybuilder programmes vary.
And as a non bodybuilding example, Novak Djokovic only became a superstar when he realised he was gluten intolerant.

There's just too many variables. Genetics, lifestyle, age, your style of training (cheat reps, robotic type reps etc). Where you are in your training cycle. Your diet etc etc. Also, what sort of exercises are you doing? Is it machines, or bands, or power lifter style bar bells etc.

Also I think that it can be argued that your body might resist fitness growth if its potentially affecting your health. What weight trainers often think is "laziness" might actually be the body protecting the central nervous system from excess fatigue or free radical damage. Anyone notice how ex football players seem to age? Some scientists blame that on excess exercise!

2)I've found that 10 reps for most exercises doesn't really improve my strength. And doesn't result in much increase in muscle bulk. But if I go down to 5/6 or 1, 2 or 3 reps my muscle gains are FAR greater.
However, a good warm up is needed, and LOTS of protein.

I seem to naturally have lots of fast twitch fibre. But I've also managed to build stamina fibre which got me very very lean.

3)It depends on what body part too. Chest benefits from low reps. But forearms are an exception that benefits from higher reps.

4)Weight loss/leaning up and reps. Again thats complex. But I would say that diet is the key part.
I don't necessarily think its down to how much work you do ie the total mass of weights lifted. Its more about stimulating the right hormones. This guy seems to make sense to me.

http://turnaroundfitness.com/4-proven-wa...ol-weight/

But whats effective for fat loss will also depend on how lean you are already.

[ScrapperTL]

Giovanny, I recently set a new PR I am ultra pumped about.
3 sets of 15 reps, wide-grip pull ups in 6 minutes.

I know most of you guys are hardcore pro-strength and not so much into the high rep body weight training.

I'm telling you though, the Testosterone High you get from being able to pull off 3x15 wide-grip pull ups is legendary.
Was doing the Vince McMahon/Conor McGregor walk all day long after that.

Still planning on adding weight and reducing reps in the near future.

Here is a quick tip for anyone looking to increase their pull up repetitions that has worked for me.
Get one of those Grip Clenching gadgets and do 1 set of Clenches to failure and 1 set of Closed Grip Holds to failure everyday or EOD.

This only takes like 5 minutes out of your day/EOD and my Grip is a damn vice now.

[Columbo]

Lots of guys fall into the get big quick scheme, and for the noobs out there kali muscle is on steroids, like most youtube bro scientists.

It's hard to see the bullshit because this industry is full of it. I say experiment for 6 months following a program and see the results. Body by science is a good one with HIT techniques following Arthur Jones ideas.

I think Serge Nubret was using the lighter weights / hi rep technique, with good results it seems but again he has taken steroids too, so...

[Baphomet]

(11-18-2016 02:30 PM)Columbo Wrote:  

It's hard to see the bullshit because this industry is full of it. I say experiment for 6 months following a program and see the results.

Agreed.

This seems to be a topic that engenders a lot of passion. It's been my experience that anytime someone has success with one program or another, be it p90x, Crossfit, or any of the programs here, people become evangelists for that program. They take it a step farther and not only evangelize for THEIR program, but they insist that everyone else is completely wrong.

I've had very solid results with a sort of medium weight, high rep program that intermixes a lot of aerobic work. My objective has been to get my aerobic capacity up, and to tone up my muscles.

Been at it for about 6 months now and looking at some before and after photos, there has been a lot of improvement.

All heavy/few rep programs I tried usually just resulted in joint injuries and tendonitis. (Which leads to not working out, which leads to being a fat ass.)