What Is The Best Rep Range For Building Lean Muscle?
If you're wondering how to build muscle quickly you are in the right place. Today we are going to answer one of the most asked questions in the gym: How many reps should you do when you are trying to build size and strength?
Firstly, while you may feel like you are the only person who is lost with regards to your training you certainly are not. In fact, you probably aren't even the only one at your gym in this situation, never mind the entire world. As a fitness instructor I meet hundreds of people per week who need help, so don't for one second think you are by yourself. Today you'll learn some progress producing facts.
If you ask most men what their goal is it is usually very similar. They want to build a more powerful physique with less body fat.
The human body only changes when it is forced into it. If you are not doing that, not progressing in your workouts, your body won't change. Why? Because it doesn't have to! How many people do you see in your gym who have been doing the exact same thing for months and don't seem to be getting any results? Quite a few, I imagine, because this is a common issue which most people never address properly. Your body adapts to your workout. Even though you're working hard, your body knows it can handle it. Why? Because you probably did the same thing last week and it can remember. To get change you need to force change.
There are two main ranges of reps which will help you to determine what type of results you will get:
* The hypertrophy zone.
* The endurance zone.
The fact that you are reading this article, given it's title, tells us that you are here because you want to learn how to gain muscle and therefore you should be swinging for the hypertrophy zone. You should be aiming the majority of your sets at the 8-12 range.
If you were to continue pushing you reps, say, into the 15-20 zone, you would find yourself in the muscular endurance category. This would help you to tone up and really build up the stamina of whichever muscle you were training but it wouldn't work as effectively as the hypertrophy zone if your goal is pure size.
If you'd like to give yourself a confidence boost, we urge you to take a look around the resistance section the next time you walk into your local gym. You will see people training with seemingly no structure, going through the motions and, despite putting in effort while training, not seeing any results specific to what they want to achieve.
Most people don't take the time to learn the different benefits of various ways of training. This is why most women believe they'll get huge if they touch weights or do any kind of resistance training. These false beliefs will do nothing other than hold you back.
None of this information will do you any good of course unless you remember the golden rule of weight training. Some people call it progression, others call it overload. Basically, you need to force change from your body as we mentioned before. If you keep on doing the same thing your body will adapt and then simply stay in the same place.
The rep range we brought your attention to is a good way to do this. Many people ask us how much weight they should be using on a particular exercise and your rep range will determine this for you. For hypertrophy, find a weight which forces you to quit at around eight reps and then keep working with that weight until you get stronger. Once you can manage twelve reps at that level it's time to increase the resistance, forcing yourself back down to eight reps at a slightly heavier level and beginning the cycle again.
You will now find results far easier to come by. It might seem rather simple, given the amount of confusion in the health and fitness industry in general, but these facts are proven and backed up by decades of scientific research. Learning how to build muscle is simple, but most people never figure it out. You now have!
Firstly, while you may feel like you are the only person who is lost with regards to your training you certainly are not. In fact, you probably aren't even the only one at your gym in this situation, never mind the entire world. As a fitness instructor I meet hundreds of people per week who need help, so don't for one second think you are by yourself. Today you'll learn some progress producing facts.
If you don't know how to build muscle today's interview will assist you a lot.
If you ask most men what their goal is it is usually very similar. They want to build a more powerful physique with less body fat.
The human body only changes when it is forced into it. If you are not doing that, not progressing in your workouts, your body won't change. Why? Because it doesn't have to! How many people do you see in your gym who have been doing the exact same thing for months and don't seem to be getting any results? Quite a few, I imagine, because this is a common issue which most people never address properly. Your body adapts to your workout. Even though you're working hard, your body knows it can handle it. Why? Because you probably did the same thing last week and it can remember. To get change you need to force change.
There are two main ranges of reps which will help you to determine what type of results you will get:
* The hypertrophy zone.
* The endurance zone.
The fact that you are reading this article, given it's title, tells us that you are here because you want to learn how to gain muscle and therefore you should be swinging for the hypertrophy zone. You should be aiming the majority of your sets at the 8-12 range.
If you were to continue pushing you reps, say, into the 15-20 zone, you would find yourself in the muscular endurance category. This would help you to tone up and really build up the stamina of whichever muscle you were training but it wouldn't work as effectively as the hypertrophy zone if your goal is pure size.
If you'd like to give yourself a confidence boost, we urge you to take a look around the resistance section the next time you walk into your local gym. You will see people training with seemingly no structure, going through the motions and, despite putting in effort while training, not seeing any results specific to what they want to achieve.
Most people don't take the time to learn the different benefits of various ways of training. This is why most women believe they'll get huge if they touch weights or do any kind of resistance training. These false beliefs will do nothing other than hold you back.
None of this information will do you any good of course unless you remember the golden rule of weight training. Some people call it progression, others call it overload. Basically, you need to force change from your body as we mentioned before. If you keep on doing the same thing your body will adapt and then simply stay in the same place.
The rep range we brought your attention to is a good way to do this. Many people ask us how much weight they should be using on a particular exercise and your rep range will determine this for you. For hypertrophy, find a weight which forces you to quit at around eight reps and then keep working with that weight until you get stronger. Once you can manage twelve reps at that level it's time to increase the resistance, forcing yourself back down to eight reps at a slightly heavier level and beginning the cycle again.
You will now find results far easier to come by. It might seem rather simple, given the amount of confusion in the health and fitness industry in general, but these facts are proven and backed up by decades of scientific research. Learning how to build muscle is simple, but most people never figure it out. You now have!
About the Author:
About the Publisher: Russ Howe PTI is England's most subscribed Personal Trainer. Discover how to build muscle with our free video walkthrough showing the five principles to a more muscular body.
You are receiving this because you signed up for it on 2011-08-21 from IP 72.177.83.171
To fine-tune your selection of which articles to receive, just login here
using your username:
To unsubscribe please use the following link:
Unsubscribe
