I’ve had to learn to play a mental game with myself and started calling it “getting some exercise” instead of “working out.” To me, One implies health and consistency with training and the other implies continuous progressive overload which has always led to me getting injured in some way eventually.
You’re emphasizing muscle growth (I agree) but recommend 8-20 reps which, as I understand it, tends towards endurance rather than 8-12 reps for max hypertrophy. Would you comment?
This is an outdated idea. The premise that low reps are strength, while middle reps are muscle building, while high reps are endurance, it sounds good in theory but it's not supported by reality nor the scientific evidence. All reps range grow muscle relatively equally when sets are taken to positive failure, that could be 5-8 reps, 8-12, 12-20, even 20-30 potentially. High reps stimulate muscle growth, but they may not always be the most effective option, generally it works better for lower body than upper body, and this has been historically recommend for many decades that higher reps for legs are more growth producing, while for upper body the upper limit is more around 20 reps, and past that more of endurance effect is seen, with the endurance cutoff somewhere around 30-40 reps.
Lower reps the weights are heavier, and the margin for error less in technique, but low reps also dont work for exercise (a 5RM on bicep curls or leg press or machines or cables is rather pointless). As you get older some people find that heavy weight past a certain level threshold beat their joints up too much. Its all contextual
Thank you for this list. I’ve been training with sets of 20 to great effect, more cardio.
I’ve had to learn to play a mental game with myself and started calling it “getting some exercise” instead of “working out.” To me, One implies health and consistency with training and the other implies continuous progressive overload which has always led to me getting injured in some way eventually.
You’re emphasizing muscle growth (I agree) but recommend 8-20 reps which, as I understand it, tends towards endurance rather than 8-12 reps for max hypertrophy. Would you comment?
This is an outdated idea. The premise that low reps are strength, while middle reps are muscle building, while high reps are endurance, it sounds good in theory but it's not supported by reality nor the scientific evidence. All reps range grow muscle relatively equally when sets are taken to positive failure, that could be 5-8 reps, 8-12, 12-20, even 20-30 potentially. High reps stimulate muscle growth, but they may not always be the most effective option, generally it works better for lower body than upper body, and this has been historically recommend for many decades that higher reps for legs are more growth producing, while for upper body the upper limit is more around 20 reps, and past that more of endurance effect is seen, with the endurance cutoff somewhere around 30-40 reps.
Thank you. And what are the risks that you mentioned for lower reps?
Lower reps the weights are heavier, and the margin for error less in technique, but low reps also dont work for exercise (a 5RM on bicep curls or leg press or machines or cables is rather pointless). As you get older some people find that heavy weight past a certain level threshold beat their joints up too much. Its all contextual