The Merits of High Reps When Training Legs
Lighter weights, bigger muscles, less heavy wear and tear
High reps for legs has been popular in bodybuilding for a long time, for a few reasons
Higher reps ensures the target muscles are fully pumped with blood
Higher rep sets allow for lighter loads to be used, while still training to positive failure
The metabolic cost of high rep sets is greater, and there is a concurrent endurance training effect that takes place
Because higher rep sets are lighter by default, the weights used are less risky and you are assured to have better muscular control over them.
An Interesting Phenomenon I have noticed in older lifters (40+) is the “Mechanical Loading Pain Response”
Understand that this is an independent hypothesis of mine. The hypothesis is this
-As we age, our tolerance for heavy loads can begin to decrease due to stiff muscles/tendons, and accumulated wear and tear.
Basically, your maximal strength starts to decline, and once the weights get “heavy” enough, your body simply starts to hurt. It feels risky to lift heavy.
However, this does not mean you are destined to lose muscle mass
While you eventually won’t be able to maintain your 1 rep max strength, you can still maintain your submaximal strength.
This is one of the beautiful truths of strength training; we may lose our maximal strength, but the maintenance of repetitive effort strength is still possible.
Not only is this possible, it’s also MORE beneficial for your overall metabolic health. Being able to lift a relatively heavy weight for multiple reps keeps your mitochondria at peak operational efficiency.
If we consider aging to be a decline in energy output in mitochondria, then high rep training helps to keep us young by maintaining that output.
Simplified this into practical guidance
Being able to lift a heavy-ish weight for 10, 15, or 20 reps is more important as you age than lifting a heavy weight for 1 rep.
To be clear, Im not opposed at all to older lifters lifting heavy in the 5-10 range. Depending on your body and your training history, it might be possible to make strength gains even into your late 40s and perhaps even be getting stronger at age 50+.
Regardless, there will come a time that your body “slows down”. You could delay this significantly, but it will happen eventually.
The heavier you train, the greater the risk, and it does not take that much “heavy” training to maintain strength. And you must also consider that muscle loss (sarcopenia) and mitochondrial decline are critical factors in degenerative aging.
If you can avoid pain and stay lean and mean your whole life, and all it requires is higher reps in training, why not do that?
An example of a High Rep leg Day
This is a version of Scott Abels “Leg 30s”, which is a workout of doing 30 rep working sets per exercise, repeated twice through (for 10 sets in total)
This is ideally done as a CIRCUIT.
Leg Press (in extended set fashion) X 30 reps
Barbell or DB Walking Alternating Lunge X 30 reps
Machine Squat (could be smith, V-squat, pendulum, hack squat) X 30
Seated or Lying Leg Curls Machine or BW Gliding Hamstring Curls X 30 reps
Seated and then Standing Calf Raise X 30 reps
This does not constitute a long term forver program, but as a training phase for 4 weeks, you will be HUMBLED.
I like to progress this program by starting with 30 reps the first month, 20 reps the 2nd, and then 10 reps the 3rd and 4th month. It allows for a great work capacity base and strength gains.