You know how it is.
Low reps mostly build strength. High reps mostly build endurance. Six to fifteen reps, that’s where it’s at for building muscle, everyone will tell you.
But you can’t help wondering.
Why are weight lifters so big then? Why are some of the biggest guys in the gym always busting out using high reps? Why are they bigger then you?
Do you just need to be patient, or could it be, that really, you’ve been doing it wrong all along?
Muscles Work According the Size Principle
Your muscles consist out of lots of muscle fibers. These muscle fibers come in different sizes, from small to big.
Small muscle fibers cannot produce much force but have great stamina. In contrast, big muscle fibers produce a lot of force but fatigue fast.
These muscle fibers can contract to contract the muscle they are part of. The more muscle fibers contract, the stronger the contraction of the muscle.
So when you lift a low weight, you only need to use a few small muscle fibers.
But when the muscle needs to produce more force, more and bigger muscle fibers are needed. Thus, lifting a heavy weight recruits many more muscle fibers than lifting a small weight.
And the more muscle fibers you use, the bigger the training stimulus is.
But does lifting a heavy weight always use more muscle fibers than a low weight?
Weight Versus Reps
There is a drawback to lifting heavy weight compared to low weight though.
You cannot lift a heavy weight as many times as you would a lower weight.
So why is this, and why does it matter?
When you lift a heavy weight, all your muscle fibers are contracting to produce force. But after a few reps, the big muscle fibers are fatigued and cannot contract anymore. As a result, you cannot contract your muscle hard enough anymore to lift the weight. This is what is called failure; the point where you cannot perform another rep.
So what happens when you lift a lighter weight?
Initially you’ll only need to use a few small muscle fibers. But as you continue to bust our reps, these muscle fibers start to fatigue. This forces the other (bigger) muscle fibers will take over. These will eventually fatigue as well, and this is when you’ll reach failure, albeit at a much greater rep count.
Thus, as long as you train until failure, you activate and fatigue all your muscle fibers and give a maximal growth stimulus to your muscle. Whether you do this with a heavy weight for low reps or with a low weight for high reps, should not matter in theory…
Study Design
Burd and his collegeas from the McMaster University performed a study to measure the effect of high reps and low reps compared on muscle growth.
First, the subjects where tested for the maximal weight they could lift one time. This is called their 1 repetition max (1RM). This 1RM was subsequently used to determine the weights to be used in the study.
Three different training protocols were tested:
- 90% of 1RM to failure (90FAIL)
- 30% of 1RM to failure (30FAIL)
- 30% of 1RM work matched with 90FAIL (30WM)
So the first protocol uses a heavy weight for low reps (90FAIL) and one protocol that uses a low weight for high reps (30FAIL). In the third protocol, also a low weight was used, but the set was ended when the subjects performed the same amount of work (number of reps times the weight ) was reached as in 90FAIL.
Muscular Failure Triggers Early Peak in Muscle Growth
Burd found that that 90FAIL and 30FAIL protocols resulted in similar increases in myofibrillar FSR (a marker for muscle growth) four hours after the training. However, the 30WM protocol had a smaller increase.
So the two groups that lifted until failure had the same growth response and this response was greater than in the group that did not lift until failure.
This shows that lifting until failure is essential to maximally stimulate the muscle growth response in the early hours after training.
In addition, it doesn’t matter how failure is reached. This can be done by a height weight for a few reps, or by a lower reps for more reps.
Amount of Work Determines Duration of Muscle Growth
Burd also measured what happened 24 hours after the protocols.
Interestingly, twenty four hours after the training, 30FAIL had the greatest rate of muscle growth. 90FAIL and 30WM both had lower rates that were similair to each other.
These responses parallel the amount of work performed in each protocol.
90FAIL and 30WM were designed to perform the same amount of work, and their rate of muscle growth was similair 24 hours after the exercise.
30FAIL was the protocol with the greatest amount of work, and resulted in the greates rate of muscle growth the day after.
This shows that the amount of work is an important in determining the duration of the growth response.
Muscular Recruitment and Total Work are the Muscle Growth Triggers
So what does this study teach us?
It shows us that there are two important muscle growth signals.
The first growth signal is muscular recruitment, how much of your muscle fibers are used in a set. This is maximized by lifting until failure.
Now I’m not telling you to lift every set until failure, which a lot of people find mentally exhausting (aka overtraining), but realize that you should lift at least until reps become difficult to perform. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on the early peak in muscle growth after your training.
The other muscle growth signal is total work. If your total amount of work in the gym is higher, your growth response will be longer.
Simply perform a lot of reps to boost your amount of work!
The main take away of this study is a tweetable!
Although there is some research that suggests you should change rep ranges every training session, don’t sweat it to much and just make sure you lift close to failure and perform a high total amount of work.
Now Here’s What I Want You To Do
If you found this article helpful, share it with your friends.
I hope to help as many people as possible with my free content, and I need you to help spread the word. So, thank you.
Now I pass it to you…
Are you planning to add high reps sets to your routine?
What is your experience with high reps ranges?
Study: PLoS One. 2010 Aug 9;5(8):e12033.
Image by underground bastard
Higher rep ranges are semi irrelevant when you are in your first 2-3 years of training, provided, you go to failure..
However for the true body beautiful, wide shoulders narrow waist and breaking plateaus everything changes.
Firstly everyone has a natural ceiling, yes you can break it but it might take a year to add 5% strength in muscle growth that probably does not represent more than 1,5% growth, hence the popularity of temporary steroid gains.
Really heavy weights result in, joint problems and inevitable injuries, there is a point whereby walking away from the monster weights and concentrating on muscle gains beyond your strength limitations.
Factor in that virtually all monsters bodybuilders these day sport 40″ waists whilst having 60″ chests..nah 52″ waist v 30 ” waist is far, FAR more impressive and aesthetic.
However the real, REAL factor morever personal experiance, coped by pals who ALL reported the same across the exercise spectrum.
I was permanently stuck with a good bench, awesome dips yet crap, truly crap shoulder press..300b bench for 12, 9, 7, 5 5 reps… dips (wide) 69 in one set, yes sixty nine and deep, military press a poxy 140lb x 12, 9, etc etc…so I droppd the weight to100lb and did 25 first set…next time 28, then 31, then 34, 35, 38, then 40…after 40 i added 2lb everytime i reached 40 reps…after 4 months of this protocol I was doing 125lb for 40 reps….today at 60 years of age in strict form I can do 48 reps x 125lb…shoulders are bowling balls.
So, work out why….it’s not hard…..clue, i broke the muscle halting caused by the strength limiting ceiling through other means.
Hey Darell,
I’m happy to hear you’ve been able to figure out a routine that produces the results you aim for.
However, I do not agree with your statement that rep ranges become more important the more experiences you are. The science simply does not seem to agree with that. And while we can go into anecdotal examples/discussion, that simply won’t be productive.
I’m just sharing the science. It might give people some new ideas. If your personal experience is different and you value that more, by all means keep doing what you’re doing because it sounds like you’re doing well!
-Jorn
To me it seems what you are saying, in simple terms, is that the further away from failure you are, the less muscle growth you produce.
An example being heavy vs light weights.
With heavy weights you are better off leaving reps in reserve (lets say 2), because its best to avoid complete failure for safety reasons. Lightweights however, you can go to max failure with no need to leave any reps in reserve.
By that logic, the lighter weights will produce more muscle growth than the heavy weights due to fatiguing the muscles to their max.
Is this correct?
Also, what happens to the strength-endurance you would normally get with lighter weights when not taking reps to failure? Do you still get that benefit but on a smaller scale or since you went to failure does all of the work done go directly into building new muscle?
Yes, the further away you stay from failure the less muscle growth you produce (with that set). An advantage of not going to failure is that you’ll be able to erform better on your next sets. So for example, if you do 5 sets to failure with the same weight, you might get 12,10,9,7,6 reps. If you don’t get to failure you might get 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, for a higher total volume.
I don’t think that heavy weights vs light weights makes much of a difference for safety, but exercise selection is more important. On a squat, you going to failure is pretty risky regardless. On a biceps curls, both low and high weights are pretty safe. But if you would go closer to failure with lighter weights, it should produce more muscle growth all else being kept the same.
If you do 28 reps with a weight you could do 30 reps, you would still get some strength-endurance adaptations, just slightly less. But again, by not going to failure, you can perform better on your subsequent sets/exercise, so that can compensate for it.
So to get the best results you should;
1 – Go as close to failure as you can without actually failing if using compound exercises or when more volume is needed.
2 – If you do go to failure on an exercise, choose less demanding exercises, such as isolation exercises.
So would a chest set up like this would be optimal for maximizing strength as well as hypertrophy;
Exercise 1 – Bench Press 5 sets, 5 reps (Heavy Weight w/ RIR)
Exercise 2 – Dumbbell Flyes 1 set (Lightweight) to failure
Yeah that looks good!
hi Jorn. I don’t think you will reply to me cause this post isn’t new, but… I have gone from 201 pounds to 247, increased my bench 90 pounds, and I did it while keeping my rep ranges in what worked for me. 2 to 3 reps including singles. But… I feel I still didn’t even really look like I went to the gym lol. Reading your article, I’m now excited to try the higher reps closer to failure! I’m coming up with my own routine protocol, but on bench press.. I was hoping to reach a goal I may never attain. I have benched 315 before covid ruined me, and for that specific exercise, I was thinking of a goal of 225 x20. And not worrying so much about getting back to 315 yet. I was thinking of doing 5 sets of 2 on bench every 2 minutes, rest 3 minutes and do as many as possible. Each workout drop a set of 2, and hopefully my failure set will keep increasing. What do you think?😊
Hi Micheal,
Increasing your bench by 90 pounds is good!
Yeah try playing around with higher reps. But it doesn’t have to be EITHER high or low. Keep doing a few low rep sets (or even singles) a week, and try to build strength in multiple rep ranges.
Good luck!
Start with high reps and low weight and than increase the weight and lower reps this l Create fast muscle growth
The ultimate goal is to recruit as many muscle fiber groups as possible (both type 1 and type 2) for maximum and prolonged muscle stimulation. Heavy weight and low reps stimulates one type more, while lighter weights and higher reps stimulate the other type more. The answer resides is moderate heavy weights with a medium rep range to produce maximum stimulation in both type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers. So you now you are looking at a rep range higher than 10, but less than 24. Maximum stimulation of both fiber types is going to reside in the 12 to 20 rep range with the divided average of that range being 16 reps.
Hi Andy,
The research so far has consistently shown similar muscle gains between high and low rep training protocols (if sets are taken to failure and equalised). Nothing wrong with the rep range you suggest, but there is no evidence that it will result in superior results compared to other rep ranges.
When you go to failure you stimulate both types of muscle fibers.
Hi Jorn,
Please, correct me if I’m wrong.
I think these findings imply that you don’t need to add weight to the bar and/or increase the number of hard sets in order to continuously grow muscles during a very long period of time.
Say, I start my training program with a fixed number of weekly sets to failure at 90% of 1RM on the bar. After a few training sessions my strength is improved and this weight becomes my 80% of 1RM and as a result I can do more reps before failure in each set. But because I continue to go to failure on all of my sets, my subsequent training sessions are still equally as hard as the first ones when the load was 90% of 1RM. Each of my training sessions consists of the same number of hard sets. So regardless of how strong I become all of my training sessions are equally hard in terms of what the muscle senses. That means I can go on with the same weight on the bar and the same number of sets to failure. After a while the weight on the bar may become my 60% of 1RM and eventually go down to, say, 30% of 1RM. But all of those loads are equally effective in terms of MPS as long as you go to failure. Thus I can start with a weight that’s my 90% of 1RM and use it for a very long period of time until it becomes, say, my 30% of 1RM while doing the same number of sets to failure. And during such a training program I will continually stimulate MPS at the same rate after every training session.
Is that logic correct?
Yes, however, from a practical perspective, low-load training might not be optimal, as discussed by Eric Helms here:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/low-load-training/
Most people I have corresponded with advise against switching to a high rep protocol when cutting, as there is a greater risk of muscle loss accompanying the loss of strength during a caloric deficit. Though there is very little hard data on this issue..
I agree with most Eric and you wrote.
I don’t think anyone is advocating to do most of your sets with low-loads. The studies have just been very informative that a ‘hard set’ is an excellent standardized unit for training stimuli.
Hi Jorn!
What would you say about the following interpretation of this study.
Main hypothesis: there is a certain level of load (mechanical tension) that a given muscle perceives as sufficiently hard to trigger MPS. And the more time the muscle spends under such level of tension the higher and longer the MPS response is.
For 90FAIL we have sufficiently large tension right from the beginning of a set but very few reps in a set. We begin a set with the level of tension already above the MPS-triggering threshold. However we stop pretty quickly due to muscle failure. So we spend a rather short time under the MPS-triggering level of tension. As a result our MPS response is not that significant: after reaching its peak it quickly returns to baseline in 24 hours.
In 30WM we start with very easy reps and the effective load of each of these reps is below the MPS-triggering threshold. And because we stop (at around 14 reps according to the study) long before reaching muscle failure (24 reps according to the study) we get almost no hard reps that induce MPS. So the time under MPS-triggering tension in this case is even shorter than in FAIL90 despite a longer total time under tension (according to the study) and equal total volume. As a result the MPS response in this case is the weakest among the three cases considered in the study.
In 30FAIL we start a set with easy reps and then proceed to the hard MPS-triggering reps. In contrast with FAIL90 we lift a much lighter weight and thus spend a lot less energy on each rep than in FAIL90. Hence after reaching the first MPS-triggering rep we are able to perform a significant numer of hard reps until we reach muscle failure (at around 24 reps in total accornding to the study). This numer of reps (say, 10) is larger than the total numder of reps in a set in FAIL90. As a result the duration of MPS-triggering tension in FAIL30 is longer. For this reason the corresponding MPS response is stronger than in FAIL90.
Now, the longer we rest before a given set the more reps in the MPS-triggering zone we are able to perform in this set because with more energy we are farther from muscle failure. Hence with more rest before a set we spend more time under MPS-triggering tension. That’s why longer rest periods between sets are superior compared to shorter rest periods.
I think we can replace ‘time under sufficiently hard tension’ with ‘the number of contractions against sufficiently hard resistance’. In case of blood flow restriction training the threshold of ‘sufficiently hard’ is significantly lower and that explains the results we get from this training.
I wrote this whole thing just for one purpose. I want to think of one variable (at least with respect to training) that predicts MPS response to a given workout. Not 2, 3, 4 or 5 variables (number of reps, number of sets, rest between sets, weight on the bar, proximity to failure). Having such variable would make it much easier to design training programs. But I definitely don’t pretend on any kind of original idea or anything like that. Just sharing my thoughts. What do you think, Jorn?
I think the key variable is ‘volume-load’ (load x total reps) or ‘work’, as Jorn puts it. A person who is capable of doing a greater amount of total work during the course of a week will be more muscular than one who is capable of less. If your goal is muscle hypertrophy, do whatever allows you to do more work (by adding load, sets, reps), within the limits of your recovery ability.
In this study WM30 and 90FAIL groups did the same amount of work = load x reps. And we see that 90FAIL had a significantly greater MPS response to their workout than WM30. Using this example one can easily construct two training routines with equal weekly amount of work but very different MPS rates. So, in my opinion, it’s not that clear whether load x total reps should be considered the key variable.
Yes, I would speculate that the reps would have to be ‘effective’ (recruiting and ultimately fatiguing most of the fibers) in order to see equivalent growth. If the load is too light, you might end up up terminating the set before you reach true muscle fatigue.
Yes, I think what happens with the loads is the following.
If you lift a light weight you have to approach muscle failure at least to a certain extent because your muscle fibers have to be fatigued enough in order to perceive the mechanical tension from this light weight as sufficiently hard and respond to this by initiating MPS. So, that would mean you have to enter the zone of ‘effective’ reps in order to trigger MPS. And the more ‘effective’ reps you do the longer your muscles stay under MPS-triggering load and hence the stronger signal for MPS you create. I think this is what happens in 30FAIL where participants performed more effective reps than in 90FAIL and obviously in 30WM.
If you lift a heavy weight your muscle fibers experience sufficiently hard mechanical tension right from the beginning (or almost). So, your reps are ‘effective’ right from the beginning (or almost) and they trigger MPS. Thus, you don’t have to approach muscle failure (or at least to the same extent as in case with a light weight) to start MPS. But in order to prolong it you need to accumulate as many ‘effective’ reps as possible during your training session. In 90FAIL participants continued each of their 4 sets until failure and their total number of reps in the end was around 20. It’s reasonable to consider all of those reps ‘effective’ because it’s 90%1RM. In 30FAIL the total number of reps in the end was around 96. Apparently, a large portion of those reps were perceived as ‘effective’ by the muscles, maybe it was 1/3 (32 reps) or even 1/2 (48 reps), and it was more than 20 reps as in 90FAIL. In my opinion this is what explains why the corresponding MPS response in 30FAIL was stronger than in 90FAIL.
Hi guys,
Good discussion. This was the first study on this topic. Since then, quite a few studies have been done. So we have gotten a much better insight in this topic.
What I like to use as standardised unit of volume is ‘number of hard sets’. Sets x reps x load is a very poor unit to compare the effectiveness of different training protocols, but ‘number of hard sets’ is a very good one that predict muscle mass gains pretty well (in most contexts).
So I like to see load and reps just as fun things to play around with. It doesn’t matter if you use a heavy load for a few reps, or a light load for many reps. As long as the set becomes hard, you get about the same growth response from it (this is also consistent with things such as blood flow restriction training).
This is probably the best study on this topic.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27174923
Thank you Jorn. This is the best account of the size principle in relation to muscle hypertrophy that I have encountered.
Based on what you write, it would seem that high rep training is superior to low rep for muscle growth, since the former would fatigue both slow and fast muscle fibers, while the latter fatigues only the fast. Am I wrong on this?
Hi YF,
When you go to failure, you will have recruited all muscle fibers. The slow-twitch fibers are also recruited when using heavy weights. You could argue that perhaps they are recruited but not fully fatigued though.
However, the data pretty consistently shows no difference between low or high reps. This was the first study to investigate it, but many more have been done since this one. And the result is always the same: no difference in muscle mass gains between either protocol.
If going close to failure is all that matters, why are longer rest between sets more effective than shorter rest periods if the shorter rest period will fatigue the muscle fibers anyways?
Hi Carlos,
Good question.
Longer rest periods between indeed increase muscle hypertrophy compared to shorter rest periods.
During a set of resistance-training, you recruit your muscle fibers. How heavy the weight is determines how much fibers you recruit and how long it takes before those fibers fatigue. If you use a relatively light weight, you don’t recruit all your muscle fibers right away. But after a couple of reps, your recruited fibers start to fatigue and other fibers are recruited to take over their work. Soon, all fibers are fatigued and you’ll hit muscular failure. At that point you’ve recruited and fatigued all fibers.
What I think that happens with short rest periods: your muscle fibers have no fully recovered from the fatigue yet. Just to put it in simple numbers: let’s say that half of your fibers are still fatigued when you start your next set. This next set only will stimulate the muscle fibers that were good to go again. Effectively, this set would be only worth half a set.
This is a bit of a simplification of the actual physiology, but this is my guess why short rest periods are inferior to longer periods and supports to ‘sets close to failure result in similar hypertrophic stimulus despite different weights or reps ranges used’.
Jorn, can you please clarify the effect of rest between sets on MPS?
Let’s say with a given weight we have 3 situations:
Case 1:
After the first set I rest 1 min and do the second set in which I’m able to do, say, X reps until failure.
Case 2:
After the first set I rest 5 min and do the second set in which I’m able to do, say, X+5 reps until failure.
Case 3:
After the first set I rest 5 min and do the second set in which I do X reps and stop without reaching failure.
We already know that in case 2 MPS is higher than in case 1.
But what about case 3? In cases 1 and 3 we have equal volume, but in case 3 muscle fibers are more rested and recovered before the second set. Will this induce a higher MPS in case 3 than in case 1?
Or the effect of longer rest between sets is just a pure reflection of a larger volume of the second set when done until failure?
Hi Alexey,
unfortunately, we don’t really know what happens in case 3. I can speculate and think of various scenarios, but it’s pretty much gambling. However, you might as well design your program in such as way that you can also do case 2 and still be time efficient. Just do exercise 1 (e.g. a push exercise), rest 2 min, do exercise 2 (e.g. a pull exercise), rest 2 min, repeat. Or if that’s no convenient with equipment, you can do some stretching, do some prehab work etc.
Excellent post Jorn! This is the clearest account of the size principle and how it relates to muscle hypertrophy I have seen. A few questions please:
Any data on which rep ranges are optimal for continued progressive overload?
Also, might lower rep ranges be better when cutting (and endurance tends to go down)?
Some trainers claim that lower rep ranges lead to ‘denser’ muscles and higher rep ranges ‘puffier’ muscles. Any reality to this?
I don’t think there is a rep range that is best for progressive overload. It shouldn’t really matter.
For muscle growth (or retention when cutting) it doesn’t really matter if you do high or low reps. You could argue that high reps would in total burn more calories, but the difference would be super small and pretty irrelevant anyway.
The ‘denser’ look it based on the principle of myofibrillar hypertrophy (growth of contractable proteins in the muscle) or sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (increase in other stuff in the muscle). But there’s not really much clear research on it. I doubt it would play a big role.
Thanks Jorn!
Thanks!
Hi Jorn, great, great read.
Do you think the extra 30RM protein synthesis is the result of a high degree of ‘metabolic stress’, next to the high degree of ‘mechanical tension’ that’s achieved by going to failure?
A slow negative portion on the given lifts would probably result in EVEN MORE acute synthesis by completing the tension-stress-damage triad, posed by Brad Schoenfeld in his recent Muscle Hypertrophy paper. Wouldn’t you agree?
Thanks Stijn.
Quite a few studies have been done since this one. Several long term training studies now suggest that changes in muscle mass are the same between as long as the number of hard sets is equal. It doesn’t really matter how you reach failure (or close to it). It can be by using big weights with low reps, or a small weight with high reps. Or blood-flow restriction exercise for example.
Brad’s triad is an interesting theory, but I’m not convinced there is such a thing. Whenever there is metabolic stress, that will ultimately result in mechanical tension. Eccentrics also result in mechanical tension (during an eccentric, the amount of force per muscle fiber is increased).
So it may be that all 3 are just different ways to reach the same endgoal. I haven’t seen any evidence that the effects are cumulative.
Hey Jorn, thanks for your reply.
I suspect you’re right about mechanical tension and muscle fiber damage, but I think the metabolic stress stimulates a different type of muscle growth.
Since most powerlifters mostly do low reps and high weights, that would explain why they have a lot less mass than bodybuilders do, right? They don’t ‘fully tap’ the size potential from metabolic stress.
Again, I do agree on your thoughts about the eccentrics that results in mechanical tension. However, you have to acknowledge that mechanical tension is applied to a lot less muscle fibers (reflected in lower muscle activity EMG-scores in the negative portion of a lift).
There could be many explanations why powerlifters have less muscle mass than bodybuiders.
Just a few:
– People with good bodybuilding genetics are more likely to focus on bodybuilding, and train like bodybuilders ‘are supposed to do’. Vice versa for powerlifting.
– Do powerlifters actually have less muscle mass than bodybuilders? Or are their hamstrings, erectors, and triceps (main powerlift muscle) just big, but their biceps, side delts and other muscle which they don’t directly train are less developed?
– Powerlifters train with a lower volume (defined as number of sets (close) to failure
I don’t think the difference in rep range has much to do with it.
Old article I realise however I often thought it never mattered for growth as I powerlift and pretty much train exclusively in the 1 rep range and am 245 pounds and low bodyfat. Deadlift 310 kg. too lazy to do reps to be honest and feel I don’t need to anyhow. Could be genetics too!
Hi Jorn,
Interesting article about rep range. In your comment on the question of Nicolas, you say that the muscle doesn’t really know the difference between reaching failure after 3 reps or after 30 reps. Nevertheless, I can imagine that the metabolic products produced during these two efforts are quite different and therefore differ in their signaling towards adaption, e.g. a higher lactate acid production after the 30 reps. What do you think? Do completely different rep ranges differ in their signaling?
Thx,
Frans
Hi Frans
You’re absolutely right that different rep ranges will trigger different metabolic signals and subsequently different adaptations. For example, low reps will increase maximal motor unit recruitment and will increase maximal strength. High reps will increase muscle acidosis and will subsequently increase strength endurance.
However, how close a muscle comes to failure appears to be the main signal for muscle hypertrophy. Both low and high reps can achieve this. So the muscle doesn’t know the difference between reaching failure after low reps or high reps WITH RESPECT TO MUSCLE HYPERTROPHY.
For other training adaptations, it still matters. Don’t do 1000’s of jumping jacks a day and expect to increase your maximal strength with it!
Hi Nicolas,
Using heavy weights is just one of many ways to stimulate the central nervous system (CNS). Basicly, anything that requires muscular effort will stimulate the CNS.
While increasing CNS activity is great for maximal force production, I don’t think that it has much benefits for building muscle.
Increases in weight is a great measurement of progress, but not the driver of muscle growth per se. This becomes evident when we look at kaatsu training, where gains are made with extremly light weights.
Ultimately, it all depends on what your muscles sense and how hard they have to work. It doesn’t really know the difference between reaching failure after 3 reps or after 30 reps.
Anyway, you could always do a warm up with heavy weights before a high rep set if you think you’ll benefit from it.
-Jorn
Hi Jorn,
I know you also lift weights on a regular basis. I’m also a believer of using rep ranges from 1-20 and that each rep range has their benefits.
But isn’t it so that lower rep ranges (1-5 reps) with a proper warm up, can stimulate the central nervous system more than higher rep ranges? If the CNS is activated to a higher extend, more weight can be moved with the same amount of muscle mass. If the load on the muscles increases over time, more muscle growth should be expected at these lower rep ranges, compared to higher rep ranges. What is your opininion about this hypothesis?