# of sets for optimal hypertrophy & other questions..

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enz660

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I started working out this April, mostly running & light weight training, mainly to recover from my seditary lifestyle. This august, I started eating a lot and lifting a lot, basically trying to bulk up. I know lots of people talk about beginners gains, and I believe I have seen a lot of this, but I have been neglecting my legs, shoulders, and using the smith machine for benching, etc... Im trying to develop a good routine for a mon, wed, fri, sat program that gets my whole body involved.

My main concern is i hear of reoutines where people spend an entire hour on for example, chest, doing around 12 sets of chest workouts. I have not been doing this, but I am seeing results, what happens when I stop seeing "beginners improvment"? Is this really the best way to get hypertrophy, or is this overtraining?

also, im thinking of almost eliminating isolation workings in favor of compound workouts. Is this a good or bad idea?

my last question has to do with machines. All this time, I have been using leg press instead of squats, smith machine for benching, and rowing machines for back. A friend of mine said this is bad because it isolates muscles too much, and the muscles you use to stabalize a normal bar for bench pressing are neglected. Is this true or false?

thanks!
 
If you do full body workouts, you don't need that many sets. Post what your routine looks like, and we can tell you if it's good for hypertrophy or not.
Generally, you want to get about 30 total reps in. which means 3x10 would work, 10x3 would work, 5x5, 4x8, etc. As you see, the number of sets needed for hypertrophy will vary with how many reps you do.

This is only the rule of thumb, you can get bigger doing 3x3, 3x5, etc to.
 
enz660 said:
my last question has to do with machines. All this time, I have been using leg press instead of squats, smith machine for benching, and rowing machines for back. A friend of mine said this is bad because it isolates muscles too much, and the muscles you use to stabalize a normal bar for bench pressing are neglected. Is this true or false?

thanks!
Click to expand...

If i were you id start to lay off the machines :) benching with the smith machine isnt half as hard as with a free bar, plus using free weights goes with your natural movement.
 
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