Hi everyone,
I'd like to ask some advice. Sorry if this is long, I just want to make my question clear.
I’m an amateur who’s worked out off and on for about 20 years. I'm not driven to look like the Hulk, I just want to feel and look good. Anyway, I’m now back into it and am trying to devise an optimal programme which fits in with my schedule, i.e. each week I can spare about 4 workouts of 1 hour each. Workouts 1 & 3 will focus on, say, A, B & C. Workouts 2 & 4 will focus on D, E & F.
I’ve already identified the muscle groups I want to work on and the right exercises for them. I’ve been at it for about 6 weeks (after about 2 years of doing nothing) and am making pretty good progress – I’m lucky in that my body tends to respond pretty quickly to good workouts.
My question concerns the interplay between strength / mass-building training vs. lifting for endurance / toning.
Here’s what I understand to be generally true (if you think it's wrong, please advise me):
--A good strength / mass-building workout for a given muscle group would look something like this: following a light warm-up, do 3 sets, each with 5-7 reps of the heaviest weight you can do that many times, reaching failure or near-failure by the last 1 or 2 reps, with rest periods of 3-4 minutes between sets. Try to do the same weight each set. Makes you look big.
--At the other extreme, there is an endurance / toning training, which is the same as above, but with a weight which you can do 12-15 reps with before failure or near-failure. Makes you look more sculpted or sinewy than big.
Sometimes I get bored and mix the two styles, thinking it’ll make me both big and toned. For example, I’ll do
--Set 1, choosing a weight of, say, 100, doing 5-7 reps before failing, and then resting
-- Set 2, do 5-7 again at 100, fail, then without a rest do 3-5 more at, say, 75, and then rest
-- Set 3, do 5-7 again at 100, fail, then (all without resting) do 3-5 more at 75, fail, do 3-5 more at 55, fail, then finally go to, say, 35 and do until failure, usually about 6-9 reps. (Amazing how those “baby” weights at the end can still make your muscles burn! )
I like the challenge (makes me hear the Rocky theme in my head) but frankly don’t know enough sport science to know whether this is efficient or not. Will I achieve both mass and tone goals this way, or might this actually somehow be counterproductive? Am I getting the best return of “gain” for my investment of “pain”? One gym trainer told me he never saw any point in doing more than 15 of anything; is this valid?
Sorry again this is so long. I’d be grateful for any advice.
I'd like to ask some advice. Sorry if this is long, I just want to make my question clear.
I’m an amateur who’s worked out off and on for about 20 years. I'm not driven to look like the Hulk, I just want to feel and look good. Anyway, I’m now back into it and am trying to devise an optimal programme which fits in with my schedule, i.e. each week I can spare about 4 workouts of 1 hour each. Workouts 1 & 3 will focus on, say, A, B & C. Workouts 2 & 4 will focus on D, E & F.
I’ve already identified the muscle groups I want to work on and the right exercises for them. I’ve been at it for about 6 weeks (after about 2 years of doing nothing) and am making pretty good progress – I’m lucky in that my body tends to respond pretty quickly to good workouts.
My question concerns the interplay between strength / mass-building training vs. lifting for endurance / toning.
Here’s what I understand to be generally true (if you think it's wrong, please advise me):
--A good strength / mass-building workout for a given muscle group would look something like this: following a light warm-up, do 3 sets, each with 5-7 reps of the heaviest weight you can do that many times, reaching failure or near-failure by the last 1 or 2 reps, with rest periods of 3-4 minutes between sets. Try to do the same weight each set. Makes you look big.
--At the other extreme, there is an endurance / toning training, which is the same as above, but with a weight which you can do 12-15 reps with before failure or near-failure. Makes you look more sculpted or sinewy than big.
Sometimes I get bored and mix the two styles, thinking it’ll make me both big and toned. For example, I’ll do
--Set 1, choosing a weight of, say, 100, doing 5-7 reps before failing, and then resting
-- Set 2, do 5-7 again at 100, fail, then without a rest do 3-5 more at, say, 75, and then rest
-- Set 3, do 5-7 again at 100, fail, then (all without resting) do 3-5 more at 75, fail, do 3-5 more at 55, fail, then finally go to, say, 35 and do until failure, usually about 6-9 reps. (Amazing how those “baby” weights at the end can still make your muscles burn! )
I like the challenge (makes me hear the Rocky theme in my head) but frankly don’t know enough sport science to know whether this is efficient or not. Will I achieve both mass and tone goals this way, or might this actually somehow be counterproductive? Am I getting the best return of “gain” for my investment of “pain”? One gym trainer told me he never saw any point in doing more than 15 of anything; is this valid?
Sorry again this is so long. I’d be grateful for any advice.