High reps vs. low reps

J

jennig

0
I am in my mid 30's and started working out regularly when I was 14. I believe in an 8-12 rep weight for bicep
muscles philosophy and increase my weight or execercise difficulty accordingly (currently approximately 14 pounds for each arm), but I do not have the definition I would like to have in my arms. My biceps are not as toned as the rest of my body, and I do not want to increase in size, as I feel they are already big enough. Am I mistaken in my overall approach? would doing higher reps get me the shape I want. Am I storing fat in my arms and no where else? are my biceps genetically cursed? Should I incorporate a mixture of high rep sets and low rep sets into my workout? About a month ago I started trying to master chin-ups, this is really hard and I can only do about six reps, with at least 30 seconds rest in between. I do chin ups twice a week and once a week I still do my regular weight training (14 pounds) for my biceps. Will chin ups only make my beceps bigger as apposed to more cut. I am very confused.
 
Hi jennig!

I think your muscle workout is the right approach but diet and cardio are huge factors in fat reduction and you said nothing about those. Apparently your body tends to store fat right where you don't want it!
Since you seem to be happy with your progress over all, I wouldn't worry too much about diet, instead I would keep my diet the same and bump up the cardio. The increased aerobic work should burn the fat off. Of course you could use the opposite approach (diet and keep cardio as is) or a little of both.

An old style workout that is currently coming back into vogue is circuit training. It uses strength training done in a way that also gives you aerobic benefits. Instead of doing one exercise, resting, and then doing another, you simply go from one exercise to the next, not resting until your whole body is trained. You could do this program for a few weeks and see if you're getting the results. Here is link to bodybuilding.com that has articles about circuit training

Congratulations on your pull ups, they are a tough exercise!
 
You're right. My diets good but I do spend more time on my strength training than on cardio. I happen to do circuit training by doing active rest. I work one muscle and then while its resting I work a different muscle. This is not only effective in getting your heart rate up but it also saves alot of time. I always felt that if I only had time for either cardio or strength training, than stregnth training and ab training was more important, but I guess I need to incorporate more cardio and see how that goes. Still unsure if there's any benefit to the high reps. Thanks for your encouragement.
 
Well, high reps train slow twitch muscle fiber, while low reps train fast twitch. That's the reason bodybuilders use high and low rep schemes (to get them all). As you know, endurance sports do not build excessive muscle and they use slow twitch fiber (high/really high reps).

Since you are already pretty much doing circuit training, then I would suggest that instead of doing long cardio which will definitely burn the fat but muscle size will be sacrificed, that you instead do interval training. Most people don't like intervals but you sound as if you're into training.

Training harder or all out, burns twice as many calories whether your training is mopping the floor or doing wind sprints. The trouble is, monster efforts don't last long enough. Interval training throws really hard efforts into a sustainable workout (think jogging around a track and sprinting the corners, then returning to the jog. Doing intervals, whether running, cycling, swimming, whatever, will get plenty of fat burning in but in a short amount of time.
 
You should always lift as much as you can do for the rep range otherwise your really wasting your time.

Power = 1-5 reps
Strength = 6-10 reps
Hypertrophy = 8-12 reps (increase in cross-sectional area of muscle fiber)
Tone = 12-15 reps
Endurance = 15+

Remember to lose weight do exercises standing up and sitting down to increase total muscle recruitment , standing is harder than sitting and sitting is harder than lying. And again remember if your not lifting as heavy as you can for each "rep range" then you might as well give up your goals.
 
bodyimagefitness said:
Tone = 12-15 reps


Remember to lose weight do exercises standing up and sitting down to increase total muscle recruitment , standing is harder than sitting and sitting is harder than lying.
Click to expand...

Tone is a bull**** term passed about by marketing people, it doesn't have an ideal rep range as it doesn't relate to a muscular adaptation i.e. you can't 'tone' a muscle. Muscle tone is the term frequently given to an improved appearance of the muscle mostly caused by fat loss.

And also, what's this about lifting sitting down and standing up to increase muscle recruitment? Surely that is influenced by choice of exercise than anything else
 
Yeah, you can't use any specific rep range to "tone" the muscles. If by tone you mean muscle definition (IE, the muscle becoming more visible under the fat) then what you need is fat reduction, and you can't spot reduce, so that has to go from all over the body I'm afraid. The only way to lose fat is really to be in a calorie deficit (more cals out than in) and you can do this by either eating less or exercising more while eating the same (assuming you're currently in a calorie balance or surplus)

And high reps will eventually recruit type II muscle fibers. Generally speaking, at 80%of 1RM, most of the muscle fibers will be recruited for big muscles, it can be lower for small ones. But if you start with a weight that doesn't make you recruit many type II fibers, they will eventually be recruited as your slow twitch fibers fatigue and can't develop enough force to keep lifting.
 
Diet is important, obviuosly, but also try higher reps from time to time. Try sets of 50-100 reps and just burn out the muscle. I do 3 sets of these at least once a week.
 
Workout is so much more than just reps. There is something called acute variables and these decide the outcome of your workout, reps is just one of them.

You for example do never want to to more than 25 reps per set, you are just wasting your time and energy. Hypertrophy reps are about 8-12, but you do need to mix up high reps(12-25) and low reps(1-12) to avoid hitting a plateau, which I think is what has happened to you. Doing the same exercises, reps, sets and more wont make you progress and the body gets used to your exercise regime. Another one is sets, how many sets are you doing? You need to change them up too, anywhere from 2-6. The higher the reps, the lower the sets and opposite.

Are you mixing up different exercises to hit the muscles from all angles? Are your rest intervals too long maybe? How is your weight selection, are you pushing yourself harder every time?
 
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