More Reps or More Weights?

Boam46

Boam46

New member
I have heard contradictory thought on this from two separate trainers. In high school I threw shot put and I had the shot put coach and a trainer at the gym who both told me to increase weight when what I was doing got too easy.

The trainer I had last year at the gym told me to increase reps.

I understand in high school I was training for sports while last year I went to a trainer for weight loss... I don't know if this makes a difference.

So my question is ... should I increase weight or reps?

Right now I'm pretty much doing a upper and lower body circuit.
 
Adding weight to the bar is critical for the novice.

However, it must be placed in context.

Meaning, ideally you set a set and rep range. 5x5 is a nice example, 5 sets of 5 reps.

If week one it went something like this:

set1 - 5reps
.
.
.
set5 - 5reps

You'd likely increase weight the next time you trained this exercise.

However, if it had looked like this:

set1 - 5reps
.
.
.
set5 - 3 reps

The next week you'd most likely shoot for more reps to meet your rep range. In other words, if you are able to lift all sets for all reps, you should increase your weight to create enough stress to warrant positive adaptation.

If you are not able to complete each set for the given rep range, you should shoot for more reps the next time you train the exercise.

If you are unable to complete the given set/rep scheme for 3 or so training sessions, you probably need a deload week, or possibly even some complete rest from training for a week or so to let the accumulated stress from training subside.

Also, just saying, "increase reps" without adding any context could be taken completely wrong. When do you stop increasing reps? 100?

There's a general spectrum of metabolic properties associated with the given rep ranges. Essentially 1-5 could be considered strength, 6-12 considered hypertrophy, and 12+ considered endurance.... and there are different iterations of these ranges, but you get the idea.

If your training for muscular endurance, obviously you want your programming set up in a way that allows for a majority of your sets to take you to the endurance end of the spectrum, and vice versa for strength.

Hopefully that answers your question.
 
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