Is 8 to 12 Reps Really the Best?
August 23, 2009 by Kris Jones
Filed under Weight Lifting
Many weightlifters go under the general guise of 8-12 reps is the best range of reps (myself included), but that’s not actually the case according to a Men’s Health Total Fitness Guide. While 8-12 is good for maintaining, the extremes give you more gains.
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High weight enlarges your muscle fibers and give you more strength. High reps provides you more energy and endurance. In contrast, 8-12 is the medium range and a compromise between the two. While this may be good as a transitional workout, if you maintain 8-12 reps for most exercises on every day, you’re not going to see the same extreme gains as you would if you bounced between the two polar opposites.
I think a good implementation of this would be to go through your complete body with high weight, then high reps, and last transition to the medium range of reps and then back up.
You say that 8-12 is the medium range but you don’t say what the extremes are.
I’ve been doing 5×5 for a few months now and have seen good growth. Recently I hit a plateau and decided to try a few sessions of 3×5 and adding extra weight – this helped me push past that plateau and my 5×5 regime is now moving on.
I was planning on mixing the 3×5 and 5×5 but I’m interested to know what your extremes are.
Cheers,
Steve.