The Ideal Rep Range For Muscle Building
If you've ever wondered how to build muscle in the gym you have probably also asked yourself how many reps you need to do to get best muscle gain results.
Today we are going to answer that question for you.
Firstly, while you may feel like you are the only person who is lost with regards to your training you certainly are not.
In fact, you probably aren't even the only one at your gym in this situation, never mind the entire world.
As a fitness instructor I meet hundreds of people per week who need help, so don't for one second think you are by yourself.
Today you'll learn some progress producing facts.
If you ask most men what their goal is it is usually very similar.
They want to build a more powerful physique with less body fat.
The first step to achieving the body you want is to learn that your body will not change by itself.
You literally have to force it into change.
It's only concern is keeping you alive, it really doesn't care if you'd like to look different.
In order to make it more powerful you need to force it to become so.
There are two main ranges of reps which will help you to determine what type of results you will get:
* The hypertrophy zone.
* Endurance.
The fact that you are reading this article, given it's title, tells us that you are here because you want to learn how to gain muscle and therefore you should be swinging for the hypertrophy zone.
You should be aiming the majority of your sets at the 8-12 range.
If you were to continue pushing you reps, say, into the 15-20 zone, you would find yourself in the muscular endurance category.
This would help you to tone up and really build up the stamina of whichever muscle you were training but it wouldn't work as effectively as the hypertrophy zone if your goal is pure size.
If you'd like to give yourself a confidence boost, we urge you to take a look around the resistance section the next time you walk into your local gym.
You will see people training with seemingly no structure, going through the motions and, despite putting in effort while training, not seeing any results specific to what they want to achieve.
So you now know that the rules with weights have nothing to do with the popular gym mythologies out there.
You know the ones we're talking about, right?
Things such as 'high reps are just for women'.
High reps are for those looking to build muscular endurance, regardless of your sex.
None of this information will do you any good of course unless you remember the golden rule of weight training.
Some people call it progression, others call it overload. Basically, you need to force change from your body as we mentioned before.
If you keep on doing the same thing your body will adapt and then simply stay in the same place.
Use your rep zone to determine how much weight to lift as well as deciding when it is time to increase the resistance. How? It's actually very simple.
Whereas most people don't know when the right time to increase a weight is, or most women are scared for fear of gaining muscle mass, simply remember the rules of your target rep zone.
If using the hypertrophy zone use a weight which you can manage to lift eight times.
Stick at that weight until you are able to get past 12 reps with good technique, then it's time to increase the weight, consistently forcing yourself to increase loads and stay within the right rep zone.
So now not only do you know how to build muscle but you also know how to push consistent gains from your body to avoid the plateau most people encounter and never break free from.
Today we are going to answer that question for you.
Firstly, while you may feel like you are the only person who is lost with regards to your training you certainly are not.
In fact, you probably aren't even the only one at your gym in this situation, never mind the entire world.
As a fitness instructor I meet hundreds of people per week who need help, so don't for one second think you are by yourself.
Today you'll learn some progress producing facts.
If you ask most men what their goal is it is usually very similar.
They want to build a more powerful physique with less body fat.
The first step to achieving the body you want is to learn that your body will not change by itself.
You literally have to force it into change.
It's only concern is keeping you alive, it really doesn't care if you'd like to look different.
In order to make it more powerful you need to force it to become so.
There are two main ranges of reps which will help you to determine what type of results you will get:
* The hypertrophy zone.
* Endurance.
The fact that you are reading this article, given it's title, tells us that you are here because you want to learn how to gain muscle and therefore you should be swinging for the hypertrophy zone.
You should be aiming the majority of your sets at the 8-12 range.
If you were to continue pushing you reps, say, into the 15-20 zone, you would find yourself in the muscular endurance category.
This would help you to tone up and really build up the stamina of whichever muscle you were training but it wouldn't work as effectively as the hypertrophy zone if your goal is pure size.
If you'd like to give yourself a confidence boost, we urge you to take a look around the resistance section the next time you walk into your local gym.
You will see people training with seemingly no structure, going through the motions and, despite putting in effort while training, not seeing any results specific to what they want to achieve.
So you now know that the rules with weights have nothing to do with the popular gym mythologies out there.
You know the ones we're talking about, right?
Things such as 'high reps are just for women'.
High reps are for those looking to build muscular endurance, regardless of your sex.
None of this information will do you any good of course unless you remember the golden rule of weight training.
Some people call it progression, others call it overload. Basically, you need to force change from your body as we mentioned before.
If you keep on doing the same thing your body will adapt and then simply stay in the same place.
Use your rep zone to determine how much weight to lift as well as deciding when it is time to increase the resistance. How? It's actually very simple.
Whereas most people don't know when the right time to increase a weight is, or most women are scared for fear of gaining muscle mass, simply remember the rules of your target rep zone.
If using the hypertrophy zone use a weight which you can manage to lift eight times.
Stick at that weight until you are able to get past 12 reps with good technique, then it's time to increase the weight, consistently forcing yourself to increase loads and stay within the right rep zone.
So now not only do you know how to build muscle but you also know how to push consistent gains from your body to avoid the plateau most people encounter and never break free from.
About the Author:
About the Creator: Russ Howe PTI is England's most subscribed Personal Trainer. Learn how to build muscle with our free video guide showing the five principles to a more muscular physique.
