don’t get caught up with numbers. Just bust your gut in the gym and lift heavy weights. 8-10 is fine, it’s worrying about whether 8-10 is worse that 4-6 that’s gonna raise your cortisol and erode your muscle. enjoy eliminating fats from your diet and feel good about your blood pressure lowering as you do cardio alongside weights.
You can put on muscle and lose fat, its very slow progress though, you need consistant training, and sleep and a very clean protein rich diet. If you want to lose weight don’t forget you can keep your metabolism from grinding to a halt by altering your calorific intake on different days. Similarly with your training there are a multitude of ways to overcome plateaus.
Fastest way is to periodize everything. You want to gain muscle and lose fat, that’s a compound goal. The most efficient way would be to split up your goals into 2 distinct goals, first to bulk up past your target weight, then diet down. Remember, it’s much, much easier for your body to gain both muscle mass and fat at the same time, the trick is to keep the fat low. So, taking the given example, you would spend the next 2-3 months lifting heavy ass weight (rep ranges vary depending on strength or size goals. Remember, strength != size != weight), eating at a serious caloric surplus, while doing minimal conditioning work (in order to maximize rest and recovery between heavy lifting sessions).
Within a few months, you should hit your overreach weight, gaining a combination of muscle and minimal fat. Once you this weight, you begin a cutting cycle. Heavy lifting takes a back burner, going from 3-4 days of heavy lifting down to 2. Instead of heavy lifting, the you should opt for HIIT sessions, which coupled with newly gained muscle mass will shred fat, while losing minimal muscle mass.
To give you a real life example, I have a cousin who I’ve trained since the end of High School basketball season. He’s 6’4" and he ended the season at 155 lbs. Yes, he’s that skinny. Since February, I’ve had him lifting 4 days a week, following a modified WS4SB template, with basketball workouts and skill training replacing some of the dynamic days. During this time, I loaded him up with a 2 different protein powders, one is a custom trueprotein carb + protein post workout blend, the other is just packaged MuscleMilk. Additionally, I told him to inhale anything and everything in front of him. He’s a lifelong “hardgainer” and I wanted to make sure he just fucking ate since “hardgainer” is just a euphemism for “eats like a bird.” Over the course of these past 4 months, he’s up to 170 lbs. While not a great gaining cycle, I consider it a success when you consider that he’s had to balance this with maintaining his grades, prep’ing for the PSAT, and being an average high school boy (girls!). This summer, we’re gonna focus on getting his poundage up even more, he still struggles at benching bodyweight, and has plateau-ed at a 225 max squat.
Rep ranges usually vary depending on goals. In very broad, general terms, 1-5 reps builds strength, 8-12 builds size, and 15+ builds endurance. Also, be aware that these have little to no bearing on your body composition, which is most seriously impacted by diet. A balanced carb:protein:fat diet will keep energy levels high along with improving body composition.
Aight I’m 6’3" and around 205lbs.
I’ve been on a bit of a diet and started losing some fat. Prob is my arms are beginning to look real skinny and I think I’m losing a lot more muscle than I’d like too. Because my muscles aren’t that big to begin with, I’m worried if I try to lose weight I’ll come out looking lanky. I’m not trying to be ridiculously cut- just more in shape. I know this has been answered several times already but what’s the recommended number of sets&reps? I don’t go to the gym during the summer; all i got are dumbells and an adjustable bench in my room. Any exercise I should put alot of emphasis on?
Speaking of strength, Eric Cressey has recently (last month or 2) put out a new book called “Maximum Strength.” The gains people mentioned that they made on their were by a lot. Though I’ve heard it’s intense and not for beginners.
Anyone else have recommendations on good books to read? So far I’ve read Metabolism Advantage and New Rules of Lifting (Men & Women).
I am exactly the same measurements and what I do generally is compound lifting about 3-4 times a week. Gotta lift heavy, almost always at 5x5 or 3x5 when trying to move up. And if you dont want to be lanky, eat alot…
Always want to focus on the big 3 exercises; squats, bench, deadlifts. Some of the others might include military press, rows, chins, pullups, weighted situps, and some more too.
Keep it basic and make sure you find a diet that promotes growth.
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I don’t know if anyone else agrees with me, but shouldn’t everyone seriously just lift heavy with low reps all the time? I mean unless you are really trying to lose weight or something like that…
And I can attest to the top paragraph. I was trying to gain clean, and I was moving very slow. When I said fuck it, I will eat everything (well I mostly still eat clean, just a lot and more frequently) and then cut down, I am making very rapid gains. Getting a gut though, but I’ll take care of that when I get to 185ish.
What have you picked up from those books? Mind sharing?
thanks a bunch! So about how many exercises do you guys do per muscle group in general? Are there any advantages in hitting all the major muscles everyday modestly rather than focusing on one muscle group a day per week?
Ok sounds good. I wasn’t too worried, I just didn’t want to be wasting my time doing 3 set of 8-10. I guess I’ll just stick with what I’ve been doing. Thanks for the advice guys!
Rep range is usually defined by goals. Do you want to be stronger? 1-5 reps. Do you want to be bigger? 8-12 reps. Do you want to last longer? 15+ reps.
There was one thing I never clearly understood about that, though I know its true from practice.
Strength is tied to mass, no? Why is it that 8-12 makes you bigger but not stronger. Mass is very closely tied to mass isn’t it? Is it due to the neurological aspect? The adaptation of the muscle?
The problem is mass has a definite correlation with strength (generally, bigger = stronger). Granted, part of this is leverages (heavier = more leverage), but also, it’s because bigger muscles are stronger, in a very broad sense, than smaller muscles. This why the strongest guy on the football field are the biggest, and why they have weight classes in all weightlifting events.
While the above is true, it’s looking at the issue in a micro scale. What’s more important isn’t the size of the muscle fibers, but rather muscle fiber recruitment. This is where CNS adaption comes in. Just because you’re bigger someone, doesn’t automatically mean you are stronger. I’m sure most of us are bigger than a guy like Lamar Gant (who weighed in at a whopping 132 lbs), but I guarantee none of us are pulling 661 lbs! The guy had insane CNS adaption, meaning his body learned to most effectively and efficiently use what it had at it’s disposal. This is the single most important factor with regards to strength, efficiency. What’s the point of having large muscle fibers if your body only knows to use 10% of them to move something?
Combining the thoughts above is why you have things like conjugated periodization. Powerlifters work on both neural efficiency (1-5 reps) alongside hypertrophy (8-12 reps) concurrently. They both have their place in overall strength, but of course, one aspect is more important.
wow, that is some interesting stuff. I was wondering about this too, because it makes sense that being stronger would make you bigger. So I guess as someone like me who is trying to lose weight, lower reps would be better. though anything I do at this point is probably going to helpful for my overall health.
If you’re just trying to lose weight and be healthy, 1-5 reps is probably the best way to go. You’ll still build muscle mass, which will help you lose fat (which is what you really want to lose) and you’ll have easy to measure progress (I added x lbs to my total in 1 month).
As long as you can find a good regiment I’ve seen most people do compound exercises 3 or 4 times a week, or rotate through major muscle groups 6 or 7 times a week. It’s probably just personal preference.
god damn it…i just started doing straight bar bicep curls (65lbs.) and it really fucked up my forearm. the pain is unbearable so i had to cut my workout routine short and just concentrate on triceps…i looked it up and seems alot of people that work out get this same pain, so im saying fuck straight bar curls and just go with EZ bar from now on or just dumb bell curls…
yes straight bar is a killer for me, EZ bar even causes a little shot of release pain when i put the bar down when i go above 100lbs. try a wider grip, thumbs angled uupwards on the ez bar or get to work with dumbels only
yeah when i first put the bar back on the rack, is when the pain hurts the most.
i’ve tried wide grips and close grips and they both hurt the same… i guess im done with straight bar for a few months and work on forearm flexes more. I have skinny wrist and prolly weak forearms