Lifting how many reps

You've figured out the exercises you should be doing, but what about the number of sets and repetitions? Your decision should be based on your goals.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 4 to 6 repetitions with heavier weight for hypertrophy increased muscle size , 8 to 12 repetitions for muscular strength and 10 to 15 reps for muscular endurance. In general:. Choosing how much weight to lift is often based on how many reps and sets you're doing.

The general rule is to lift enough weight that you can only complete the desired number of reps. In other words, you want that last rep to be the very last rep you can do with good form. However, if you're a beginner or if you have medical or health conditions, you may need to avoid complete fatigue and just find a weight that challenges you at a level you can handle.

So, how do you know how much weight you need to challenge your body? Every day is different. Some days you'll lift more weight than others. Listen to your body. Another important part of training is resting between the exercises. So, if you're doing 15 reps, you might rest about 30 to 60 seconds between exercises. If you're lifting very heavy, say 4 to 6 reps, you may need up to two or more minutes.

When lifting to complete fatigue, it takes an average of two to five minutes for your muscles to rest for the next set. When using lighter weight and more repetitions, it takes between 30 seconds and a minute for your muscles to rest. For beginners, working to fatigue isn't necessary, and starting out too strong can lead to too much post-exercise soreness.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends training each muscle group two to three times a week. In order for muscles to repair and grow, you'll need about 48 hours of rest between workout sessions.

If you're training at a high intensity , take a longer rest. Throughout your workouts, keep these important principles in mind. Your first step in setting up a routine is to choose exercises to target all of your muscle groups and, of course, set up some kind of program.

You have plenty of great options:. For beginners , you want to choose about exercises, which comes out to about one exercise per muscle group. The list below offers some examples. Choose at least one exercise per muscle group to start. For the larger muscles, like the chest, back, and legs, you can usually do more than one exercise.

Or try these ready-made workouts. Get exercise tips to make your workouts less work and more fun. American Council on Exercise. Weight Lifting for Weight Loss. American Cancer Society. The effect of abdominal exercise on abdominal fat. J Strength Cond Res. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults.

Med Sci Sports Exerc. Your Privacy Rights. The moderate-rep range, when coupled with a challenging weight, will also bring about a much-desired condition: the muscle pump. That tight, full feeling under the skin, caused by blood pooling in the muscle, has value beyond its ego-expanding qualities.

Studies have demonstrated that the physiological conditions which lead to a pump activate protein synthesis and limit protein breakdown. Thus, more of the protein you eat goes toward muscle construction instead of being burned off for energy.

In a scientific twist of good fortune, the fast-twitch fibers appear to be the biggest beneficiaries of this phenomenon. So how many reps should you be doing to build muscle? In the final analysis, substantial evidence argues that training in a moderate-rep range is the best way to build muscle mass.

It increases hormone response, spares protein, and provides the necessary time under tension to spark muscle damage. These benefits work in unison to get you from pencil neck to powerhouse in no time.

But does this mean you should store your low-rep and high-rep regimens away in the closet, underneath your parachute pants and Thriller album? Certainly not. Cycle periods of low-rep training and high-rep training into your overall program, while progressively trying to increase your strength and perfect your exercise form every time you lift. If your haphazard training has been producing mixed results for a while now, consider periodizing your training.

Periodization is a system of training that organizes your workout into distinct cycles. Because each cycle has specific objectives, the number of reps for each varies sharply. Phase 1 : Preparatory, consisting of extremely high volume 15 or more reps, three to five sets and low resistance.

Phase 2 : Hypertrophy, or growth, consisting of high volume eight to 12 reps, three to five sets and moderate resistance 50 percent to 75 percent of one-rep max. Phase 3 : Strength, consisting of moderate volume five or six reps, three to five sets and heavy resistance 80 percent to 88 percent of one-rep max.

Phase 4 : Power, consisting of low volume two to four reps, three to five sets and very heavy resistance 90 percent to 95 percent of one-rep max. To build the explosive strength necessary for competition, athletes frequently use Phase 4, the power phase. If you're exercising with poor form, the weight is probably too heavy, regardless of when you're failing. Learn and practice textbook technique. However, these fibers fatigue fairly quickly, which is why you can't lift a very heavy weight very many times.

Train like a bodybuilder: If you're looking to maximize muscle size, target reps per set on average and choose multijoint movements like the bench press, squat, overhead press, bent-over row, and deadlift, which recruit more total muscle mass than single-joint moves, thus allowing you to lift heavier weights. Hit a target muscle from multiple angles with high volume sets and reps to stimulate growth. In general, your rest periods should be in the 1- to 2-minute range.

Already have a Bodybuilding. Sign In. Don't risk doing a workout improperly! Avoid injury and keep your form in check with in-depth instructional videos. View our enormous library of workout photos and see exactly how each exercise should be done before you give it a shot. Quickly read through our step-by-step directions to ensure you're doing each workout correctly the first time, every time. While choosing a weight at which you can do just reps builds muscle, it also builds strength, no doubt.

But that weight is not optimal for strength building. When focusing on maximizing your strength, you want to train with even heavier loads, ones you can lift for just reps.

These very heavy weights provide the stimulus needed to grow stronger. In fact, that's how the biggest and strongest men and women in the world train—especially powerlifters. They throw around superhuman weights in competition, and you can bet they practice in a similar fashion. Train like a strength athlete: Strength trainers differ from bodybuilders, in that they typically avoid taking sets to muscle failure, which could adversely affect the nervous system.

Most of these individuals don't train heavy all the time, however. They cycle high-intensity periods heavy training with low-intensity periods to save their joints, reduce the risk of injury, and peak at the right time for competition. Hence, they typically follow a or week periodized program that gets progressively heavier. That means doing sets of 5 reps, 3, and finally 2 and 1.

The strength trainer also targets the fast-twitch fibers. His focus isn't just on building and strengthening the muscle fibers themselves, but also training the nervous system. Rest periods between sets for main lifts are fairly long—up to minutes—so that incomplete recovery doesn't inhibit succeeding sets. After the main multijoint exercise, additional movements are included to strengthen weak links in the execution of the main lift.

Your eye may be on getting as big or as strong as possible, but not everyone wants to pursue that goal. The classic example of the marathon runner, who runs at a steady pace for plus miles, is one geared toward improving muscle endurance.

In the gym, that translates into using a lighter load for 15 or more of reps.