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Light vs. Heavy Weight High reps or low reps for muscle growth? - flexonline

A

Admin

Administrator. Graeme
Staff member
[h=2]OPENING ARGUMENTS[/h]
  • Defense: Lifting heavy weight is what separates the men from the boys and allows bodybuilders to make the biggest gains in mass. In fact, some of the largest bodybuilders to ever grace the posing dais were ex-powerlifters.
  • Prosecution: Lifting with light weight and higher reps may seem like the girly way to train, but it is very effective for building muscle size as long as you take sets to muscle failure. Tom Platz, who built some of the biggest legs in bodybuilding, was known to frequently train with sets as high as 30, 50 and even 100 reps.
[h=2]EVIDENCE[/h]
  • ■ Researchers in the United Kingdom had trained men perform four sets of leg extensions using a weight that limited them to about four reps per set, or a weight that allowed them to complete about 25 reps per set.
  • ■ When the men did the four sets with light weight for higher reps, muscle protein synthesis (which leads to muscle growth) of the quadriceps was elevated by about 60% more than when they did the four-rep sets.
[h=2]VERDICT: LIGHT WEIGHT FOR HIGH REPS[/h]Light weight wins for its ability to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and prevent injuries.
[h=2]SENTENCING[/h]The real bottom line is that the majority of your workouts should utilize light-to-moderate weight for moderate-to-high reps. However, you need to frequently change your weight and rep ranges to keep the muscles stimulated and build both strength and muscle mass. So alternate between reps as low as 3–7 and as high as 25–50, but with the majority of workouts in the 8–15 range for best results.
- See more at: Light vs. Heavy Weight | FLEX Online
 
I think don't think 4x4 with heavy weight vs 25x4 with light weight is a fair comparison. The volume isn't even close. From personal experience, 25x2 would have been a more even comparison as the overall volume and training time is closer.

Edit: Maybe I'm reading it wrong. It doesn't explicitly state whether it was 4 sets of 25 reps or 1.
 
Dan John had an interesting comment, saying, is it high weight for low reps, or low weight for high reps? Neither, it's high weight for high reps!
 
A lot of big bodies and strong bodies over the last 100 years had been built using both methods, there is no either or here.

The trick is, the workout must be brutal for most people to garner the required results.
 
no magic formula, both work.

Key to adopt training that one enjoys and works.

Me like training on 50-60% of max, 4 sets of 6-8, 60 seconds rest.
 
Everyone's body is different, saying that some of the best bodybuilders were powerlifters and then Tom Platz did higher reps, just proves both methods can work it just depends on what works for you.

Isn't that what the point of this thread is?
 
Why limit yourself - do all of it - heavy, low reps, light, high reps, supersets, drop sets, giant sets etc etc
 
Yep, every kunce who wrote a book or a program has their own different theory and they're all massive.
 
I dont think you could name one pro bodybuilder or powerlifter that has only followed 1 approach to training their whole training life...everyone does and should mix it up....be in in whole training cycles or in each training session.
 
Jizd said:
Ive always stuck to the minimal weight/high rep work outs.
Click to expand...
Hi Jizd,

Minimal weight/high rep work outs are simply great, however you reduce from that greatness whenever you insist on using the word "always" in the same sentence. Our anatomy and physiology has been designed to venture beyond sticking to one rigid way of training. Yes sure, certain rep ranges and weight percentages do hit the best of both worlds when it comes to muscle hypertrophy. What worlds am I referring to? The two worlds that are worlds apart in the way they respond to a particular stimulus. The worlds that encompasses our different muscle fibre types. So by not including 50 reps and / or 5 reps, one misses out, unless one can prove that his or her muscles are made differently or composed of different components than the rest of humanity.

Everything works, but nothing will work all of the time (regarding muscle hypertrophy). Variation still reigns supreme in my opinion, and according to the way our muscles have been designed. There's no escaping that fact and that reality.



Fadi.
 
Jizd said:
Ive always stuck to the minimal weight/high rep work outs.
Click to expand...

I guess if you have always done this and never tried anything else you wont know any different so the question may be hard to answer - but what sort of results have you got with this and what do you count as high reps?
 
I think mixing it up is good as well. I used to be strict 3 sets of 8 but now I do 4x10 for smaller muscles, dropset the last exercise for the particular muscle. For large muscles I do 4 x 20 (back, traps, legs) because I find them much harder to fail on 8 reps without hanging pins off or having to get a spot. Sometimes do rest pausing as well, one heavy rep, 3 breaths between.
 
I just starting doing a monthly routine of reps.
Week 1 12-15
Week 2 8-10
Week 3 5-8
Week 4 3-5

Just to keep my body guessing and then start the routine again. Hoping that at week 5 i will be stronger for the same reps.

I cant remember where I stole this routine from, but will see what happens.
 
For the last year I've been doing something similar, but cycling the reps/weight every 4 weeks. It gives me 4 weeks to really get a feel for the reps and weight. I think most importantly, I find it more interesting and enjoyable than getting stuck in a routine of the same workout every week for months at a time.

My routine looks like this.
- 4 sets of 4 reps going as heavy as I can.
- 3 sets of 8 reps dropping the weight slightly.
- 3 sets of 12 reps with a medium weight.
- 2 sets of 20 with a lighter weight.

The 2 sets of 20 probably looks a little easy with the lightest weight and least amount of sets, but it's probably the most brutal workout session. I also do Body Pump once a week to hit the muscle fibers with sets of 100.
 
Also believe varying your rep ranges is so important to keep the muscles guessing. The 3 week cycle of Y3T emphasises this.

Week One: 6-12 reps
Week Two: 12-18 reps
Week Three: 18-30 reps

Use other various techniques to keep muscles growing.
Drop sets, Super sets, Negative training, Different tempos.
 
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