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ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps y

ugh....the large number of reps at low weight meme has spread because people want to believe that they can do an easy workout. if you can do more than 5 reps your weight is too light. there's no such thing as "toned instead of bulk". lifting casually a few times a week is not going to turn you into a hulkish freak. and if you want toned you do CARDIO. treating weightlifting as cardio is stupid. for the average person doing weighted dips and pullups is more than enough. do those combined with jogging up hills a few times a week and you'll be in great shape. if you want to take it further you should be doing olympic lifts. anything else is really for professionals with specific needs or people with medical problems.

bombs 17y ago
If you're lifting for hypertrophy, more reps is better than more weight, e.g. 15 reps of 100 lbs instead of 6 of 150 lbs or whatever your maximums may be.
- philk 17y ago
  If you're just starting out lifting for hypertrophy is irrelevant. You need to focus on lifting heavy and eating to match.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  are you a professional bodybuilder? no? then you're talking about minimal differences. you get plenty of hypertrophy from low reps high weight. you're talking about specialized training for the specific circumstances.
- nandemo 17y ago
  No, it's the other way around. See my other comment and this: Physical education students were matched into three groups; G90 (n = 9) trained with a load of 90%, G35 (n = 11) with 35%, and G15 (n = 10) with 15% of 1RM (1 repetition maximum). Training consisted of three to five sets, performed three times a week for 9 weeks. Each set consisted of two, seven and ten repetitions in G90, G35 and G15, respectively. Training was performed with the nondominant arm, and the dominant arm served as control. The 1RM increased 15.2 (SD 4.5)% (P < 0.001) in G90, 10.1 (SD 5.9)% (P < 0.001) in G35 and 6.6 (SD 7.9)% (P < 0.05) in G15. This bit was surprising to me: In the untrained arm, 1RM also increased for G90 and G15. In contrast to G90, G15 showed a similar increase in 1RM in both arms. http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/
hendzen 17y ago
While I agree in general with the content of your first paragraph, your second paragraph has some inaccuracies that I found bothersome. 1) You claim that "weighted dips and pullups" combined with "jogging up hills a few times a week" amounts to a complete exercise regime. As far as dips and pullups go, the average person would benefit much more from a simple weightlifting routine like Starting Strength. Additionally, HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) is a far more effective than steady-state cardio. 2) You state that the average person should pursue Olympic lifts if they want to "take it further". Olympic lifts are some of the hardest exercises to perform correctly, and can be dangerous when attempted by untrained novices. While this makes for good competition, this is impractical for the average trainee. The complex movements involved in performing Olympic lifts can be broken down into more isolated sub-movements, e.g. military press and the power clean rather than the entire clean and jerk. These sub-lifts are far easier to master, and thus more worthwhile to any trainee not looking to compete in an Olympic-style lifting competition.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  of course they would benefit more from more intense, comprehensive exercise. the point is that you can get in excellent shape with 1/10th of the commitment and effort that such a comprehensive program demands. constantly worrying over your next major gains is what makes the fitness habit so hard to maintain.
peterwwillis 17y ago
"treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain. if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  cardio with weight is bad for your joints. if you want to build endurance swim, jog, and spar.
  - peterwwillis 17y ago
    yes, but if you are careful you can add a weight vest or light ankle/wrist/dumbbell weights and do various cardio exercises with minimal risk (if you use proper form). you should reduce your weight if your exercises are too high impact. small to medium dumbbells in combination with different exercises (squats, lunges, burpees, squat jumps, etc) can definitely give you an edge in your overall conditioning. jump training is very effective with a good amount of extra weight (30lbs or more) - of course watch your landing. even punching for 3 minutes with 5lb dumbbells is insane.
    - matwood 17y ago
      Adding a weighted vest is much different than adding ankle or wrist weights. I would advise against ever adding weights to your ankles or wrists while doing cardio. In that scenario your legs and arms are acting like big levers and even light weight can wreck havoc with your mechanics that in turn can lead to injuries. The body just wasn't designed to operate in that manner. While not exactly the same issue look up 'open chain' versus 'closed chain' exercises.
nandemo 17y ago
Doing a set with a large number of reps is neither easy nor useless. It's not easy because you're supposed to do it until failure. And if you're aiming at improving your muscular endurance, then lots of reps with a light weight are more useful than low reps with a heavier weight. There are several studies that show this. Example: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ Subjects were divided into four groups: a low repetition group (Low Rep, n=9) performing 3–5 repetitions maximum (RM) for four sets of each exercise with 3 min rest between sets and exercises, an intermediate repetition group (Int Rep, n=11) performing 9–11 RM for three sets with 2 min rest, a high repetition group (High Rep, n=7) performing 20–28 RM for two sets with 1 min rest, and a non-exercising control group (Con, n=5). (...) Maximal strength improved significantly more for the Low Rep group compared to the other training groups, and the maximal number of repetitions at 60% 1RM improved the most for the High Rep group.
matwood 17y ago
There are so many things wrong in this post I'm not sure where to start. First, 5 reps is fine sometimes. Look up periodization. The body adapts quickly so while 5 sets of 5 might work for a few weeks you eventually need to change it up. Plus your joints, tendons and ligaments get tired always lifting heavy. Cardio has nothing to do with 'toning.' The old saying is 'abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym.' If you want to look tone (horrible term but we'll go with it) you need to have some muscle and then remove the fat from over top of it. The easiest way to remove fat is the cut calories. You can burn calories through exercise, but not nearly as much as people think. Dips and pullups is nothing close to enough for a well rounded workout. If you want to do a workout without a gym Google bodyweight training. If you have access to a gym then look at the books 'Starting Strength' or 'New Rules of Lifting.' Both are good books by excellent authors and give you plenty of workout plans. With either, expect to spend about an hour in the gym 3 times per week.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  heavy weight lifting is beneficial to your ligaments tendons and joints. it's doing dozens or hundreds of reaps that are bad for them. periodization is crap. you let your muscles recover and then you workout again. diet is outside the purview of this discussion for now. of course diet has a massive impact. that's not what we're talking about. I am well aware of various bodyweight routines. complicated programs are not needed. I'll admit I forgot a core routine, but between that and jogging on hills you're working every major muscle group.
  - matwood 17y ago
    Have you actually lifted heavy for any amount of time? If you have you'll know that you need times where you let your tendons and ligaments rest. Your joints will thank you too. Muscles recover much faster than your connecting tissues (and your CNS for that matter). Look at something like the 5/3/1 workout. It's set up in a manner that you can do it indefinitely because it has built in periodization. For 3 weeks you work up to near maximal weights then a 4th week of deload. This 4th weeks gives everything else (again - connector tissue, CNS) a chance to fully recover. A complete program is not necessarily complicated. Running is NOT a replacement exercise for a squat and DL variation.

bombs 17y ago

If you're lifting for hypertrophy, more reps is better than more weight, e.g. 15 reps of 100 lbs instead of 6 of 150 lbs or whatever your maximums may be.

philk 17y ago
If you're just starting out lifting for hypertrophy is irrelevant. You need to focus on lifting heavy and eating to match.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
are you a professional bodybuilder? no? then you're talking about minimal differences. you get plenty of hypertrophy from low reps high weight. you're talking about specialized training for the specific circumstances.
nandemo 17y ago
No, it's the other way around. See my other comment and this: Physical education students were matched into three groups; G90 (n = 9) trained with a load of 90%, G35 (n = 11) with 35%, and G15 (n = 10) with 15% of 1RM (1 repetition maximum). Training consisted of three to five sets, performed three times a week for 9 weeks. Each set consisted of two, seven and ten repetitions in G90, G35 and G15, respectively. Training was performed with the nondominant arm, and the dominant arm served as control. The 1RM increased 15.2 (SD 4.5)% (P < 0.001) in G90, 10.1 (SD 5.9)% (P < 0.001) in G35 and 6.6 (SD 7.9)% (P < 0.05) in G15. This bit was surprising to me: In the untrained arm, 1RM also increased for G90 and G15. In contrast to G90, G15 showed a similar increase in 1RM in both arms. http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwwpy506jtmdt7v6/

hendzen 17y ago

While I agree in general with the content of your first paragraph, your second paragraph has some inaccuracies that I found bothersome. 1) You claim that "weighted dips and pullups" combined with "jogging up hills a few times a week" amounts to a complete exercise regime. As far as dips and pullups go, the average person would benefit much more from a simple weightlifting routine like Starting Strength. Additionally, HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) is a far more effective than steady-state cardio. 2) You state that the average person should pursue Olympic lifts if they want to "take it further". Olympic lifts are some of the hardest exercises to perform correctly, and can be dangerous when attempted by untrained novices. While this makes for good competition, this is impractical for the average trainee. The complex movements involved in performing Olympic lifts can be broken down into more isolated sub-movements, e.g. military press and the power clean rather than the entire clean and jerk. These sub-lifts are far easier to master, and thus more worthwhile to any trainee not looking to compete in an Olympic-style lifting competition.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
of course they would benefit more from more intense, comprehensive exercise. the point is that you can get in excellent shape with 1/10th of the commitment and effort that such a comprehensive program demands. constantly worrying over your next major gains is what makes the fitness habit so hard to maintain.

peterwwillis 17y ago

"treating weight lifting as cardio" is intended to build muscle that can perform. take anybody who uses a standard lifting program and they'd die 30 minutes into a p90x/insanity/conditioning program. do the same cardio with weight, or weight with more reps, and your muscles adapt to more continuous strain. if you just care about looking buff or losing/gaining weight quickly, do few high-weight reps. if you're training to be a fighter or just want to be highly conditioned, do lots of reps.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
cardio with weight is bad for your joints. if you want to build endurance swim, jog, and spar.
- peterwwillis 17y ago
  yes, but if you are careful you can add a weight vest or light ankle/wrist/dumbbell weights and do various cardio exercises with minimal risk (if you use proper form). you should reduce your weight if your exercises are too high impact. small to medium dumbbells in combination with different exercises (squats, lunges, burpees, squat jumps, etc) can definitely give you an edge in your overall conditioning. jump training is very effective with a good amount of extra weight (30lbs or more) - of course watch your landing. even punching for 3 minutes with 5lb dumbbells is insane.
  - matwood 17y ago
    Adding a weighted vest is much different than adding ankle or wrist weights. I would advise against ever adding weights to your ankles or wrists while doing cardio. In that scenario your legs and arms are acting like big levers and even light weight can wreck havoc with your mechanics that in turn can lead to injuries. The body just wasn't designed to operate in that manner. While not exactly the same issue look up 'open chain' versus 'closed chain' exercises.

nandemo 17y ago

Doing a set with a large number of reps is neither easy nor useless. It's not easy because you're supposed to do it until failure. And if you're aiming at improving your muscular endurance, then lots of reps with a light weight are more useful than low reps with a heavier weight. There are several studies that show this. Example: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/t96qmxyaa7x7le0c/ Subjects were divided into four groups: a low repetition group (Low Rep, n=9) performing 3–5 repetitions maximum (RM) for four sets of each exercise with 3 min rest between sets and exercises, an intermediate repetition group (Int Rep, n=11) performing 9–11 RM for three sets with 2 min rest, a high repetition group (High Rep, n=7) performing 20–28 RM for two sets with 1 min rest, and a non-exercising control group (Con, n=5). (...) Maximal strength improved significantly more for the Low Rep group compared to the other training groups, and the maximal number of repetitions at 60% 1RM improved the most for the High Rep group.

matwood 17y ago

There are so many things wrong in this post I'm not sure where to start. First, 5 reps is fine sometimes. Look up periodization. The body adapts quickly so while 5 sets of 5 might work for a few weeks you eventually need to change it up. Plus your joints, tendons and ligaments get tired always lifting heavy. Cardio has nothing to do with 'toning.' The old saying is 'abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym.' If you want to look tone (horrible term but we'll go with it) you need to have some muscle and then remove the fat from over top of it. The easiest way to remove fat is the cut calories. You can burn calories through exercise, but not nearly as much as people think. Dips and pullups is nothing close to enough for a well rounded workout. If you want to do a workout without a gym Google bodyweight training. If you have access to a gym then look at the books 'Starting Strength' or 'New Rules of Lifting.' Both are good books by excellent authors and give you plenty of workout plans. With either, expect to spend about an hour in the gym 3 times per week.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
heavy weight lifting is beneficial to your ligaments tendons and joints. it's doing dozens or hundreds of reaps that are bad for them. periodization is crap. you let your muscles recover and then you workout again. diet is outside the purview of this discussion for now. of course diet has a massive impact. that's not what we're talking about. I am well aware of various bodyweight routines. complicated programs are not needed. I'll admit I forgot a core routine, but between that and jogging on hills you're working every major muscle group.
- matwood 17y ago
  Have you actually lifted heavy for any amount of time? If you have you'll know that you need times where you let your tendons and ligaments rest. Your joints will thank you too. Muscles recover much faster than your connecting tissues (and your CNS for that matter). Look at something like the 5/3/1 workout. It's set up in a manner that you can do it indefinitely because it has built in periodization. For 3 weeks you work up to near maximal weights then a 4th week of deload. This 4th weeks gives everything else (again - connector tissue, CNS) a chance to fully recover. A complete program is not necessarily complicated. Running is NOT a replacement exercise for a squat and DL variation.