High vs. Low Reps

“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides a champion from someone who is not a champion.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger 

The most common set and rep scheme you will ever hear will be three sets of ten, and it will be beneficial for a while until it’s not.

Patients and clients often ask me about the number of repetitions they should do when I prescribe exercises for them to do on their own.

It’s an important question but I think people assume there’s magic in one specific rep range.

There will be differences but it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve, don’t get caught up in the specifics if it’s overwhelming.

In the beginning, it’s better to do something rather than nothing and figure things out as you go. Don’t wait for a perfect plan, just start and adjust as needed.

Let’s start there.

If you don’t have a specific goal in mind or you’re just getting started you can do anything and it’s going to be beneficial and stimulating.

It’s important to remember that if you exercise for an extended period, you will need to introduce more variety into your training to avoid hitting a plateau and continue making progress.

That means not spending too much time performing the same sets and reps you’ve been doing for the past month. Even a minor adjustment will be enough to provide a novel stimulus.

I’ll highlight how you can use different rep ranges to achieve specific outcomes.

Before I dive into the specifics regarding sets, reps, and weight there’s one thing that should be kept constant throughout this process.

Intensity

In this case, I’m referring to subjective intensity, or how hard you feel like you’re working in a given set. This needs to remain relatively constant no matter what rep range you’re working in.

As an example, let’s say you just completed a set of squats for ten repetitions.

If I asked you how many more reps you could have done with that weight the highest number you should say is around five.

Anything more than that means that the weight was too light to have given you enough of a challenge to sufficiently stress your muscles to grow or get stronger.

It becomes even harder to accurately determine how many more reps you could have done when the weight is too light.

If the exercise felt too easy and you’re uncertain about how many more repetitions you could have done, then it’s necessary to increase the weight next time around.

75% of your training should fall within 2 to 4 extra reps beyond your target.

On the opposite end, if you were to say one or zero, then the weight you were lifting was so challenging you maxed out your strength for that rep range.

If you ever perform a set with a given weight and you are unable to hit the number of reps you intended then the weight was too heavy.

The same is true if you hit your target but the final rep was so difficult you almost didn’t complete it.

Sometimes you have to push yourself to the point where it’s necessary to grind it out to the end, but not often.

Around 15% of the time is okay, keeping this number lower reduces excessive stress.

When getting ready for a set there should be no doubt whether or not you’ll complete all the reps. Even when the weight is increasing it should never be so difficult that you’re unable to complete the set.

Keeping track of each exercise, weight, and rep range will give you the best progression week by week.

Tracking

The best way to ensure you continue to progress over time is by tracking your weights within each rep range.

You should know how much weight you can perform on any exercise for twelve reps, ten, eight, six, and so on.

In this case, I’m referring to the most amount of weight you can complete, which means zero reps left in the tank.

This is your max for the given rep range. As I stated earlier, you want to keep two to four reps in the tank at the end of the set through most of your training.

If you are always maxing out at each rep range the risk for injury increases along with an accumulating amount of stress that becomes increasingly harder to recover from.

However, it’s good to know your maxes so you have a target to beat the next time you’re working in that rep range.

It’s best practice to stay far away from your max when you first begin working within a given rep range and get closer to it as time goes on.

Workouts should be challenging, not difficult. There’s a difference

For example, the first week you perform your exercises for a set of ten, you should have four to five reps left in the tank when you complete your set.

The next time you repeat that workout you should have around three to four reps left in the tank, which may have been a five or ten pound increase from the previous day.

This same process can be repeated until you reach zero reps left in the tank and no more additional weight can be added to the given exercise for that specific rep range.

Once you’ve reached this point and no more progress can be made quickly then it’s time to change it up so that more progressions can be made easily.

This whole process may take three to five weeks until you eventually stall out on the weight increases.

It’s when you continue to try and make progress where there’s little room to improve where sudden injuries and “tweaks” happen.

Variation within rep ranges

If you’ve been training within a specific rep range for a while and you have been maxing out your weights without making any more progress it’s a good time to change it up.

Whether you decide to increase the reps and lighten the weight or increase the weight and reduce the reps is up to you.

There is an inverse relationship between the weights used and the reps performed.

If you have been performing sets of ten for two weeks and you decide to change to sets of six, there should be a significant increase in weight lifted.

On the other hand, if you decide to do sets of fifteen then a lighter weight will be needed.

With this in mind, If you can complete fifteen reps using the same weight as the twelves then you were not pushing yourself hard enough when performing the sets of twelve and an increase in weight is required the next time.

The goal over time is to eventually be doing sets of fifteen with the same weight you were doing for twelve. This process will take time if you keep an intensity within the five reps rule.

The same is true when comparing ten reps to eight, lower reps means you should be adding weight to your exercises.

The only time the same weight should be used for two different rep ranges is when a set of ten is performed with zero reps left in the tank while the set of eight has three to four reps left in the tank.

With this in mind, there is still room to progress with sets of eight so eventually, the weight will increase even further until you reach one or zero reps left.

At this point, it is wise to change the rep range to a lower number and continue increasing the weight over time.

Don’t get stagnant

The systematic progression of weight over time will ensure you continue to get stronger and stimulate your muscles to adapt, grow, and become stronger.

Changing the rep ranges will allow your body to be given a novel stimulus to which it is forced to respond.

This will also give you new goals to chase week by week and month by month.

As a beginner, you can get away with anything because you will respond quickly no matter what, as training age increases so does the need to create more variation within the training program.

Having systematic changes built into the program will ensure the body does not get accustomed to the same workouts.

Once a workout no longer feels like a challenge or there is never any residual soreness left over the body has become so well adapted that it no longer feels the need to adapt.

Only persistent challenges will continue to stimulate the body into growing bigger, stronger muscles.

This will occur whether or not you are performing high or low reps, the main driver is whether or not you are doing more than you did in the past and keeping the intensity high.

Meaning, that you are always using a sufficiently challenging weight.

No more than five reps should be left in the tank at the end of the set, regardless of the rep scheme.

• Summary of main points

  1. The most common set and rep scheme you will ever hear will be three sets of ten, and it will be beneficial for a while until it’s not.
  2. The longer you workout the more variability is necessary in your training to continue progressing without plateaus.
  3. 75% of your training should fall within 2 to 4 extra reps beyond your rep target.
  4. You should know how much weight you can perform on any exercise for 12 reps, 10, 8, 6, and so on.
  5. Having systematic changes built into the program will ensure the body does not get accustomed to the same workouts.

• Call to Action

  As you plan this week’s workouts or this month’s, make sure to some changes across the weeks so that you can have ups and downs.

  This will not only be more productive for your progress but also your recovery.