Training Basics: Repetition Ranges

What is the best repetition range for your workouts? This is a question that is often discussed and has many rumours surrounding it. Generally, the distinction is made between low, medium and high repetitions. Below, you'll find a brief description of each of these rep ranges along with their strengths and weaknesses.

Lowest Rep Range

Low repetitions are anywhere between one and six. Training in a low rep range means using a high weight-load. In this repetition range, the weights will feel heavy, even during the first rep of the first set.

Low repetitions with lots of weight are ideal for building strength. The emphasis here is on “strength” not “volume”, in other words, for pure body-building, a higher rep-range is the better choice.

Training with low repetitions will take less time than training in a higher rep range. This has it's own benefits and drawbacks: While it saves time for your overall workout, this also means that your muscles are under stress for a shorter period of time. This, in turn, can mean less growth stimulation.

Another downside of a low repetition range is that with the kinds of big weight-loads you’ll be using, there’s a higher chance of injury. Especially with free-weight exercises and towards the end of a training session, when you're already worn out, you have to take care not to strain yourself when hauling around such heavy weights.

Medium Repetition Range

Doing between eight and twelve repetitions is considered a medium rep range. This is the bodybuilding repetition range, as 8-12 is ideal for stimulating hypertrophy (muscle growth). The gains in terms of increased strength are smaller than with lower repetitions and higher weights, but in terms of what your mirror tells you, this rep range gets you the best results.

Positive and negative aspects of this rep range are quite obvious: If you’re after bigger muscles, this is the rep range to go for. If actual strength increase is more important to you, then this rep range is not ideal.

High Repetition Range

Anything above 12 or 15 repetitions is in the high rep range Performing more than around twelve repetitions of an exercise will generally take longer than half a minute. 30 seconds is about the outer threshold of what can be called strength training. If your muscles are under continual (or almost continual) stress for longer than that, then, biologically speaking, you're already entering "cardio training" territory.

This doesn’t mean that a higher rep range has no merits, of course. It simply means that your body needs to recruit different resources to keep up high repetitions and this kind of training is not best suited for muscle growth.

One thing that needs to be addressed is a common misconception: High rep ranges do not build “lean muscles” rather than “bulky muscles”, as is often claimed. This is simply wrong, as the shape of your muscles is mainly genetically determined. Higher repetition ranges simply stimulate less growth than lower repetitions with higher weight-loads.

Bottom line: For the majority of people, medium repetitions are the best choice, since lower repetitions need more experience and safety precautions due to the weights, and high reps stimulate less growth. In any case, mixing things up and changing rep ranges from time to time is probably one of the best things you can do for yourself.

By: LabWriter7

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