Should you use lightweight or heavyweight to build muscle faster? Everyone seems to have their own opinion on this topic. Some believe that high reps and bodyweight calisthenic type exercises are best. Meanwhile, others swear that low rep heavyweight training is better for faster muscle growth.
So today I want to go over which style of training will lead to the best results for you personally based on the scientific data rather than just giving you another opinion. To actually find out the answer, we first have to be clear on what training intensity is. In exercise science, training intensity refers to the percentage of your one rep maximum that you can train with.
So if you were using 100% of your one rep max, that would mean that you're using a weight load that's so heavy that you can only complete one rep and no more. On the other hand, 80% of your one rep max would be a weight load that you could probably rep out for seven to eight reps before hitting failure. And each training intensity level, whether it's 70, 80, or 90% correlates with a certain rep count based on data gathered from many strength training studies.
And you can see all that data simplified in the table that you see in front of you now. As you can see, it's pretty obvious that if you train with less weight or a smaller (1:11) percentage of your one rep max, you'll be able to do more reps. But if you train with heavier weights or a larger percentage of your one rep max, you'll only be able to perform fewer reps.
Pretty straightforward. So let's see why some lifters claim that you should train with lightweights if you want to maximize muscle growth and why they recommend that you perform anywhere from 15 up to 25 reps per set. Well, first, the high rep crowd claims that lightweights and high reps are better because they create a lot of metabolic stress, which is a physiological process that happens during resistance training as a response to low energy levels inside the cell that leads to metabolite accumulation such as lactate, inorganic phosphate and hydrogen ions.
Second, training with high reps many times feels more effective. I mean, you get a huge pump and you can see your muscles blow up when you look in the gym mirror. So it must be the ideal training style, right? Well, not necessarily.
There's nothing magical about doing lightweight high rep pump training. It's not a bad strategy for muscle growth either. And many popular bodybuilders rely primarily on lightweight training.
But there's nothing magical about it. For example, several studies found that you can build the same amount of muscle with low, moderate and high reps. Diving deeper into the data, research shows that very high rep sets where you only use 30% of your one rep max can stimulate as much muscle growth as a traditional bodybuilding rep range where you use 80% of your one rep max.
But please, before you assume you can use any weight load or any rep range to build muscle, hear me out because it's not as simple in real life as these studies that are done in a controlled lab setting. Specifically, there are three important things to keep in mind. First, very low rep training such as doing one or two reps per set is very unlikely to be optimal for muscle growth.
We can see this play out in a study that found that doing eight heavy sets of one rep max outs led to worse results than eight sets of eight to 12 reps. So make sure you select a weight load that allows you to squeeze out at least three reps per set if you want to maximize muscle growth. Second, training with very heavy loads for low reps happens to be much more stressful on your joints and connective tissues compared to training with a moderate or a high rep range.
Even if you look at the studies that found that people who trained with low reps gained the same amount of muscle, you also usually see that they had a higher injury rate as well. So very low rep training might not be ideal if you have aches or pains in your joints or if there's some other reason that makes you more susceptible to injuries. Also, even if you like to train with really heavy weight for a low amount of reps, I would recommend doing that for isolation exercises like bicep curls or lateral raises because simply it's very difficult to maintain proper form when doing these isolation movements with heavy weights and you're much more likely to cheat and use momentum.
Compound exercises like the squat, bench press, and deadlift on the other hand can be performed with heavier weight loads and for lower reps without issue as long as you maintain proper form and aim for at least 3 reps. Now let's look at the other end of the spectrum at high reps. Right away we find our third issue with selecting any random rep range.
To build the same amount of muscle with high rep sets as you would with moderate rep sets, you would have to train to failure. Research indicates that if you don't train to failure with those higher rep sets, you won't reap the full benefits. Since most people don't have the stamina to grind out 5 sets to failure with a very light weight of let's say 30% of your 1 rep max, it tends to be better to do more sets in moderate and lower rep ranges.
I mean think about it, if you're using about 30% of your 1 rep max, you'll be able to rep anywhere between roughly 25-35 reps. Are you going to have the stamina to do that for 5 sets? Also, will you be able to keep your mind focused for 25-35 reps without giving up or resorting to horrible form before you actually hit failure? Imagine right now, even if you did 50% of your 1 rep max for an exercise like squats and tried to do as many reps as possible, you'd probably be completely wiped out after just 1 set. With all that said, don't avoid high rep training altogether, or any rep range for that matter.
You can use higher rep sets for isolation exercises like lateral raises or bicep curls where excessive fatigue isn't as much of an issue. And research actually shows that you'll grow more muscle when you train with a variety of rep ranges instead of always trying to hit the same number of reps every set. The reason for this is that different rep ranges emphasize different muscle building pathways in the body.
High rep training for example primarily triggers the metabolic stress pathway, which like I mentioned before is a process that causes very low energy levels within the cell and leads to the accumulation of lactate, phosphate, and hydrogen ions. All of this has its benefits for muscle growth. On top of that, high rep training is also better for training your slow twitch muscle fibers, which are fibers that aren't as strong as fast twitch fibers, but they're more resilient to fatigue.
Low rep heavyweight training on the other hand creates high amounts of mechanical tension and that stimulates muscle growth in a different way. It activates specialized proteins in muscle cells known as mechanosensors, which in turn kick off a cascade of genetic and hormonal signals that stimulate your body to build new muscle tissue. Those mechanosensors are only activated by very high levels of tension, which is why it's beneficial to also include low rep heavyweight training into your workout routine.
Again, usually higher than 3 reps is best for low rep sets for injury prevention and faster muscle building progress. Aside from providing higher mechanical tension, low reps and heavyweights are also more effective for training fast twitch muscle fibers, which are muscle fibers that can generate a lot of force, but they also tire out very quickly. Another major benefit of training with heavyweights is that even though heavyweight lower rep sets are great at building muscle, they're also one of the best ways to get physically stronger.
And even if you don't care about gaining strength and you just want to become as big as possible, strength gains are still beneficial for size gains. Research shows us that strength development is accompanied by increased muscle activation levels during exercise. Developing more strength from heavyweight training ends up benefiting muscle growth even if you train with moderate or higher reps, because the strength gains you get from your lower rep sets will carry forward to your moderate and high rep sets, allowing you to lift a heavier weight load for those sets as well, leading to more overall muscle growth.
So to sum it up, it's best to include low rep, moderate rep, and high rep sets because they all activate different growth pathways in the body. Now from a practical perspective, you probably want to do most sets at a moderate rep range. It's less strenuous than doing many high rep sets and it's less taxing on your joints and connective tissues than focusing on lifting very heavy weight loads for a small amount of reps.
So let me provide you some examples of how you can incorporate all these different rep ranges into your workouts for maximum results. Personally, my favorite way is through periodization. By using periodization, you can switch up your rep ranges every workout, every week, or every month.
Personally, I've seen better results from switching every month because it gives me enough time to adapt and grow stronger for the specific rep range that I'm working on. So one of the simplest ways to do this is to spend about 3-4 weeks within one of three rep ranges before moving on to the next one. The three rep ranges that have worked for me the best are 3-5 reps, 6-8 reps, and 12 or more reps.
So you spend 3-4 weeks lifting a heavy enough weight load that makes you hit failure within 3-5 reps. Then for the next 3-4 weeks, you would switch to the 6-8 rep range where you would select a lighter weight than what you were using for the 3-5 rep range, but it should still be heavy enough to hit failure within your new 6-8 rep range. Then after 3-4 weeks, do the same for the 12-plus rep range.
And simply cycling back and forth like this should help you get stronger and build more muscle faster. Each time you come back to a previous rep range that you might have done weeks or months ago, try to up the weight that you do for that rep range in comparison to last time. Now if you don't want to stick to one rep range for up to a month at a time, you can also incorporate different rep ranges during each workout and set those rep ranges depending on your goals.
So let's say you're not too focused on gaining more strength as you gain muscle. You can aim to do only 15% of your sets in the 3-5 rep range, 70% of your sets in the 6-12 rep range, and 80% of your sets in the 13-plus rep range. And this is just to give you an idea.
You don't need to do math to figure this out or be exact. With this setup, you would just incorporate 1-2 heavy sets and 1-2 light sets for every 7 moderate rep sets that you do. And understand there's nothing particularly magical about this setup.
It's just one way to incorporate all rep ranges for maximum muscle stimulation. Another scenario where you are also focused on gaining strength in addition to building muscle would be performing about 30% of your sets in the 3-5 rep range, 60% of your sets in the 6-12 rep range, and only 70% of your sets in the 13-plus rep range. One last scenario is if you're older, more prone to injury, recovering from a previous injury, or you have achy joints, then you could focus more on high rep work.
People that are older can especially benefit from high rep sets because they have less connective tissue due to a lower protein turnover rate, which increases injury risk when training heavy by weakening joints and tendons. So for older adults and people with nagging joints or injuries, they can do 1% of their sets in the 3-5 rep range, 10% of their sets in the 6-12 rep range, and 20% of their sets in the 13-plus rep range.
Personally, I still to this day prefer moderate weight over light weight, but I incorporate all rep ranges from low to high in my workout routines because of the obvious benefits.
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