Ranges for Size and Strength
How many reps for muscle building and how many reps for maximum strength?
You need to make sure that we are training correctly and that does not mean getting under any weight to see how many times you can lift it. When you are trying to discover the best sets and reps specifically for your body there is a way to establish how much weight you should be using.
It is a simple matter of first discovering what your 1RM (Maximum weight done for one rep only). This is done by first warming up before you try to push yourself to the limit no matter what movement you are doing. Once your 1RM is achieved you will be able to work out your working weight.
If you are doing the recommended sets and reps for muscle gain which is 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps then you should start off by selecting a weight that is around 80% of your 1RM. This will guarantee that you are stressing the muscles to the extreme when working with 8 to 12 reps.
We all know that a big muscle is a strong muscle and that means we need to concentrate on increasing our strength. This means that you can reduce the reps to 6 or even 4 but you should not do that until you have been training on a regular basis for at least one year.
Maximum strength can be achieved by working with 5 sets of 5 reps which has now proven itself to work very efficiently at increasing the working weight that you normally use. One should be careful not to stick to the 5 X 5 training for too long as it can often lead to overtraining if you are not getting adequate nutrition and rest.
