With the possible exception of “How do I lose weight quickly?” I’ve been asked this question more than any other over the past 20 years. While there is a reasonably straightforward answer to losing weight (eat less, move more) to be brutally honest, there is no definitive right and wrong way to increase the size of your muscles (muscle hypertrophy) just different ways and possibly better ways.
Depending on whom you ask, or what particular method of training is in fashion at the time you will be confronted with a wide range of answers. Part of the challenge is to filter out the good information from the bad because trust me; there is a lot of both around! Firstly, consider who the expert is who is giving you advice and (most importantly) what their agenda may be. For example:
- Many ‘experts’ writing for popular bodybuilding magazines will recommend massive reps on a range of exercises but these programs are usually only appropriate for those supplementing their training with anabolic steroids.
- At another end of the spectrum you’ll find strength and condition coaches (loosely termed) who mock any notion and benefit of performing sets with 3 reps or more.
- The body builder who preaches “You must take each set to failure and you must fail at 8 reps” yet his flexibility is so poor he can’t touch his shoulder!
Remember everyone is an expert and everyone has an opinion on how to increase muscle size, but in reality it’s still a very grey area. With all that said, here is where I stand on the debate:
Before I start, I’m assuming you want to grow naturally using exercise and diet. People have a choice to take steroids or stay clean, I make absolutely no judgement on the individuals’ who supplement with steroids but my experience is in training without the use of anabolic steroids so this is the route this blog will follow. It is important to note however that taking steroids doesn’t just give the average gym user a nudge in the right direction as if he was taking whey or creatine, it changes the game entirely (more on this in another entry)!
The 3 exercise mechanisms needed for muscle growth are mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. Mechanical tension involves an exterior force is placed on a muscle or a group of muscles, the heavier the load the more force is generated, an example of mechanical tension is performing a range of movement with weight for a predetermined time e.g. a chest press lowering (eccentric) phase lasting 4 seconds followed by a (concentric) pushing phasing lasting 2 seconds.
Metabolic stress occurs during muscle contraction when waste products such as lactic acid create an acidic environment inside the muscle fibres. The accumulation of hydrogen ions is necessary for protein synthesis to occur which drives muscle growth.
As stress is applied to the muscle by contractions of movement, micro-tears occur deep in the muscle fibres. This muscle damage is repaired quickly by the body using protein to build bigger and stronger than before.
So with the theory behind us, how do we get bigger? Different reps of an exercise will give the trainee different results:
- 1-5 reps makes you stronger
- 5-8 reps makes you stronger and increases muscle endurance
- 8-12 hypertrophy (muscle growth)
- 12+ purely muscular endurance
Saying all that you’d think that 8-12 would be the optimal rep range to train in, if only the human body was that simple!!!! Our muscles become accustomed to the amount of stress and load placed upon them. Studies show that they adapt to the same exercise, weight and reps within 5 training sessions. Therefore, I firmly believe anabolic capacity and growth is maximised using a range or rep ranges and exercises. The manipulation of reps, sets, recoveries and especially tempo’s will undoubtedly optimise your genetic potential to grow.
For me, it doesn’t make sense to stick solely to the one rep range. In my personal experience, training in multiple rep ranges increases muscle growth as well as maintaining interest and creating variation.
An often overlooked issue with regular heavy lifting the increased chances of injury. Your workout plan is irrelevant if you can’t train and training in a permanent routine of heavy lifting even with a low volume usually results in higher risk of injury due to the greater stress applied continually to joints. Using the full spectrum of the reps is essential, the mix of genres and techniques add to the increased hypertrophic response everyone is looking for.
My advice is for strength coaches to take their blinkers off and explore the benefits of “time under tension movements, for body builders to be open minded to the attributes of power movements such as the clean or snatch and to benefit from the synergism between low and high reps, heavy load and high volume.
Now that you’ve heard my opinion on rep ranges and exercise for growth let me finish by reminding you that (at most) what you do in the gym is only 20% of the battle. The vast majority of your progress (or lack thereof) will come from your diet but that’s next week’s article!