Sets, Reps, Weight and Rest Time…

 How many reps and sets should I do along with how much weight should I use are questions I get asked often. I am always amazed at how many people join the gym and start training without clearly defining their goals and researching how to best accomplish them. Always remember to train smart. A little research goes a long way.  To answer the question about reps and sets you must first determine what your goals are. Are you looking to build muscle, boost your strength and power or are you looking to improve your muscular endurance? Truth be told, most people are looking to build muscle so let’s start with that.
Muscle Hypertrophy is essentially the enlarging of cells in your muscles. If you’re looking to increase the size of your muscles (Hypertrophy) than you typically want to stick within a rep range between six to 12.  Muscle gain is best accomplished by doing between three to five sets of each exercise performed. Rest time between sets should be between 60 and 90 seconds. The second most popular goal with weight training is to increase strength and power so let move on to that next. Use rep counts between one to six and an increased rest time of two to three minutes.  Please keep in mind that if you’re going to be lifting heavy weight then you need to have a spotter and absolutely perfect form or you could severely injure yourself.  Building strength and power is best accomplished by doing between five and eight sets of each exercise performed. The key to build strength and power is low reps, high weight, longer rest between sets. Lasty, let’s address muscular endurance . If your looking to improve your muscular endurance then you need to be using 12 reps or greater when you lift. A range between 12 to 20 reps is ideal. Since you’re training for endurance you want to decrease the amount of rest between sets. Rest a minimum of 30 seconds and no more than 60 seconds. Muscular endurance is best improved by doing between one to three sets of each exercise performed. Now let’s discuss how much weight you should use. What you first need to understand is that there is a near-linear inverse relationship between reps and weight. When you add more weight and you can do fewer reps and when you use lighter weight you can do more reps. The weight you choose should correspond to the number of reps you want to do. As far as reps go typically the fewer reps you are doing per set, the more sets you do. The more reps you do per set, the fewer sets you do. While this isn’t an absolute rule, it is what should be happening the majority of the time. If you set out to do 12 reps you should pick a weight that takes you to failure or at least near failure around rep 12.  If you got to rep 12 easily it’s time to increase the weight. If you failed at rep seven then you went to heavy. If you barely got to rep 11 or 12 then you’re right where you need to be. As I mentioned earlier the number of reps you do should match your training goals. Having said all that your workouts should never be random. You need to clearly define your goals and then train accordingly. Training hard is one thing but training smart will help you reach your goals faster and safer!
You can expect SOF to go above and beyond to help you reach your goals in 2017. We will provide you with the Knowledge, Accountability and Motivation that you need to get results as quickly as possible. We know the journey is a challenging one and we are here to keep you motivated and inspired. We strive for authenticity and excellence in everything that we do. We develop long lasting and loyal relationships with our clients and they stay with us because in addition to getting good results, they are treated like family! If you are interested in more information please visit www.sofhealthandwellness.com or you can reach me directly at 661-713-7576 or James@sofhealthandwellness.com.