Myth!

It’s better to do high reps, rather than low reps and vice versa. You know that right?

Why must we live in a world of ‘hear say’ and then completely negate everything else, without even doing some research or experimentation ourselves? If someone ever tells you that it’s better to do high reps, rather than low reps and vice versa. Just nod your head and walk away. I believe that every rep range from 2-20 (and even higher in some cases) has value and there are benefits to every range.

Lower reps – 1-5

This range creates more contractile muscle tissue, trains the muscle to store more glycogen, allows the muscle to handle the biggest load which activates all fibers, and helps develop overall strength to handle more weight and thus overloading the muscle even more and creating more hypertrophy (muscle building).

Mid range reps – 6-12

This rep range is the king of all rep schemes because it has many of the benefits from higher reps and many of the benefits of lower reps.

Studies show that this rep range is the best for causing the most hypertrophy. The reason being the rep range is low enough to have our muscles under heavy loads and enough reps are performed to have them under tension with those heavy loads.

High reps – 15+

High repetitions cause enormous glycogen depletion during the workout. The body will compensate for this in the post workout period by increasing the amount of glycogen (stored carbs in muscle and liver) the muscle stores. Since glycogen has a strong affinity for water, this means more water from carbs will be stored into your muscle cells and thus induce more protein synthesis and causing the muscle cells to stretch.

This is a good thing because when muscle cells are volatized, there is greater potential for nutrient assimilation and promotion of growth factors, thus leading to greater anabolic effects