It’s an age-old debate for fitness junkies. What’s higher for constructing muscle – lifting heavier, or more incessantly?
Now, fitness professionals have attempted to settle the query of reps vs weight for good.
According to Amanda Place, a private trainer and founding father of the UK-based coaching firm Sculptrition, if you need to boost the dimensions and strength of your muscles, a comparatively short-lived workout will do the trick.
But it won’t be a simple one.
She explains: ‘If you aim to maximise muscle size and strength, lifting heavier weights with lower repetitions is the popular approach, because it promotes hypertrophy and significant muscle growth.’
Doing many repetitions with lighter weights can aid you construct endurance
Ali Malik, a private trainer and founding father of UK-based boutique gym Fitness Labs explained to Stylist that it is a ‘fundamental principle in strength training and exercise science’.
‘It involves steadily increasing the demands placed in your muscles, typically by lifting heavier weights or increasing resistance additional time,’ she says.
This results in muscular hypertrophy, or growth.
According to the University of New Mexicothe strain of lifting heavy weights causes tiny tears in your muscle cells, which the body promptly is available in to repair.
When your body repairs these tears, it adds latest tissue on top of the old, slowly growing the quantity of muscle you have got over time, and making the entire system stronger.
Malik adds: ‘Progressive overload [increasingly heavier weights] also requires increased joint stability and muscle activation, which might help to guard against joint injuries and enhance overall joint health.’
You should increase your weight to as much as you possibly can handle without compromising your form, Malik explained. Discomfort is okay, but in case you’re feeling intense, sharp pain, it could possibly be an indication that you simply’re seriously hurting your body by lifting with bad form.
‘The effects of accelerating weight without proper form may end in serious injuries, especially for strength-building exercises which will put a strain in your spine,’ Malik said.
But increasing repetitions has different advantages, and can also be a vital a part of a weights workout, experts say.
‘Working in the next rep range helps to enhance the flexibility of your muscles to perform over an prolonged period,’ explains Ali Malik.
‘Performing more reps with shorter rest intervals also can elevate your heart rate and enhance cardiovascular conditioning.’
Doing fewer repetitions with higher weight can aid you construct greater muscles
The real sweet spot is a mix of them each, because that way you possibly can get cardiovascular advantages from the high-rep workout while increasing muscle mass.
This concept, known within the research community as periodization, has been around since at the very least the 1950’s, and may aid you achieve weight reduction and muscle growth without hitting a progress plateau, in keeping with George Mason University.
In order to seek out a balance between heavy-lifting and high-rep, you need to concentrate to when your workouts begin to feel too easy, Malik said.
If you are breezing through, ‘hitting the highest of your rep range during your sets with proper form is usually a sign to go up in weight,’ he said.
Some of the common endurance exercises you possibly can incorporate into your workout
Some popular heavy weight lifting exercises barbell squats, bench press and shoulder press.