Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hakkarin 1st I would like to give you a shout out for posting, listening, and being open to change your original program. I would also like to add my personal experience to the mix. Sorry I have no idea about most of this stuff. All I know for sure is what I decided to do and what my personal results have been. And sadly since there is no way to know where I would be today if I had gone with a different program. There is no way to judge what is better than the other from a personal experience.
But I have had great results with using a 5X5 Strong Lift Program. It's crazy simple, laid back, and takes less time than the other 2 ways I considered when I started. And there was a free app for it to track everything so bonus me. But this program like most strength programs rests on 5 sets of 5 reps. When you can finish all the sets it jumps you up 5 pounds on that lift. My personal experience is that I very rarely don't complete the 5 sets week in and week out. There is something wonderful about jumping 5 pounds on my squat every 3 days and 5 pounds on my other lifts every 6 days. So try your way but if you not seeing these kinda jumps or an average of time you might want to consider changing the program.
As far as my results go I have cheated on nutritional eating (yes I refuse to call it a diet!) and skipped workouts from time to time. So I could be doing better. But that being said I am pretty dam happy with what I have done. On June 8th of 2015. I weighted in at 242 pounds. As of this morning I weigh 191 pounds. It's hard to measure but as far at fat % goes I think I was around 34% when I started and I think I am now around 22%. My Stomach measurement was 119 mm. It is now 91 mm. And to add to this I am much stronger now than when I started. Sadly the Stronglifts program starts you off at weights much less than what you can do. And I don't really know when they started to get hard. So I don't know what a PR on a lift was to judge it now. All I can say is I am easily at the age of 41 the strongest I have ever been in my life. For instance currently my max on flat bench with good form is 255 pounds. I have never lifted that and I know about 2 years ago at a family gathering I managed to eek out 200.
What makes you say 16 reps are too high? And why someone recommend 16 reps for legs? Squats are literally the only exercise I use where I DON'T have 16 as my max limit. There it's a minimum of 5 and a max of 10.
The majority of us are recommending much less than 16 reps. One reason is most of us do multiple sets, such as anywhere from 3 to 5 sets of each exercise. If you did 16 reps for that many sets, you would have to lower your weight considerably.
Nobody knows what the optimum number of reps and sets are. It will vary for different people. No one has done research studies with sufficient numbers of subjects to prove a certain routine is best. What is recommended here is what people who spend time lifting have found to be most successful. There will be a trade-off between building size and strength. If you want to focus on strength, most of your lifting will consist of sets under 6 reps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hakkarin
Isn't that beneficial for obtaining/maintaining low bodyfat?
Don't think about fat burning in the weightroom. This is what women think about at Curves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just A Guy
14-18 reps is great for muscular endurance, so there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
The people telling you to do strength with low reps followed by hypertrophy after actually have it backwards. Hypertrophic training should precede strength / power training.
BTW, for anyone to give you decent advice, we need to know what you are trying to achieve.
Why would you want to lift for muscular endurance. Unless you're training for a particular endurance activity like an NFL prospect training for the NFL combine where he has to bench 225 lbs. as many times as possible, there is no reason to lift for endurance. Take a swimmer for example, how many reps would a 400 meter distance swimmer have to do to help him with swimming that distance?
Nobody knows what the optimum number of reps and sets are. It will vary for different people. No one has done research studies with sufficient numbers of subjects to prove a certain routine is best. What is recommended here is what people who spend time lifting have found to be most successful. There will be a trade-off between building size and strength. If you want to focus on strength, most of your lifting will consist of sets under 6 reps.
If you look at studies done over the last 20 or so years published in peer reviewed exercise science journals, you will find that there is, indeed, a lot of research on this.
Quote:
Why would you want to lift for muscular endurance. Unless you're training for a particular endurance activity like an NFL prospect training for the NFL combine where he has to bench 225 lbs. as many times as possible, there is no reason to lift for endurance. Take a swimmer for example, how many reps would a 400 meter distance swimmer have to do to help him with swimming that distance?
Muscular endurance is a good base-building foundation for heavier lifting later on. Most elite level athletes cycle their training. At the beginning of their cycles, they usually do higher volume/lower intensity training.
Most elite level body builders have been doing high volume rep training as part of their workouts for decades.
If you look at studies done over the last 20 or so years published in peer reviewed exercise science journals, you will find that there is, indeed, a lot of research on this.
Muscular endurance is a good base-building foundation for heavier lifting later on. Most elite level athletes cycle their training. At the beginning of their cycles, they usually do higher volume/lower intensity training.
Most elite level body builders have been doing high volume rep training as part of their workouts for decades.
Could you cite a few of these studies? The only studies that I'm aware of track a relatively small number of people who have never lifted before, over a few months, using a few exercises such as leg extensions.
I have never heard of or seen any reference to any program that calls for 18 reps, other than a few people over the years suggesting sets of 16 reps for squats to stimulate growth.
Could you cite a few of these studies? The only studies that I'm aware of track a relatively small number of people who have never lifted before, over a few months, using a few exercises such as leg extensions.
I have never heard of or seen any reference to any program that calls for 18 reps, other than a few people over the years suggesting sets of 16 reps for squats to stimulate growth.
I don't really have the motivation to go through and look at the actual journals and cite the various studies. If you are really interested in this, you can sign up to view back copies of The ACSM's "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise" and/or the NSCA's "The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research".
If you just want a cursory overview that cites some of the literature on this, here are a couple of resources for you:
Elite competitive strength athletes almost always build a foundation with hypertrophy training before moving into basic and max strength training.
That's complete nonsense.
Quote:
This has been shown to be the most effective training method since the soviet block popularized it 40 years or so.
The Soviet Union's dominance in weight lifting around that time was because they were one of the pioneers of AAS usage (and AAS usage pretty much makes training irrelevant) and because they invested far more resources into the sport than anyone else did at the time.
Quote:
There are several basic, sound physiological reasons for this. One is that, higher muscle mass almost always equates to higher strength when you do basic and max strength training.
If that's the case then people would be doing hypertrophy workouts to get stronger.
And they're not doing that.
Quote:
That is why men almost always outlift women and the higher weight classes almost always out-lift the lower weight classes. Additionally, less load per repetition allows for adaptation to occur, so that the adaptations of lower stress can be used to build up into further adaptations of higher stress. The basic idea is that the lower stress of higher reps with lower weight is gradually increased with higher levels of weights and lower reps over time. Another reason for this is the lower injury rate that occurs with this type of training.
Step into an Olympic or elite level training camp anywhere in the world and you will most likely encounter some kind of variation on this type of training. The fact that, after 40 years or so, the knowledge of this tyep of training still hasn't made it's way into most gyms pretty much shows how behind the curve most gym training is due to the mass marketing of places like 24 Hour Fitness, Golds, etc.
You clearly haven't spent any time around actual powerlifters or Olympic lifters.
14-18 reps is great for muscular endurance, so there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
The people telling you to do strength with low reps followed by hypertrophy after actually have it backwards. Hypertrophic training should precede strength / power training.
BTW, for anyone to give you decent advice, we need to know what you are trying to achieve.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just A Guy
I don't really have the motivation to go through and look at the actual journals and cite the various studies. If you are really interested in this, you can sign up to view back copies of The ACSM's "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise" and/or the NSCA's "The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research".
If you just want a cursory overview that cites some of the literature on this, here are a couple of resources for you:
Neither of these links really support your claim. In fact, they seem to reinforce my arguments those of members who have made similar arguments. Again, I wouldn't tell someone they were dead wrong for taking that approach if that was what they were comfortable with, but by no means is it an inherently right way to do it.
I think people get overly focused on the "high weight" part of "high weight, low rep." Low rep is pretty universally defined as 5 reps or below but "high weight" is ALWAYS relative to the individual. Let's say a 25 year old male who weighs 160 is about to spend his first ever day in the weight room. 95 pounds may be "high weight" to him. 95 pounds wouldn't even be a warm up to a lot of us. If this guy is doing a 5x5 and starts at 95 pounds (or even less) he is going to see gains in his strength and even mass. And as some of those studies linked show acknowledge, he may even realize gains in mass just as quickly as someone doing a lower weight higher volume workout.
The only way to definitively lay this to rest is if we could perfectly clone someone and start them out on two different programs. And of course for an appreciable sample you'd need to do this with thousands of people. This is the only way to have identical test and control groups. The studies that have been done are limited in how accurate they can be because when you change the parameters from one observation to another (and that's exactly what you do when your test/control group consists of people, all of whom are different and likely to respond differently one from another to the same style of training for their group) you change the entire model. Human performance is funny like that. As a researcher it is exceedingly challenging to accurately quantify human performance/behavior in a way that doesn't undermine the study effort. Everyone is different and that makes categorizing challenging and often inaccurate. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, it just means when it comes to arguments like "which way is the best" the answer is often not as clear cut and dry as some think it is.
That's why a lot of the articles I've read seem to conclude with "find what works for you and get after it." That seems to be a reasonable answer to me.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
