Posted: 4/20/2009 10:46:09 AM EDT
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I've lifted on and off for the past 6 years. I'd work out during the winter when work was slow then stop when it picked up in the spring. The past 6 months I have been getting pretty serious and plan to keep it up. I went from 204lbs down to 188 and am really enjoying being in better shape.
I want to make sure I am doing the right # of reps. I seem to always seem to start the first set with 10 reps. Then each set I bump the weight up and do as many as possible. For example incline dumb bell press. The other day I did 65 x10 70x9 75x6. All my other exersises seem to follow a similar rep pattern. Now I am not trying to become a huge bodybuilder or anything, I just want to be in good shape. I see guys lifting heavy but never doing more then 6 reps while I see others doing 3 sets of 12 reps each. What is the proper way? |
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I believe this is generally accepted as a rep range/primary goal matrix.
1-5: strength/power 6-8: mix of strength/power and size 9-12: size 13+ endurance It may behoove you to come up with a straight across set x rep scheme and concentrate on bumping the weight up each week as a measure of progress. It seems like you are doing a pyramid right now, unless I'm misinterpreting, going to failure on each set. Its much more difficult to track progress once you start adding more variables (i.e., the pyramid) and going to failure all the time is rough to recover from. |
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You can't go wrong keeping it around 3-4 sets of ~10 reps as far as being balanced between gaining size/strength/endurance.
Right now I'm lifting for size/strength and do 4-5 sets of 5-10 reps on most of my exercises. I also pyramid my weight like you, for example: Dumbbell Bench Press: 70s-10, 75s-8, 80s-6, 85s-4 |
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Quoted:
I believe this is generally accepted as a rep range/primary goal matrix. 1-5: strength/power 6-8: mix of strength/power and size 9-12: size 13+ endurance It may behoove you to come up with a straight across set x rep scheme and concentrate on bumping the weight up each week as a measure of progress. It seems like you are doing a pyramid right now, unless I'm misinterpreting, going to failure on each set. Its much more difficult to track progress once you start adding more variables (i.e., the pyramid) and going to failure all the time is rough to recover from. This is a good summary of rep ranges. I personally like to train in all ranges in a given workout. I start with a compound movement of 3x6, then the next movement is more area specific for 2x10, then a finishing movement of 1x20. For example, on chest day, its bench press, incline dumbell, then a cable fly. I have found that this only works good for chest, back and delts. Bis and tris work better for me in the classic 12, 10, 8 with three movements. Also, bonus points for the person who mentioned Aurthor Jones. He influenced Mike Metzer, who in turn became devoted to the teachings of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. |