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reps and sets explained
If you ahve read all the material on how to set up your reps and sets for your workouts you have seen a lot of options out there. Its easy to feel overwhelmed by your choices and decide whitch reps and sets scheme will deliver the best results for your efforts.
In this article we talk about some of the most popular reps and sets schemes, what training goals they are best used for and what they all have in common that may be a key to your quest for building muscle mass and strength.
Popular Reps and Sets schemes and rational:
- 3×10 scheme the tried adn true reps and sets scheme of hypertrophy! This scheme is great for building muscle mass through cumulative fatigue that adds up by the time you finish your 3rd set. This set and rep scheme is used to build size and not necessarily a lot of brute strength.
- 5×5Scheme a purists favorite reps and sets scheme, 5×5 is hailed as one of Pavels favorite reps adn sets scheme! Needless to say you are using a lot more weight and performing more but shorter sets. I really like this set and rep scheme for its ability to deliver near equal parts size and strength, but if I had to say it was better for one or the other I say it’s primarily a strength scheme with some size as a nice bonus.
- 12-10-8-6 pyramidscheme Another Joe Weider favorite for tons of lifters and body builders the world over. Who’s to blame them, it works because you are doing a tremendous amount of over all volume of work, and stimulating muscles in a variety of loads and rep ranges, the cumulative fatigue is very high. As you can see with every new set your are doing less reps, what that means is the weight will “pyramid” upwards every set making for a challenging reps adn sets scheme.
- 8×3scheme If you read a lot of glossy muscle magazines this reps and sets scheme may not look familiar and that is because its primary focus is on strength and not size. Needless to say you will be lifting very heavy loads that are close to your max. While this is primarily a strength reps adn sets scheme don’t be fooled, it provides plenty of volume and hypertrophy as well.
- 4×6-8scheme Another well balanced reps adn sets scheme. I guess I’m just a sucker for reps and sets schemes that give well balanced benefits of both size and strength. Above I mentioned that 5×5 was a strength shceme that also delivered muscle mass too, well, regard of 4×6-8 as a size scheme with some added strength as a bonus.
Thats the most popular and some not so popular reps and sets schemes clarified for you. As promised I will also explain what all these reps adnsets schemes have in common. Unless you have cought on all on your own?
No? ok, I’ll spoon feed it to you like a mama bird if I have too.
With the exception of the 12-10-8-6 all the reps and sets schemes come in at a total rep count between 24-30. The reason why that is an crucial note to make is regardless of the scheme or associated loads these popular reps adn sets schemes seem to be optimal for size and strength gains.
What this should mean to us is that using a variety of these reps and sets schemes over the course of our training will help us build the powerful bodies we desire even if some are said to be just for strength or just for size.
Using a variety of reps and sets schemes the right way will forestall training plateaus and keep you growing!
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