High Reps vs Low Reps: Which Is Best For Training?

Certainly one of the largest debates within the fitness industry is whether or not you need to perform low reps or high reps. In my skilled opinion, you need to do each. And, include heavy singles and ultra-high reps on top of that.

It is vital to do each because every rep range has a profit. So to totally improve every aspect of your fitness level, it’s good to perform every rep range to totally unlock all your strength and muscle-building potential. So, in case you’re interested in what the advantages and differences are between high reps vs low reps, you’ve got come to the suitable place!

Wondering in case you ought to be doing 5 reps or 15? I’m about to explain what to do and why.

Table of Contents:

• What Are Rep Ranges?
• How To Use Low Reps For Muscle Strength & Muscle Growth
• High Reps vs Low Reps For Muscular Endurance
• Best & Worst Exercises With Various Rep Ranges
• High Reps vs Low Reps For Fat Loss
• High Reps vs Low Reps: Which is Best?
• Workout Examples Using Different Rep Ranges

What Are Rep Ranges?

Rep ranges consult with the variety of times that you just perform an exercise in a set. Nevertheless, just using this definition will drastically underserve our true intent when talking about low reps and high reps.

We also have to speak about using rep ranges with loads when defining it.

Rep Ranges and Loads

Imagine if someone is using light weights to perform 5 reps. But, they may very well be doing 15 reps in the event that they really tried. On this context, doing “low reps” doesn’t appear to be very helpful and loses its true meaning.

That is why once we speak about rep ranges, we’re talking in regards to the loads related to them. As you could possibly have probably guessed, there may be an inverse relationship between the variety of reps performed and the burden loads.

Listed here are two rep range rules to follow.

1) Low Reps Equal Heavy Weights:

Low reps are anywhere from 1-6 reps. The associated loads with this amount of reps are 85% of your 1RM or less.

Further, “low reps” may also be regarded as strength training. Studies are very clear that using loads greater than 85% is way superior for improving muscular strength. It’s because they demand more from the neuromuscular system. We’ll get into this below.

2) High Reps Equal Light Weights:

High reps consult with using lighter weights. The problem here is that once we say “high reps vs. low reps,” we’re talking a couple of binary system. Nevertheless, in actual strength and conditioning, there are no less than 3 rep ranges:

• Light Weight: 1-6 reps
• Moderate Weight: 8-12 reps
• High Reps: 12+ reps

For this text, once we say low reps, we might be referring to moderate reps and high reps. It’s because these two rep ranges have more in common with one another.

That said, lightweight might be described as a great deal of 80% 1RM to 70%+. In point of fact, we’re talking about muscle hypertrophy or muscle growth. While this might also technically include endurance, the excellence is often between muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy.

How To Use Low Reps For Muscle Strength

Trainees in any respect levels and with different fitness goals should use low reps of their workout routine. As mentioned earlier, the primary purpose of using low reps with heavier weights is to enhance muscle strength.

Because of this, strength training is predominantly seen with strength athletes in comparison with bodybuilders. Nevertheless, weight training with low reps can also be popular amongst athletes of assorted sports.

Often, muscle size and muscle strength are sometimes conflated by most people and latest lifters (and even some veterans!) The primary assumption is that somebody with larger muscles might be stronger as well. This appears to be an obvious relationship so it is smart someone would think that.

In point of fact, improving muscle size is a special physiological process than improving strength. Increasing muscle mass occurs through architectural alterations within the muscle, which we’ll dive into below. Alternatively, muscle strength happens through improving the neuromuscular system.

Low Reps, Heavy Weight, And Your Neuromuscular System

Your neuromuscular system is how your brain talks to your muscles and controls contractions. Identical to every other process and movement within the human body, it ultimately comes all the way down to your brain sending signals through various systems to make a muscle move.

While muscle hypertrophy involves making the muscle larger, muscle strength happens when the prevailing muscle learns to speak higher. This happens through several mechanisms, reminiscent of increased firing rate, improved recruitment of muscle fibers, and stronger contractions.

Just like every relationship, higher communication means higher function, and within the case of a muscle, it’ll give you the chance to:

• Produce more force
• React faster
• Increase workload

These are only just a few of the advantages, but low reps and heavy weights optimize the prevailing muscle you may have.

Can Low Reps Increase Muscle Mass?

Absolutely!

The concept that you may’t construct muscle mass with low reps with heavy weight is attributable to an error in our lack of expertise of the muscle. Nevertheless, science has finally caught up, and we now know that strength training can fully construct muscle mass. Even when some trainers or social media “gurus” say you possibly can’t, you most definitely can.

We’ll talk more about muscle hypertrophy below but at the tip of the day, increasing your training volume for a muscle group is the first driver of muscle growth. Multiple studies have shown that when the full volume is equated, it doesn’t matter what rep ranges were used.

How To Use High Reps For Muscle Mass

Now let’s take a greater have a look at using higher repetitions, which is related to muscle growth. As we mentioned above, your total training volume is the primary driver of muscle mass. So while you possibly can construct muscle with low reps, it’s much easier to accumulate volume using lighter weights and high reps.

High Reps Produce More Volume

Whenever you examine the connection between 1RM percent and reps, you will notice it isn’t linear. To exhibit this, let’s pretend you are doing a bench press with 100 lbs (we’re not calling you weak, we’re just not good at math!).

Let’s examine how dropping just just a little little bit of weight allows for a lot of more reps:

As you possibly can see, dropping the burden by just just a little bit allows rather more reps per set, meaning more volume. Though we have learned you possibly can increase muscle mass with heavier weights and lower reps, lower reps allow for rather more volume.

Rep Ranges & Muscular Endurance

One interesting distinction between rep ranges is the concept of muscular endurance. Again, the prevailing thought is that it’s good to perform high reps with low weight to enhance muscular endurance. Nevertheless, this is not the case.

Low Weights Increase Absolute Endurance

There was quite a little bit of research that appears on the adaptations to muscular endurance with strength training. A standard statement may be that while a powerlifter may be stronger than a bodybuilder, the bodybuilder can perform more reps at a smaller % load. Nevertheless, this appears to be a particular adaptation slightly than a general.

Remember above, we spoke about how increasing your maximal strength requires neuromuscular improvements. In turn, the muscle works higher and might produce greater force more easily. Should you have a look at the 1RM chart below, you will see that when your 1RM increases, you may also perform lower weights with more reps.

What’s happening is that because you possibly can produce force more easily, it’s less taxing in your body. Whenever you train with lighter weights, you are just constructing muscle mass, and chances are you’ll improve endurance in that specific rep range, but true endurance adaptations don’t seem to enhance.

Increased maximal strength increases:

• Time to fatigue
• Endurance performance
• Greater workload
• A lower level of perceived exertion

Low Reps vs High Reps: Best Exercises

No rep range holds any exercise hostage. In other words, you possibly can technically perform as many reps as you wish with any exercise. Nevertheless, some exercises do higher with specific rep ranges, and there are just a few lifts that you most likely shouldn’t do with a particular rep range.

Best Exercises For Low Reps

Using low reps with heavier weights lays the muse for performance, improved aesthetics, and increased athletics. A minimum of in my view, which is why I feel your major compound movements are the most effective exercises to make use of low reps.

The first purpose of using fewer repetitions is constructing strength, with increasing muscle mass as a secondary profit. Due to this fact, it is smart to make use of the largest exercises, that are these movements. Some include:

• Bench press
• Back squat
• Barbell shoulder press

Using heavier weights with these compound exercises is the first way beginners and intermediates ought to be training.

Exercises You Shouldn’t Do With Low Reps

When taking a look at exercises you mustn’t be using low repetitions with, isolation exercises are the primary obvious exclusion. That is for 2 reasons:

1. The first purpose of an isolation exercise is to extend lean muscle mass, making higher reps the better option.
2. Using heavier weights with a single-joint exercise can place substantial stress on the joint and increase the danger of injury.

One other group of exercises that it’s good to be cautious about is dumbbell exercises. While you should utilize heavy weights, you need to keep on with the upper region of “low reps.” This implies general rule is to make use of 6 reps when wanting to coach dumbbells with heavy weights.

The identical advice for using the upper range in “low reps” also applies to pulling exercises, as near-maximal loads can place unneeded stress on the biceps. As well as, smaller compound movements must also follow this rule, reminiscent of a close-grip bench press.

Best Exercises For High Reps

It’s best to use high reps and low weights when performing your isolation movements and smaller compound exercises. Which means that percentage of exercises will overlap, meaning you could possibly use any rep range.

One exception is when chances are you’ll sometimes perform ultra-high reps to “shock” the muscle or simply change things up on occasion. Many individuals find that these ultra-high reps work well for some lower-body exercises, reminiscent of squats and leg presses.

Exercises You Shouldn’t Do With High Reps

While there should not as many heavy reps, there are some exercises that we predict nobody should ever do with high reps, especially consistently. These exercises are deadlifts and Olympic lifts. Some people will disagree with this, but we do not feel as if the profit is definitely worth the risk.

In Olympic movements, the primary profit is to provide power, not as “metabolic conditioning.” These are highly complex movements whose movements demand precision so working until you are fatigued doesn’t make sense. That is to not even mention. The one profit is you are getting drained. It’s our opinion that using kettlebells is a a lot better option as you perform an analogous movement while decreasing the possibility of injury.

The opposite exercise is deadlifts for similar reasoning. While doing deadlifts with higher reps has a spot, it ought to be reserved for intermediate or advanced athletes who’ve gym maturity (know when to stop), great form, and developed musculature that may withstand some mistakes.

Again, deadlifts are complex movements and have the best rate of injury. Exhausting yourself as you knock 5 more just isn’t idea. As well as, transitioning from eccentric to concentric is odd, with deadlifts because the weights hit the bottom.

You may bounce the burden, which ought to be reserved for advanced athletes, otherwise you place the load on the bottom. Under normal conditions, you need to reset so that you perform the following rep with great form. Nevertheless, whenever you knock out too many reps, it is easy to try to go too fast, which leads to injury.

Low Reps vs High Reps For Weight Loss: Is One Higher?

One other query that individuals have about weight lifting is what kind of weight lifting is best for weight reduction. The fast answer is: “It doesn’t matter.”

I firmly consider that weight reduction shouldn’t dictate the kind of training you do. Reasonably, weight reduction should come from entering into a caloric deficit along with your nutrition. Lifting weights to shed weight will often lead to a sub-optimal training plan as you are not getting the intended advantages, muscle growth, and maintaining muscle mass.

That said, lifting lighter weights and heavier weights can each help create a caloric deficit and help burn fat. While lifting lighter weights, especially for muscular failure, causes more muscle damage, lifting heavier weights causes more disruption in your body’s physiological systems. And interestingly, lifting heavier may be great for losing fat. A study found that a bunch of dieters who lifted heavy weights lost the identical amount in comparison with dieters who only performed cardio¹. Much more interesting, the burden lifters lost only fat while the cardio group lost muscle and fat.

Should you are using weight lifting to shed weight, follow an analogous plan as you’d in case you were gaining weight and use nutrition to regulate calories. Should you give it some thought, the blokes and girls you see involved with bulking and cutting simply alter their nutrition, and you need to too.

Try the Best 7-Day Bodybuilding High Protein Meal Plan and the Best 4-Week Meal Plan For Weight Loss to start!

Fast Twitch vs Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers

One other proponent that gets bundled with the discussion on high reps vs. low reps is fiber types. Your muscle is not one solid chunk of tissue but slightly a bunch of strands called muscle fibers which can be woven together.

Think in regards to the way rope is formed by combining a bunch of individual strands. All these muscle fibers have different physiological properties that produce different performance advantages.

1) Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers:

Fast twitch muscle fibers, or Type II muscle fibers, are chargeable for each strength adaptations and the vast majority of muscle growth. For this text, these fibers have three necessary variables, that are that they fatigue easier, create greater force production, and have a greater response to muscle growth.

There are two different fast-twitch muscle fibers. They differ of their use of metabolic systems yet still fall on the rep continuum.

• Type IIa: Type II muscle fibers use the oxidative and glycolysis systems for respiration. They fall in the midst of force production and fatigability.
• Type IIb: Type IIb muscle fibers only use the anaerobic metabolic systems and produce the best amount of force, yet fatigue is the best.

2) Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers:

Slow twitch muscle fibers, or Type I muscle fibers, act as our power generators for endurance. These muscle fibers are smaller, so that they are unable to provide large amounts of force. Nevertheless, they’re fatigue-resistant and might provide lower amounts of power for long periods.

Relating to strength training, your slow twitch fibers don’t play a large role but are still necessary nonetheless. Regardless, you will not train them much unless you perform some traditional endurance performance.

What About Body weight Exercises?

Body weight exercises are a bit different from traditional barbell weight training as they measure what’s referred to as relative strength. That is in contrast to absolute strength.

Assuming you are not using any external load or assistance, body weight exercises use your body as their loading mechanism. What number of reps you possibly can do of your body weight is predicated on how strong you’re, meaning your strength relative to your body weight.

For instance, as an example a 200lb guy can bench 200 lbs and do 4 chin-ups. Compare this to a 150lb guy who can bench 190 lbs and do 15 chin-ups.

Although the 200lb guy has greater absolute strength whenever you compare the quantity they bench to their weight, the 150lb guy has greater relative strength. At the identical time, you possibly can see the 190lbs guy can do 15 chin-ups in comparison with 4, which also shows he has greater relative strength.

Regardless, the identical rules of high reps and low reps apply to body weight exercises. In the instance above, if no outside loading mechanisms are used, the 200lb guy goes to enhance his strength with chin-ups while the 150lb guy will increase muscle size and muscular endurance.

That said, whenever you use these exercises, you need to use various apparatuses to change your weight to make yourself heavier or lighter. Use external loading (kettlebells, dip belt) so as to add weight if it’s good to add weight in case you are doing too many reps. Alternatively, using resistance bands could make you lighter to permit high reps.

High Reps vs Low Reps: Which Is Best?

So after taking a look at all the evidence, which one is best? If we could only pick one, it could be lifting heavy weights with low reps.

This may primarily be resulting from the strength gains and enhancements in muscle endurance. While using high reps might have some benefits for muscle hypertrophy, this is applicable more to the advanced lifter. At the identical time, you possibly can still increase muscle size using heavy weights.

Strength training improves your neuromuscular efficiency. This makes your existing muscle turn into “higher muscle.” It’ll be more practical and efficient. Consequently, you recover endurance and all-around higher performance.

That said, there’s still a profit to using lightweight, and this dichotomy doesn’t exist in real life (for the vast majority of people). Due to this fact, there is no reason to pick from either one. As an alternative, use each.

Try our article to learn more about strength vs hypertrophy training.

Low Reps & High Reps Workout Routines

To see how a workout program may look in another way, we’ll provide a sample workout routine that favors either one. First, a training plan that focuses on low reps. Remember, the goal for using low reps is strength.

Now for an analogous workout that focuses on using high reps and muscle hypertrophy.

As you possibly can see, the 2 workouts are very similar. When taking a look at the workout with high reps, it only has one exercise with lower than 6 reps, the deadlift. After, every exercise has 8+.

This demonstrates our belief. We expect everybody should use multiple rep ranges to hit every aspect of muscular fitness. There isn’t any reason to completely eliminate either range unless you’re being completely misguided.

Low Rep vs High Rep: Final Takeaways

Our philosophy for resistance training is pretty easy. Nearly every part is useful in the suitable circumstances. Relating to weight training and rep ranges, use all of them. Do not get caught up in trainers telling you this is best than that, because it is dependent upon your goal.

While we feel low rep training has more advantages, especially for beginners, you need to also add some light weights. Alternatively, in case you try to be a bodybuilder and do not lift heavier weights in any respect, you’ll suffer from ignoring weight training. Don’t make it more complicated than it must be.

For more information on reps, sets, and training volume, head to our article: How Many Exercises, Sets, And Reps Should I Do Per Muscle Group & Workout?

References:

1. Willis, Leslie H et al. “Effects of aerobic and/or resistance training on body mass and fat mass in obese or obese adults.” Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) vol. 113,12 (2012. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01370.2011