This is one of the biggest debates in personal training circles and it causes more confusion and lack of progress than almost any other facet of weight training. Why is this the case and is there a right way to do this? My intention is always to educate first so let's have a look at the objectives we have and how the body functions and responds to stimulus.
Our objective in pursuing a training regimen is to build as much lean muscle mass as we possibly can and to do it intelligently. I touched on our body's ability to respond in an earlier article but will expound on rep range here.
We've already said that in order to get our muscles to grow we must place them under enough stress so that they do grow. Now the question becomes how do we translate that stress into reps? It's a good question to ask because many people go to gym and learn from the environment around them ie. asking the guys at the gym who have been doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. They have a name for that in some circles:-)
The same way that our minds have an attention span our muscles have something very similar. What this means then is that we cannot be lifting endlessly for hours on end thinking that because we have worked so hard, or what we think is hard, that we will force muscle growth. If you read a book in one sitting would you understand it more than if you read it in parts and made notes about what you read?
The same is true for our muscles. We need to give them sufficient time to take in what's being done and then allow it to make sense, in other words, allow them to grow. There is a period of time when your muscles are most responsive and there's a period of time where they aren't. Experts say that muscles will respond for 45-55 seconds out of every minute, every other second after that either does nothing more or works against the building process.
Keeping in mind the cadence that we use, our ideal rep range would be between 6 - 8 reps. Using a cadence of 2-2-4, we should complete a set at 48 seconds which is perfect for building muscle. That would quite literally mean that we should be in and out of the weight room in 30 - 40 minutes and no more. The point is to get in there, train hard and then get out and relax so that your body can repair itself.
If you keep in mind that this is a journey you will begin to appreciate the science behind this and adopt it more readily. The body is a wonderful mechanism that was designed intelligently and intelligent training and nutrition will help us all to build the bodies of our dreams.
