Repetion Patterns For Maximum Fitness
July 8th 2007 12:09
Let's talk a little theory.Today you pick up a weight so heavy that you can only do three repetitions of your chosen exercise. The next day you do the exercise you pick a weight that allows you to do 8-10 repetitions. Later you select a weight that allows you to do 15 repetitions. Which is the best for building the muscle you are focused on? The answer is that each is the best for building an aspect of the muscle's strength. It is important to understand how this is true and how to train with it in mind.
When you use a weight that brings failure at a very low repetitions you are building pure strength, the kind of conditioning that should allow you to increase the weight you are using in a fairly regular basis. You are telling your body to recruit tissue for a single all out lift. If you ramp up the repetitions to 10 or so you will,of course, have to lower the weight you are using. At that number of reps you are forcing your body to improve its capacity to handle a sub maximal weight for a considerable work load. That kind of work is useful for tasks that involve several of the same movements- like pounding with a sledge hammer. If you add 5 more repetitions that recruitment pattern changes to one of the long term. This last pattern is for things like riding a bicycle on a flat terrain or the kind of tasks that assembly line workers endure.
When you train your body for fitness you want to incorporate all these patterns into your training. When you use workouts of each kind they together fully condition the muscle and cause as much tissue stimulation as is possible. The poor little rookie trainer who sedulously does innumerable repetitions with a tiny weight is not really going to condition the muscle, nor is the obsessive who can only think about how much weight he is using. Put the two workouts in the same program and you will make progress.
Here is what I suggest. With each successive workout try a different repetition scheme. First 6-8,then 10-12, finally 15. Whatever scheme you are doing, pick a weight with which you will struggle to complete the rep guideline. You will soon discover that the amount of weight you use for each scheme can be raised. Always keep focus on using as heavy a weight as is possible. With such a workout pattern every workout will be a significant one. Your servant,as always.
When you use a weight that brings failure at a very low repetitions you are building pure strength, the kind of conditioning that should allow you to increase the weight you are using in a fairly regular basis. You are telling your body to recruit tissue for a single all out lift. If you ramp up the repetitions to 10 or so you will,of course, have to lower the weight you are using. At that number of reps you are forcing your body to improve its capacity to handle a sub maximal weight for a considerable work load. That kind of work is useful for tasks that involve several of the same movements- like pounding with a sledge hammer. If you add 5 more repetitions that recruitment pattern changes to one of the long term. This last pattern is for things like riding a bicycle on a flat terrain or the kind of tasks that assembly line workers endure.
When you train your body for fitness you want to incorporate all these patterns into your training. When you use workouts of each kind they together fully condition the muscle and cause as much tissue stimulation as is possible. The poor little rookie trainer who sedulously does innumerable repetitions with a tiny weight is not really going to condition the muscle, nor is the obsessive who can only think about how much weight he is using. Put the two workouts in the same program and you will make progress.
Here is what I suggest. With each successive workout try a different repetition scheme. First 6-8,then 10-12, finally 15. Whatever scheme you are doing, pick a weight with which you will struggle to complete the rep guideline. You will soon discover that the amount of weight you use for each scheme can be raised. Always keep focus on using as heavy a weight as is possible. With such a workout pattern every workout will be a significant one. Your servant,as always.
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