Should You Do High Reps Or Low Reps To Build Muscle?

Back when I first started lifting weights, there was a stigma around high rep training.

It was believed that men should stay in the 8-12 rep range if they want to build muscle, meanwhile women were advised to perform lots of high rep sets with light weights in order to tone up and avoid looking big and bulky.

Guess what…

It was all bullshit.

In the decades of research which have taken place since then, we now know that training with high reps and lighter weights is just as good as training with low reps and heavier weights when it comes to building muscle.

Further still, the key to unlocking the BEST results is not to choose between these different styles of training, but to learn how to combine them, as they each offer a unique set of subsidiary benefits which can help you become a superior athlete.

Our Old Beliefs About High Rep Training Were Wrong

The old belief that high rep training is not good for building muscle actually stems from a missing piece of information.

Check this out.

If you asked ten “experts” to describe the purpose of each rep range, I predict that 9/10 would reply this way:

• 1-5 reps is for strength
• 8-12 reps is for hypertrophy
• 15+ reps is for muscular endurance

This isn’t entirely wrong, it’s just not giving you the full picture. You see, each rep range has more than one benefit. The answer above should look like this:

• 1-5 reps is for strength and neuromuscular development
• 8-12 reps is for hypertrophy and strength
• 15+ reps is for muscular endurance and hypertrophy

What does this tell us?

For guys, it means they no longer need to avoid high rep sets out of fear they’ll not be making any gains, and for ladies, it means they don’t need to worry about going heavier and doing lower rep work, because the high rep stuff they’ve already been doing is tapping into your muscle building capacity anyway.

Fucking game-changer!

What The Studies Say

The first study to stir interest in this topic arrived way back in 2010. (1)

A team of researchers from McMaster University, Canada, were assessing the differences in neurological muscular development between having trainees go to failure with their 4-5 rep max weight and going to failure with a much lighter weight for 20-25 reps.

As predicted, the lower rep group recorded significantly higher neuromuscular development, but they were surprised to see that the high rep group managed to boost muscle protein synthesis (the anabolic response to training which is a key driver in the muscle building process) by more than 60% versus the other group of trainees!

This was the first time the purported muscle building benefits of high rep training had been noticed, and it opened the door for further research to be done, because it left us with some interesting questions.

• Was it the high rep set which caused this spike in MPS?
• Or the fact that they were training to failure?
• Is it that 4-5 reps just isn’t very good for building muscle (it’s in the strength range, after all) so it made the high rep sets look better than they really are?

We got the answers to these questions in the years which followed.

The first follow-up study arrived one year later, when researchers from the same university set out to to see if the original results were a fluke. They conducted a trial very similar to the first one, and were able to successfully replicate the results, proving that this wasn’t a fluke. (2)

The next one came in 2012, and this was the big one.

You see, although high reps were showing promise in these first two trials, we really needed a study which compared them against sets performed in the hypertrophy range (8-12 reps) in order to get a true reflection of just how good they might be for building muscle.

We got that thanks to research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, in which researchers compared the results of trainees performing sets with a weight which caused failure at 8-12 reps and trainees who hit failure at 20-30 reps. (3)

Amazingly, the high rep group experienced a near identical spike in muscle protein synthesis (both recording a 7% improvement in muscle mass), and this was the study which proved beyond all doubt that high rep training is just as good as low rep training when it comes to building muscle.

And here’s where things get even more interesting.

You must train to failure in order to unlock the full muscle building benefits of high rep training.

Yep, that means to the stage where you’d struggle to complete another good rep.

In fact, there has never been a successful muscle building study using high reps where the trainees did not train to failure.

I tell you this because whenever people switch to high rep sets they make the critical mistake of going too light with the weight. Fuck that. I don’t want you to coast through sets without any hard effort, because that’s not going to unlock the kind of results you want.

High rep sets rely on a phenomenon known as The Size Principle, which I explain in great depth in this article, but right now, to demonstrate the importance of taking at least one of your high rep sets to failure, let’s go back to two of the studies I mentioned above, and look at some information which I didn’t show you first time around. (1, 2)

You see, there were actually three groups of trainees (not two).

Because alongside the trainees who were doing sets to failure at 4-5 reps, and sets to failure at 20-25 reps, we had another group of trainees who were doing sets of 20-25 reps with a weight which did not cause failure.

In both of these studies, these participants achieved significantly less results.

What About For Women?

If guys thought there was lots of conflicting information out there, try being a woman for a day.

Seriously, women have been subjected to so much fitness-related bullshit over the years that I could probably write a 5000-word essay on it!

One such myth involves high rep training, because women are often advised to do high rep sets with light weights to avoid getting big ad bulky muscles.

As you have probably gathered from the studies I showed you above, this is total fucking nonsense, and there are three reasons why:

1. If it was that easy to look like Rambo, every guy in your gym would, and let’s face it, they don’t. Interestingly, Sylvester Stallone was one of the pioneers of high rep training, so there’s a good chance you’re already training like Rambo right now.
2. I’ve just shown you that high rep training builds the same muscle mass as low rep training, and you need not be concerned – and you’ve got even less to worry about if you venture into the strength range (1-5 reps).
3. Women produce considerably less testosterone than men, so from a scientific standpoint it’s actually harder for women to build muscle (if you’ve ever felt frustrated that your husband sees faster results, you’re not going crazy!). (4)

It’s sad that the fitness world is still so far behind when it comes to showing ladies the best way to train, because the evidence is all there, but hey, that’s the world we live in. I do hope this has destroyed any worries you may have had about training in different rep ranges.

Let’s Take Your Results To The Next Level!

Instead of committing exclusively to one style of training, you will achieve better results by using a combination of the three.

This is called periodization.

If you watch how professional athletes train, you’ll see that they use periodization to stagger their programs into several different phases on the way to their primary goal, instead of just doing the same thing over and over again. They do this because each phase helps them unlock unique subsidiary benefits, taking their endgame results to a whole new level. (5)

For example; we know that 1-5 reps will primarily increase strength, and 8-12 reps will mainly help us to build muscle, and 15+ reps will mainly increase our muscular endurance… but we’ve also just seen how great 15+ reps is for building muscle, too!

It turns out the other rep ranges also have secondary benefits.

Take a look:

Knowing this enables you to create an absolutely killer training program.

For example: picture a guy who wants to build muscle.

Let’s say he uses the old approach of always training in the 8-12 rep range (I’m sure you can think of plenty of these guys from your local gym).

His quest for success hinges on his ability to produce progressive overload via increasing the weight, but he will eventually reach a ceiling in terms of how heavy he can go (otherwise he’d be snapping tendons and ligaments). This will cause his results to stagnate, but he’ll just carry on battering away at his body regardless, until eventually the injuries start to rack up as years of heavy lifting begin taking their toll.

It’s a story as old as time itself, and one evidenced by all the guys grabbing their lower back or front delts as they walk around your local gym.

Now then, if we re-shaped this guy’s training program to use a classic linear periodization model he would see significantly better results in the long-term.

This would involve training in the 15+ rep range for 3-weeks, then training in the 8-12 rep range for 3-weeks, then training in the 1-5 rep range for 3-weeks (and repeat).

Here’s why it works:

1. Training is no longer boring.
2. He is kept safer from injury because he isn’t maxing out all the time.
3. The 1-5 rep range will boost his strength, which enhances his ability for continued progressive overload.
4. The 1-5 rep range also improves his neuromuscular development, making it easier for his body to handle heavy phases of a program.
5. The 15+ rep range will improve muscular endurance, which improves his conditioning and makes it easier for him to push through “the burn”, which triggers a stronger anabolic response to training.
6. The 15+ rep range acts as a recovery phase of sorts for the central nervous system, which means he’ll be able to recover from workouts faster, and perhaps even increase the number of workouts he does each week.

So now you know about the huge muscle building benefits of high rep training, and you also know how to get the most out of it!

Further Reading:

If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.

>> Stallone Was Right: Circuit Training Rocks!
>> The Importance Of Training Your Muscles To Failure
>> How Many Sets Should You Do For Each Muscle Per Week?

References:

1. Burd N. A., et al. Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise In Young Men. PLoS ONE (2010).
2. Burd N. A., et al. Enhanced Amino Acid Sensitivity Of Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis Persists For Up To 24 Hours After Resistance Exercise In Young Men. J Nutr (2011).
3. Mitchell C. J., et al. Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men. J Appl Physiol (2012).
4. Handelsman D. J., et al. Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance. Endocr Rev (2018).
5. Rhea M. R., et al. A meta-analysis of periodized versus nonperiodized strength and power training programs. Res Q Exerc Sport (2004).