[@RenaissancePeriodization] Low Reps Aren’t Worth It (for Muscle Growth)

Link: https://youtu.be/jOTVZaSRV0s

Duration: 28 min

Short Summary

Dr. Mike, a 41-year-old strength training researcher who transformed from a 100 lb freshman to 225 lbs, explains why rep ranges between 5-30RM produce roughly equivalent muscle growth, but heavier loads carry significantly higher injury risk. He provides tiered recommendations: beginners should focus on 5-10 reps with compound movements, intermediates should experiment across all rep ranges over 4-8 week blocks, and advanced trainees can apply muscle-specific variation based on years of self-experimentation.

Key Quotes

1. "The number one reason people lift heavy and for lower reps is because it's fun as shit and it strokes your ego straight up." (00:00:19)
2. "Between sets, roughly between your five rep max, though a little lower is fine, too, and roughly your 30 rep max, though a little higher, is fine, too. So long as those sets are taken close to failure, three reps in reserve or closer." (00:01:41)
3. "Training in the 5 to 10 rep range is categorically more risky than the 15 to 20 rep range." (00:04:55)
4. "Be careful looking for that one correct rep range for yourself because it literally might not exist." (00:02:10)

Detailed Summary

Key Findings on Rep Ranges and Muscle Growth

Research over the past 20 years confirms that rep ranges for muscle growth are roughly equivalent set for set between the 5RM and 30RM range when taken close to failure. Studies over 8 and 16 weeks found high and low rep sets cause undifferentiable muscle growth. However, individual responses vary—some people grow better on higher reps while others respond better to lower reps, with certain muscles (hamstrings, forearms) favoring lower rep training in many individuals.

Injury Risk Factors

The number one factor in injury risk is the amount of load on the bar, increasing from 2RM to 5RM to 10RM to 30RM. Training in the 5-10 rep range is categorically more risky than the 15-20 rep range, and this risk expands with prior injuries due to scar tissue and reduced tissue security. Major muscle tears are significantly more common in male super heavyweights than female lightweights by orders of magnitude, with benching over 500 lbs carrying distinct pectoral evulsion risk. Fatigue does not directly cause injury, but danger increases when high fatigue combines with strong willpower and high caffeine intake, causing muscular coordination to suffer. Larger relative gains in size and strength increase injury probability more than smaller gains at similar absolute levels.

Rep Range Recommendations by Experience Level

Beginners seeking eventual maximum size and strength should do mostly sets of 5-10 reps for the first few years, focusing on free weight compound basics—this develops strength from muscle to tendon to bone, builds resilience for future heavy training, and reinforces good technique without being too heavy or too fatiguing. For beginners focused on general adult fitness rather than maximum size/strength, sets of 10-20 reps are recommended.

Intermediates seeking best long-term size and strength should experiment with all major hypertrophy ranges (5-10, 10-20, 20-30 reps) across all muscles and exercises over messy 4-8 week programs of each combination. The goal is determining which rep range/muscle/exercise combinations provide: steady progression in loads/reps, feeling the target muscle as the limiting factor, biggest pumps in the target muscle, and most soreness with high volume or new exercises.

Advanced trainees have collected years of data and know which rep ranges fit best with which muscles and exercises, allowing matched variation rather than random experimentation.

Special Considerations

For previously injured, older, or injury-averse individuals who respond well to higher reps, sets of 10+ or 15+ are recommended. Higher reps are also advised when traveling, low on sleep, or with high fatigue. The RP Hypertrophy app is agnostic to reps in the 5-30 range and flags users only when reps go outside that range.

Psychological and Practical Differences

Heavy low-rep training at high volumes causes significant psychological fatigue that can affect subsequent workouts for multiple days, unlike higher rep training which only causes fatigue during and briefly after the session. An example: an acquaintance regularly squatting over 700 lbs raw required two days to mentally recover afterward, whereas high-rep leg press sessions only zapped him for half a day. Lower rep training requires more precise equipment setup and spotter responsibility, as powerlifters typically train at their home gym with identical equipment for safety. Higher rep training (15-20 reps) back to back with minimal rest provides significant cardiovascular health advantages that lower rep training does not.

Full Transcript

Show transcript

The number one reason people lift heavy
and for lower reps is because it's fun
as shit and it strokes your ego. That's
a real thing. They have a higher chronic
injury risk. If you go heavy heavy heavy
heavy heavy all the time, your
probability of getting screwed up is
much higher than if you go light all the
time. If you're bigger and stronger, you
can exert more force. And more force is
what causes injuries. If you just want
to be jacked, then you have to be open
to all rep ranges as potential tools in
the toolbox. So, be careful looking for
that one correct rep range for yourself
because it literally might not exist.
Hey folks, Dr. Mike here for RP
Strength. And I don't think low reps are
worth it. But now, there must be a more
nuance take, which is exactly why this
video is not going to take 2 seconds.
Here's the real real.
I no longer train with sets of under
five reps and I often train with sets of
more than my 10 rep max for muscle
growth currently consistently.
Why? Why don't I do anything less than
really 10 reps or my 10RM?
We're going to cover the research
insights. We're going to cover the
safety insights. and then the answer
will be pretty obvious but lots of
nuance and a lot of take-home points for
you guys sticking around. So, first the
research on rep ranges and growth is
crystal clear. We have like 20 years of
research on this and funny enough people
still debate it in various corners of
the internet and I can't believe they're
debating it because there are multiple
reviews of literature that say the exact
same thing. And what they say is this.
Between sets,
roughly between your five rep max,
though a little lower is fine, too, and
roughly your 30 rep max, though a little
higher, is fine, too. So long as those
sets are taken close to failure, three
reps in reserve or closer.
Those set for set either very heavy,
very light or in between are roughly
equivalent over months of training time
as measured in studies directly for
muscle growth. That's just a real thing.
Study after study after study. When we
used to do research 20 years ago, 10
years, 15 years ago, we were trying to
find the hypertrophy rep range, the
optimal rep range for growth. And it was
a surprise to many people that set for
set, hard set for hard set, close to
failure set for close to failure set
within the context of 8, 12, 16 weeks of
training,
high rep sets and low rep sets on
average over multiple participants seem
to cause undifferiable growth. The same
amount of muscle growth more or less.
Nobody really predicted that, but that
was reality.
Now,
this does not mean that rep ranges and
growth is identical for everyone.
This also doesn't mean that if you train
for a long time, maybe going a bit
heavier or going a bit lighter is a
long-term years better strategy. We
don't know that for sure. It's really
difficult to do that kind of research.
But it does mean that in any given
program that lasts, you know, 4 to 16
weeks, you grow about as much muscle
with sets of six reps on average as you
do with sets of 18 reps on average, set
for set.
That is huge
because that is the case.
We know that we have lots of flexibility
to adjust the rep range based on other
factors than general muscle growth,
which is amazing.
What are these factors? The biggest one
to me is injury risk.
The number one factor in injury risk in
lifting is the amount of load on the
bar. Plain and simple. A good way to
represent load on the bar relatively for
everyone of every size and strength is
your repetition max number. Your two
repetition max is going to be
categorically heavier than your five rep
max, then your 10 rep max, then your 30
rep max.
If you have bad technique or way too
much training volume with your 25 rep
max, in most cases, injury is still way
less likely than if you just train
normally with your five rep max. The
fraction of injuries that weightlifters
and powerlifters experience versus
bodybuilders is a different conversation
entirely.
And when bodybuilders get hurt, it is
usually because they're lifting heavy.
Put another way, training in the 5 to 10
rep range is categorically more risky
than the 15 to 20 rep range.
And this risk difference expands with
the introduction of other variables.
If you have a history of prior injuries
to that area, let's say you've pulled or
torn your quad before your triceps or
your pecs or one of your triceps, one of
your pecs. If that's the case, the next
time even when you heal,
any injury that you have sustained prior
increases the probability of a similar
injury happening to that muscle. We
don't quite know if it's because muscles
that are prone to injury to begin with
are also prone to injury later for the
same mechanisms they always had like
they'reing weak or whatever we had
leverage or because and this is probably
both true that injured sight still has
some scar tissue in there. It's not as
securely attached and it's just a little
bit more likely to get pulled again. But
if you have a history of prior injuries
to an area then the probability that
lifting heavy will make you hurt again
is much higher than if you don't.
Your probability of getting hurt from
heavy weights, sets of five, sets of 10,
anything. The the heavier the the the
worse
is going to be much higher if you're
bigger and stronger. If you're bigger
and stronger, you can exert more force.
And more force is what causes injuries.
There are a lot of people in this world
that are too weak to really hurt
themselves meaningfully in the gym. Look
no further to who tears major muscle
groups in lifting competition. Major
muscle tears
are way more common in male super
heavyweights than they are in female
lightweights by like orders of magnitude
factors of 10. Because when people are
not as strong and not as big, especially
if they regularly train with weights and
their tissues are very relatively
strong, then they're just usually not
able to push their muscle hard enough
for it to rip. But anytime you see
someone benching over 500 lb, there is a
distinct risk of pectoral evulsion every
time. And that is not comfortable to
admit that that that's the case, but it
is the case. Scott, you ever see someone
lift really heavy in real life or even
over video and they unrackck the bar and
you're kind of liked out right away?
You're like
>> 100%
>> 100%. There's a real reason for that.
The bigger and stronger you get, the
more you can impose a shitload of force
in the equation and get up. This is a
very decent analogy to this is what is
the probability of getting injured in a
car accident depending on the speed of
the car. If the car is going 10 miles an
hour, man, you got to really get
creative to get hurt. Even if you hit a
tree, you go 90 miles an hour and you
hit a tree, you probably, you know, the
next event in your life is the funeral
because speed is absolutely the critical
variable in car accident injury
probability and force
in lifting is the critical variable in
probability of injury. The bigger and
stronger you get, the more force you can
impose.
Your chance of injury also goes up if
you're in a high fatigue state. Missing
some sleep from the last few nights,
weeks of hard training and dieting
really getting you fatigued and
everything in between. The more fatigued
you are, the more likely you are.
Absolute effort for absolute effort to
get hurt. Now, I got to be really clear
about what this means. This is a big big
insight. If you are benching 190, 195,
200 for sets of five in your program,
when you get to benching 200 lb for sets
of five, if you're really fatigued and
you still grind and you still get that
set of five, that set of five is a very
high risk compared to if you weren't
fatigued.
If you're so fatigued that you don't
even bench 200, you're like, "Ah, I'm
too fatigued. I'm going to go down on
bench 185 to adjust for my fatigue. Then
you are at no higher risk of injury
because you've offset the fatigue by
lowering the load. So fatigue doesn't
itself mean that you're going to get
hurt. And a lot of times people in a
high fatigue state don't demonstrate a
high probability of catastrophic injury
like evulsions simply because they're
too tired to try hard enough to actually
rip stuff. But if you combine high
fatigue with a shitload of willpower and
a lot of caffeine, you might try to do
the same shit you would have in a well
well-rested state, but fatigued. The
muscular coordination is off, tissue
integrity could be off, and your
probability of injury is just straight
up higher. And lastly, getting older
increases your probability of injury.
Past your 20s and definitely into your
40s and older.
So, all of these factors together, let's
talk about why I personally stopped
doing lower reps. For me, I get
excellent growth in pretty much every
muscle from sets of 10 to 20
repetitions. I'm 41 years old as of the
taping of this video.
I've low-key injured damn near every
single part of my body in one way or
another. Uh, all the muscles and joints
have done their time. Uh, sometimes many
more times than once. And so, I have
that risk factor of prior prior injury.
In the grand scheme, I'm nothing
special, but I'm pretty big and pretty
strong. And here's the important part,
especially relatively to where I
started. Because my freshman year of
high school, when I started lifting, I
weighed 100 lb.
If you start lifting and you can bench
185 for a triple. And after 10 years of
lifting, you can bench 195 for a triple,
your probability of injury is way lower
than someone who started benching 95 for
triples and ended up going up to 195.
that relative change in size and
strength with fundamentally a similar
architecture and limiting factors for
tendons, muscles, joints, etc., the
bigger and stronger you get for your
frame, the bigger the probability of
injury grows. So for me, currently at
225 lbs versus 100 lb, yeah, man, every
time I'm pushing it hard in the gym,
there is a distinct risk of injury
because I'm so goddamn big and strong
for what I was supposed to be with just
raw genetics.
In addition to that, I'm often traveling
or in an otherwise very high fatigue
state from work.
And another thing is I love training and
if I get hurt, I can't train. And I love
making steady progress. And if I get
hurt, I sure shit can't make steady
progress. So for me, injury is just like
a giant. I'm not.
Now, lifting heavy is fun as we'll get
to that in a bit. It's one of the big
upsides. But for me, it's not worth the
trade-off given that I have all these
risk factors and also the fact that for
me, progress and consistency is super
important. So, I do most of my working
sets, especially in the first set when
fresh in the 10 to 20 rep range. More
precisely, I typically use my 12 to 22
rep max. So, most of my sets are
somewhere between 10 actual reps, two
reps in reserve, and 20 reps, two reps
in reserve.
The reps fall with each successive set.
So maybe if you follow me on Instagram
and you see my training, I post almost
all of my training, you'll see me do
sets of eight and stuff like that, but
that's usually for later in the workout
when I'm more tired for that same
muscle. So that's not my true fresh
eight RM. Fresh RMS is what this is
based on. Let me tell you why that's
important. If you do a load of squats,
then you go to leg press and you do your
eight rep max as it is on that after
five sets of squats, you're really doing
what would fresh be like your 15 rep
max. And the injury risk is similar.
It's higher because you're more
fatigued, but not much higher. So, if
you're doing sets of eight, but it's not
your fresh 8 RM, your probability of
injury is way closer to whatever that
actual RM is. But if you walk in fresh
and do a set of leg press for eight like
to failure, yeah, it's going to be again
way more load. And load is the trick
trick. It's the indicator. If I can leg
press fresh eight plates for a set of
eight, it's the eight plates that's
getting me hurt. If I'm really screwed
up from squats and I go do five plates,
man, with my joints and connective
tissues and and muscle ulcer structure
and fascia being what it is, the
probability that I get hurt off of five
plates is just not enough. It's just
really low, right? But if I'm fresh and
I go heavy, the probability is higher
because of the going heavy.
The absolute load is the big thing for
me. And my absolute load that I'm
lifting is in my fresh 12 to 22 rep
range almost every time.
But lower reps have upsides and
downsides.
What are the downsides of lower reps?
Let's go through a few. We've already
been through a few of these. One, lower
reps have a higher acute injury risk.
Like the probability of just getting
hurt at any one time is higher if you do
lower reps because they're heavier.
They have a higher chronic injury risk.
If you go heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy
all the time, your probability of
getting screwed up is much higher than
if you go light all the time.
They require a longer warm-up demand in
many cases. With higher reps, you can
just like get back into decent breath
and just go again. With lower reps, if
you're going to do any reps at all, you
typically need some decent rest,
especially in large muscle mass compound
movements. So, you just don't do your
fiber in the deadlift and come back 30
seconds later and do it again.
You guys see powerliffters train and
motherers rest a long ass time. Dude,
you do mostly sitting down. Like, yeah,
that's what it takes.
When you're training heavier and for
lower reps, if you're smart about it,
and all almost all powerlifterss are
real smart about this, you have a more
precise equipment demand. You need the
right rack. You need your belt. You need
your shoes. Scott, you ever seen videos
of people yoloing like really, really
heavy lifts on really uh what's the term
sus setups? He's just kind of like, "Oh,
really? That's what you're going to do?"
Like, what if you know barefoot leg
pressing super heavy weights, like you
sweat out of your feet, dummy? You could
just slip and that'll be the last slip
you ever make inside a leg press. So, as
you go heavier and heavier and heavier,
you have like really really legit
equipment demands. A lot of powerlters,
maybe most, especially closer to a meet,
they don't travel. They go to their
their home gym that they have, not
literally at home, but their their main
gym. They have their all their equipment
set up exactly how they need it. same
bars, same EO rack, same everything,
same soft bench, same setup to make sure
that the probability of injury is as low
as possible, among other things. And in
addition to that,
lower reps and heavier weights confer
more spotter responsibility. Random gym
spotters with your five rep max in the
bench, man, that I'm good. But if you're
doing sets of 15 to 20 on the bench,
whatever, anyone can kind of drag it off
and at the end of the day, you can just
heave it down towards your cock and
squirm out. No big deal.
When you're training heavier with lower
reps, you typically experience,
especially when you're stronger, a more
deep psychological fatigue at high
volumes.
You don't just squat 40 or five for sets
of five at your needed growth volumes
week in and week out in most cases.
Because people will say low reps are
better for growth. I respond better to
low reps. And a lot of times they're
right. But sometimes you're like, "Dude,
you do three sets of squats, three sets
of five." They're like, "Yeah, man. It's
what it takes." Like, "No, no, no, no,
no. The volume literature shows that you
need way more sets. You need like
eight." And you're staring down the bar
barrel of eight sets of five. What the
Like, you can do that, but as you get
stronger, that workout beats you to
death psychologically.
One of my old friends was regularly
squatting over 700 lb raw for reps. It
would shit would take him two days to
like mentally be okay afterwards. It
would affect his next day's workout in a
humongous way. And when he was doing
higher rep training, leg press, hack
squat, sets of 15, stuff like that, it
would zap him during that session and
for you half a day after, but the next
day, other than the soreness in his
quads, he was good to go. This is
underappreciated because most people
don't get to be around super strong
people or themselves to be super strong.
I've never really encountered this
myself as much, but it's definitely a
thing.
And for general fitness, low reps don't
confer as much cardiovascular health
advantage as higher reps do for general
fitness. General fitness, sets of 15 to
20 reps back to back with minimal rest
is like amazing for cardio and weights.
If you just do sets of five, you really
don't get a whole lot of cardio. But
lower reps have upsides. One, they have
lower metabolic fatigue, which if
metabolic fatigue is your limiting
factor, absolutely can uh be a factor in
your program. Lower reps are less
painful at the end of sets. You do your
set of five in the bench press, you're
not really ever in pain. You're just
like, you do a set of 15 in the bench
press and you're like, "Ow, ow, ow, last
reps really burn." There's not really a
burn for low reps.
For the average person, you're more
likely to hit your reps in reserve
target because there's no pain. you just
keep pushing until the bar doesn't move.
Like when you do uh underhand pull-ups
and you do your four rep max, like at no
point are you like, "Oh, I could have
done another rep." Like, it's very
obvious that you're done. Whereas, if
you're trying to do pull downs and
you're trying to do your 20 rep max,
like maybe you could have gotten one or
two more. It just got really, really
painful in your forearms and your lats.
Another upside is that some muscles and
some movements love lower reps. Random
genetic ones. Some people's forearms,
like really heavy weight.
Hamstrings in many people respond really
well to lower reps. Exercises like good
mornings and stuff like deadlifts are
limited by spinal erector fatigue. So,
you really can't do them for sets of 15
because then it's just back work. Uh
your spinal erectors fail before your
hamstrings do and then you're like, I'm
not really sure I'm training hamstrings.
Whereas for sets of eight, these are
excellent, excellent exercises.
Lower reps, especially sets of five to
10, are amazing for reinforcing good
technique for beginners. Why? Because
anything under five, beginners are just
struggling to stay alive and they get
all kinds of weird question mark
technique. Anything for sets of over 10,
especially over 15, the fatigue alone
starts to degrade their technique and
now they're learning how to do the shit
wrong. Sets of five to 10 are that magic
where you have enough reps that it's not
so heavy that you're collapsing on rep
one, but not so many reps that you're
fatiguing towards the end of your
technique goes to hell. And you can have
the cognitive presence and bandwidth to
do good technique for every single rep.
So that's really, really solid,
especially for beginners.
And let's be completely honest, the
number one reason people lift heavy and
for lower reps is because it's fun as
shit and it strokes your ego straight
up. Like that's a real thing. And fun in
the gym is not to be overlooked. It's a
big big deal. Another big deal, and this
is huge,
individual differences are massive.
The average in studies between all
participants
and all muscles is that higher reps grow
about the same muscle as lower reps do.
But this isn't even true for all of the
people in those studies. Some grow
muscle way better on higher reps, some
on lower, they just average out because
there's about the same number in each
group.
Even everyone's individual muscles like
your triceps versus your biceps have
different rep range ideals in many
cases. Your quads could love high reps
and your glutes could love low reps or
vice versa.
So, it's not even often true to say my
body likes low reps or my body likes
high reps. It really is muscle by
muscle. In many cases, the average of
your body's muscles could like lower or
higher reps, but it's not necessarily
true muscle and muscle. And here's
another thing. Even if you do have a
bias in one direction or another
variation exists,
low reps are cool for a few months, but
then they get stale. Psychologically,
they get really annoying. It's just
like, oh my god, I got to psych up for
all these sets. Your joints and
connective tissues can start hurting.
Same is true for high reps. You do
enough high reps, you're like, "I'm not
even getting pumps anymore. I hate this.
It burns. It's pain. It's awful. I lost
my mind muscle connection. I'm just
doing random work. And so every now and
again, you have to switch to lower and
higher reps just because variations of
thing and you want staleness to be
minimized.
And it might be true that some
combination of lower and higher reps.
Sometimes within the same workout,
sometimes within the same week,
sometimes within the year, like some
part of the year you go lower rep, some
part of the year higher rep. work better
for most people than only one rep range.
So, be careful looking for that one
correct rep range for yourself because
it literally might not exist.
Goals are another really big deal. If
you just want to be jacked, then you
have to be open to all rep ranges as
potential tools in the toolbox.
And if you're really injury averse, you
can prioritize higher reps damn near all
the time and it's going to be awesome
because it's going to reduce your injury
probability. But if you want size and
strength, which is a totally valid goal,
then lower reps really are the only
answer much of the time such that you
should spend most of your time training
in the 5 to 10 rep range if you want the
best combination of size and strength.
And I'm going to repeat that because
it's important. The best combination of
size and strength probably for many
people exists somewhere in that area of
the five to 10 RM zone.
The ultimate unlock is individualizing
rep ranges for yourself.
My recommendation to beginners who want
to be superjed eventually is to almost
only do sets of roughly 5 to 10 reps for
the first few years and mostly in free
weight compound basics. This gets you
stronger
from muscle to tendon to bone and makes
you resilient for future heavy training.
It teaches you how to lift properly
because it reinforces good technique.
It's not too heavy to do good technique
or too tiring.
It gives you the highest ROI in your
time in the gym typically because it
zaps both strength and size with the
same set.
And you don't need to specialize yet
because you're a beginner and aren't
strong enough to get hurt in most cases
because you just aren't big and strong
enough to put that much force through
the muscle. So sets of 5 to 10 are
totally great. So for beginners, sets of
5 to 10 are awesome and probably damn
near ideal for most people.
beginners that are looking for eventual
massive size and strength. If you're a
beginner looking for adult fitness, sets
of 10 to 20 are totally awesome.
My recommendation to intermediates that
are looking for the best long-term size
and strength is to experiment with all
of the major hypertrophy ranges in all
of the muscles and all of the exercises.
Sets of five to 10 reps, sets of 10 to
20 reps, sets of 20 to 30 reps in
biceps, triceps, hams, chest, etc. all
the muscles and in all the exercises in
barbell curls, dumbbell curls, cable
curls, etc., etc., etc.
Within a messy 4 to 8 week program or so
of each of these combinations, you're
going to get more insight on what rep
range, what muscle and exercise
combinations do more of giving you
steady progression in loads and reps. do
more of letting you feel like you're
tensing the target muscle the most
instead of other unrelated muscles.
Feeling the target muscle is the
limiting factor the most. Like you fail
skull crushers because of your triceps,
not because of your delts. Getting you
the biggest pumps in the target muscle
for that given combination of rep range
and exercise and muscle. And getting you
the most sore in the target muscle at
high volumes or with new exercises. So
you know there's a robust stimulus to
exactly where you want it.
That combination of insight is going to
be amazing for you. You're also going to
pair it with when things don't go well.
So, when that combination of rep range
and muscle and exercise does less of
making the technique hard to stick to,
like lat pull downs are fine for sets of
10 for you, but for sets of 20, you're
just like, I don't even know what the's
going on anymore. I'm in so much pain, I
can't maintain my technique.
Some pain in the joints and connective
tissues may be altered in various rep
ranges. And some rep ranges comboed with
some exercises and some muscles fatigue
the crap out of your mind or out of your
muscles in a way that other rep ranges,
muscle groups, and exercise combos
really don't. So, you might find that
sets of 25 on walking dumbbell lunges
are amazing for the glutes, but that
sets of eight on stiff-legged deadlifts
are amazing for hamstrings. You might
find that sets of 20 are amazing for
side laterals, for delts, for dumbbell
side laterals. But for sets of six on
that exercise, it feels like you're
doing experimental surgery and it's
going very wrong.
Once you are advanced, cuz remember in
the intermediate days, this is your time
to experiment. When you're a beginner,
you do the surefire way to get big and
strong, which is sets of 5 to 10 with
compound free weight and body weight
basics mostly. That builds basic
competence in a way nothing does. When
you're intermediate, you expand to
everything. You try to do it all, not at
the same time, but through variation.
Once you're advanced, remember, you have
years of being an intermediate under
your belt. Tons of data collected. Once
you're advanced, you'll know very well
what rep ranges fit best with which
muscles and which exercises. You will
continue to employ variation in rep
ranges, but they will be matched to the
muscle and exercise, not just random.
So, if I was an intermediate and I was
training with you and you were like,
"Hey, do you want to do stiff leg-legged
deadlifts or sets of 20?" I'd be like,
"Yeah, let's get it." But because I'm
advanced, if you were like, "Hey, you
want to do stiff leg deadlifts or sets
of 20?" I'd be like, "That probably not
going to work for me." Because I know
because I've tried it a whole bunch.
And if you're previously hurt in an
area, been previously hurt in an area,
or you're older, or you're just very
preference-wise very uninterested in
injury, and you respond very well to
higher reps, then higher reps than
average, you know, sets of 10 plus, 15
plus are probably the way to go. And if
you're traveling, low on sleep, high
fatigue, and you're hitting the gym, the
conditions are not ideal, higher reps
are almost certainly the way to go
because you can always get back to lower
reps later when things are much less
likely to get you hurt. And best news of
all, the RP Hypertrophy app is
completely agnostic to reps in the 5 to
30 rep range. It'll flag it when your
reps are way over 30. It'll flag you
when your reps are way under five. But
other than that, you can do what you
want. You can choose your reps, you can
fill in the ratings, and the app will
help you learn over time which rep
ranges work best for you, and your own
perception will also help in that
regard. Anyway, if you're confused about
what reps to do, you're probably no
longer confused. Still confused? Shoot
some questions in the comments.
Hopefully, folks help you out. Maybe you
can join our member section, which will
definitely help you out. And uh
remember, be open-minded, but uh be
smart. Injury sucks and you can do
better. See you guys next time.