Should i stick to one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle?

Question

Matt Eiden · Answer

Variety is the spice of life. Also I think your muscles are going to kind of adapt to one rep range if you stick with it. I would alternate. I would change up tempos. I would change up rep ranges. I would change up loads, more weight, less weight. But time under tension you can always try to manipulate as best you can. So I would do some 10 plus rep range to build some hypertrophy. I would do some 8 to 10 to build a little more strength. And then I would also try to do some heavier loads where you're doing 5 sets of 5 or things like that. But you can milk each of them for as long as you want or as long as your muscles feel like they can handle it. So if you do each for a few weeks or a few months even you should still be able to build some good muscle. But I would definitely vary your rep range. I wouldn't stick with one when trying to build muscle.

Dan Daly · Answer

Should I stick to one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle? Here's a cool study referenced by probably the foremost researcher on the topic, Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, suggesting that the more studies that come out, the more we realize that multiple rep ranges help to build muscle as long as you're working with a decent amount of effort. It's more about intensity than it is about the rep range. We also know there's an ideal amount of weekly accumulated volume that you need to hit to accumulate that hypertrophy or to stimulate it rather. But the rep ranges work out to work out don't matter so much as long as you're taking into account total volume for the week and the intensity is high.

Paul Edmondson · Answer

Should I stick to one rep range or alternate rep ranges when trying to build muscle? Now traditionally, done years ago, the 6-12 was the only range to build muscle in and that should never be challenged. However, recent science in the last 5-7 years, around 2015-16, Brad Schoenfeld has shown that the optimal way to build muscle is to vary your loading and rep range schemes. So going down as low as 3 reps, which most people would consider maximal strength, up to as high as 30 reps, which is low intensity, long duration, endurance type training, is the rep range to build muscle. Because type 1 muscle fibres, type 2 muscle fibres, high threshold motor unit muscle fibres, and sarcoplasmic fluid all hypertrophy within those different rep ranges. And your body gets accustomed to the same stimulus over a period of time, whereby those anabolic hormones that you secrete in muscle hypertrophy training start to negate or start to blunt their effects when you expose the body to the same stress. So vary your exercise on a regular basis and vary your loading and repetition schemes on a frequent basis.

Bryan Meyer · Answer

So, there's my buddy. Should I stick to one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle? So if you're just trying to get jacked and big, more sets, higher volume, super intense, kind of bodybuilding-ish stuff, and you want to take a couple of the exercises to fatigue. The other thing to think about too is do the harder exercises first, and then as you fatigue, oh that's cold, as you fatigue, the exercise fatigues with you. If you're focused on, man that wind's cold, if you're focused on more performance and strength, that's a completely different animal. But again, just to focus on getting big and getting jacked is increasing the sets, 10, 12, 15, going to fatigue, pairing exercises up, and that's no joke. So that's sometimes an off-season if you're trying to put on some mass on some athletes. Just be careful with your joints and stuff as you're putting a lot of wear and tear on them, but that's another story. So if we're talking about strength, the eccentric component is very important, and the other thing that you can do depending on time is micro-dose. So if you don't have an hour and a half, two hours to get to the gym, I personally, when I do my upper body stuff, it's 45 minutes, even less, is to micro-dose it. So you set the clock for 10, 20 minutes, and you pretty much don't stop but you're alternating body parts. And if it was an upper body day, you could do all your upper stuff and just go back and forth for that designated time. So hopefully that helps you add volume, add intensity, and go to fatigue for muscle.

Benjamin Kessel · Answer

Should I stick to one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle? General and building muscle, at least to my understanding, it's really about fatigue and making sure you're working hard and not plateauing. So alternating and switching up all different ranges is really, I think what's going to be most helpful to you. And that's also going to create different ways to fatigue your muscles. So that's going to, I would go that route. You know, there's been tons of research on all this and I just generally find that finding different ways to fatigue the muscles and all the different fibers is going to help build the muscle. And we're talking about that. If we're talking about, you know, absolute strength and things like that, different story, but we're just trying to build muscle, fatiguing it in all different ways and preventing plateau is the way to go.

John Sinclair · Answer

Should I stick to the one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle? Okay, I'm gonna say no, you shouldn't stick to one rep range. If your goal is going into the gym and you're only doing one repetition and you're trying to max out all the time, that's not gonna be beneficial for building muscle. So if you're focused on pure strength, then that's when you do a one RM. But if you're looking to build muscle, you need greater time under tension. So we can get sarcometric hypertrophy by lifting heavy weights, but that's generally around the three to six repetition range. So I would stick around there. And then if you're looking for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which means driving a lot of blood into that tissues, look at what the bodybuilders do. They do everything from repetitions as low as eight to as high as 20 to 25, even 30 sometimes. So you want, what I would do is I would alternate between ranges of three to six and then alternate between ranges of eight to 15. If you do that, that gives you a good balance of hypertrophy, acute variables with sets anywhere from eight sets per muscle group all the way up to 12 sets per muscle group and beyond if you're someone that likes that much volume.

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"Should i stick to one rep range or alternate when trying to build muscle?"