You Want Me To LIft What? And How Many Times!?

You Want Me To Lift What? And How Many Times?

Whether your goal is to gain muscle mass, improve power or to increase maximal strength, you must adjust your workout accordingly.  Different intensities (relative amount of weight lifted) , volumes (total amount of work performed or weight lifted in a workout) and rest periods must be employed in order to stress the musculature so that it adapts in the way you want it to.  If your goal is to increase strength, as you would expect, you need to lift very heavy loads with longer rest periods in between sets.  The longer rest periods allow your body to recover for the next set in order to complete quality reps at full strength.  To improve power, you again need to use a heavier load with longer rest periods while also focusing on exploding through your reps and try to move the weight as fast as you can.  During hypertrophy training your focus should be on high volume sets/reps  schemes utilizing a moderate load with shorter rest periods in between sets (feel the burn!).  Endurance training should incorporate lighter loads and moderate volumes with very short periods.  Typically endurance workouts are performed in a circuit style fashion moving from one station to the next very quickly.  Below is a chart that summarizes this info.

One common misconception people have is that they can “tone” a muscle group or certain area by performing specific exercises that work those muscle groups.  I don’t know how many times I’ve walked through a gym and heard “I want to just tone my stomach and thighs” or “I do 1,000 sit-ups a day and still can’t get my abs to show!”  The reason for this is because all muscle is covered by layers of fat, no matter how lean you are.  Obviously those who appear to be “ripped” have less fat covering muscle compared to Prince Fielder who has a pretty good jiggle to him while he’s running the bases.  Getting muscles to show is kind of a 2-step process.  First, you must develop or build up the muscles enough so that they are visible, and secondly you need to reduce the amount of fat that covers up the muscles.   Unfortunately there’s no such thing as “spot-reduction” weight loss, or just losing fat in 1 area.  Therefore you need to lose fat and it will start to slowly come off everywhere and your muscles will begin to show.  So after ready all this, now you have the tools you need to get what you what out your workouts. So, get off the computer, get your ass to gym and go big or go home!

Goal	Load/Intensity (%0f1RM	Repetitions	Sets	Rest Periods
Strength	>85%	<6	2-6	2-5 min
Power	80-90%	1-5	3-5	2-5 min
Hypertrophy	65-85%	6-12	3-6	30-90 sec
Endurance	<65%	>12	2-3	<30