Category Archives: Workouts
Strength Training vs. Cardio for Fat Loss
If you want to lose fat, get your a$$ off the eliptical machine and start hitting the weights!!!
I wrote another guest blog post for GainFitness about why strength training is far superior to traditional cardio for fat loss. Real fat loss is not about how many calories you burn the one hour that you exercise, it is how your choice of exercise effects the number of calories you burn THE OTHER 23 HOURS OF THE DAY. Strength training is superior in this respect. Here’s the link:
http://blog.gainfitness.com/2012/02/10/want-to-burn-fat-get-off-that-treadmill/
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GainFitness Guest Blog Post
Hey guys and gals,
I think I might have mentioned to you before that I’ve been working behind the scenes with a start-up company called GainFitness. They have a cool I-phone App and web tools that they are using to create mobile workouts and bring some of the benefits of personal training to the general public (program design, tracking tools, accountability, etc.).
Anyways, I wrote a guest blog post for them about the problems with “computer posture” and why mid-back training is so important in the office worker’s overall strength training routine. Here is the link:
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The Low-Down on Slowing Down for Better Results
I’m sorry that I’ve been MIA for a while. I was going through some transitions – all good ones – and as I worked steadily to get my shiznits back together, just didn’t feel like I had many helpful things to say. I’m happy to say that I’ve worked out the kinks, and I’m back!
It’s been just over 6 months since I competed in my first bikini contest. After returning to “real life”, and real eating (which somehow isn’t what most people consider “real,” even though we rarely eat processed food…but I digress), I’ve been working with Nate on finding a way to maintain a lean body going forward. It’s an ongoing process, but I’ve learned a lot and feel confident about the path I am on.
While the importance of diet has been emphasized over and over on this site, that doesn’t mean that you can “phone it in” with your workouts. If only 20% of your results will come from the time you spend in the gym, you better make that time worth something! One thing that I’ve learned over the past 6 months as I have been working to increase my lean muscle mass (something I’ve not really done in the past) is the importance of taking your time and being patient. This has been discussed ad nauseum in terms of your diet plan (you need to lose weight slowly, no extreme/crash diets, nothing happens overnight, etc), but is equally significant when working out.
Q: Is “Body-For-Life” a good way to get ripped?
ANSWER:
Well first off, I gotta’ question for you, and those following this. Does anyone else think the new T-mobile girl is hot? Is it just me? Some of my friends think I’m crazy, which makes me think I may be going crazy. That is entirely possible.
Ok Body For Life? Lets get this thing rolling.
If your goals are purely cosmetic (appearance first, performance second or not at all) which it sounds like they are, and you plan to consistently engage in a regular strength training program — which it sounds like you do, then I think Body For Life is one of the best commercial programs out there. I’d take it over any of the new trends towards low-carb or Paleo eating, or cross fit/cross-training.
Again, this is assuming regular anaerobic activity and appearance-based goals. If you are sedentary, a low-carb/Paleo-style diet is more appropriate because you aren’t burning a ton of carbohydrates and don’t need to replenish glycogen stores (a car sitting in the garage doesn’t need gas).
And if you have performace-based goals (improving strength, power, or muscular endurance), a cross-training program may be more appropriate. Programs geared towards performance should be different than those geared towards hypertrophy and fat loss. This reiterates what I’ve been saying on all along. There is no one universal program that is right for everyone, everywhere. The fitness industry needs to stop trying to slot everyone into one diet or training program. It should be the other way around. Every person needs to make sure their training program and diet MATCH their individual goals. Or in other words, prioritization necessitates specificity.
I’d say my nutrition advice has been influenced by several different resources: Paleo Nutrition, Sports Nutrition, the traditional Japanese Diet, and various authors in the fitness and bodybuilding communities — Bill Phillips and Body For Life being one of them. With your specific goals, I’d say you are heading down the right path. But pulling from my research and professional experiences, I’d say Body For Life is far from perfect. So I figured the best way to help you out is to go over the pros and cons of both the diet and training recommendations. You can decide from there what you think is the best approach.
Since diet has, by far, the biggest impact on body composition transformation, lets start there first.
BODY FOR LIFE DIET PROS:
1. Overall the diet composition and macronutrient ratios are basically a higher protein, moderate carbohydrate, lower fat approach. I think this is the best plan for anaerobic athletes. Sedentary folks (or those who are obese and/or diabetic, pre-diabetic, insulin resistant) would follow a more moderate protein, lower carbohydrate, higher healthy fat approach. But you ain’t sedentary right?
2. Each meal/snack is centered around a LEAN protein source. This helps provide the steady stream of amino acids you will need to initiate protein synthesis and build/maintain muscle. It also helps control blood sugar, hunger cravings, and feelings of satiety.
3. You are instructed to include a serving of complex carbohydrate with each meal/snack. This provides the glucose your body needs to refill glycogen stores. Essentially, it provides the fuel you need for training, and provides the anabolic stimulus your body needs to build muscle and respond to training sessions (carbs, and the resulting insulin release, shuttle amino acids into the muscle cell to initiate protein synthesis). So despite what you’ve heard, insulin is not all bad, especially for the athlete. No NATURAL hormone your body makes is all good or all bad, you just have to use diet and lifestyle factors to control them. The combination with protein helps to moderate insulin release better than eating carbs alone.
4. SIMPLICITY. The diet basically says to combine a serving of lean protein with a serving of complex carbs at each meal and snack. How simple is that dude? He even gives you serving shortcuts — a serving of protein is about the size of a deck of cards, a serving of carbohydrates is about the size of a fist. No measuring or weighing necessary.
5. There are some cool transformation stories, and pictures of hot bodies (girls in bikini’s, guys in board shorts — whatever you prefer).
BODY FOR LIFE DIET CONS:
1. The author is (or at least was) the owner of the supplement company EAS. So the diet, at least in some part, was created to promote and push supplement sales. He recommends 3 of the 6 meals/snacks come from his protein shakes or bars. I disagree with this. Whole foods are always better than supplements. The shakes and bars can be used for convenience from time to time (its better than a cheeseburger), but they should not be the core foundation of your routine. Too many artificial, chemical ingredients.
2. 6 meals/snacks is too much for most people, and too inconvenient for those living in the real world. I recommend spreading calories over 4-5 meals.
3. FOOD choices. I like the lean proteins, but I don’t like all of the carb selection recommendations. I’m with the Paleo-crowd on this one. He recommends a lot of the whole grain bread and cereal products. These can be problematic for a lot of people because (1) most people have a sensitivity to gluten (the protein in wheat, rye, and barley), if not a full blown allergy and (2) whole grains contain anti-nutrients like lectins and phytates that block mineral absorption and can be very hard on the digestive tract.
I would stick to more natural carbohydrate sources — think caveman or cultural carbs — so things like yams, potatoes, rice varieties, vegetables, and 1-2 pieces of WHOLE fruit.
BODY FOR LIFE TRAINING PROS:
1. It was one of the first commercial programs to acknowledge the importance of strength training for FAT LOSS, not just building muscle. Strength training is crucial for fat loss because it helps build muscle, boost metabolism, improve insulin sensitivity, and stimulates natural lipolytic (fat-burning) hormones like growth hormone.
2. It emphasizes a 3-day a week strength training program, which is great. It is also realistic and sustainable for most people.
3. It uses simple, basic bodybuilding-style exercises, which I believe are the best for transforming a body, not the new-age circus acts that are going on in gyms today (stand on one foot on a Bosu ball, close your eyes, touch your nose, then do a dumbbell curl). That stuff looks cool, and is marketable, but the basics are the basics for a reason — they are far more effective. Just look at the bodies of some of the trainers prescribing some of the more complicated, “innovative” stuff. Do they even look like they work out? Remember, fitness trends come and go, but basic barbell and dumbbell exercises have stood the test of time.
BODY FOR LIFE TRAINING CONS:
1. In addition to the 3-days a week of strength training, he also recommends 3-days a week of high intensity cardio. I think this is way too much for most people to recover from. I think 4 days of high intensity activity is plenty for most NATURAL athletes. Beyond that, you start impairing recovery ability.
2. While I believe strength training should be the core of any fat loss plan, I think traditional cardio is overrated anyway.
3. Modifications. If I were to modify the training program I would just tell you to do 4 days of strength training and cut the traditional cardio. Or you can stick to the 3-days of strength training, and go outside and do some non-exercise specific walking on the days you were supposed to do the high-intensity cardio. Walk for your errands kind of a thing. This will allow you to burn a few extra calories without all of the negative drawbacks of traditional cardio (cortisol elevation, muscle loss, reduced testosterone levels, the need to wear high and tight running shorts, etc.).
*Last tip. You don’t need to buy the book. The website tells you all you need to know, and has the food lists, etc.
Alright, hope that helps.
From Runner to Ripped
Before I talk about my bikini contest prep, I should give you some history about my fitness and athletic background…
I started playing volleyball in middle school, and continued through high school and college. Being on the NCAA Division III team of an institution that prized research over athletics – and had torn its former Division I football stadium down to build a library – our training sessions weren’t terribly hard-core. Nonetheless, I always gave it my all and stayed in decent enough shape (after I recovered from gaining the “Freshman 20”).
When my collegiate “career” ended, I started jogging. Slowly. With basketball players whose advanced cardiovascular conditioning meant they would run and talk to each other, thereby distracting me from my own heavy breathing, while I simply listened but didn’t have to respond (not like I could anyway).
I kept it up, and in my own time I grew to like jogging (or dare I call it running? How fast do you need to go for it to count as “running”?) This was peculiar to me, since one of the reasons I stopped playing basketball in high school was because we ran too much. I would get anxiety attacks before the timed mile, and wanted to stay home sick when we had the dreaded “6-lap run”, which is 1.5 miles. But I digress.
Having been an athlete, I was no stranger to the weight room, but sometimes I just didn’t feel like going to the gym, and when crunched for time I figured a cardio session would give me better results than lifting weights. Cardio burns more calories, right? And burning calories burns fat, and then you lose weight. I thought if I ran enough, I could eat whatever I wanted and still control my weight. In my 20′s, this was certainly the case. Once the clock struck 30, however, not so much. Thankfully, this is about the time I met Nate.
Nate’s vocation and his passion for weight training made me more aware of my own workouts, and I asked for his help. In the beginning, he created plans for me with a significant amount of weight training, but also included cardio to make me happy. This made for long sessions at the gym, up to 90 minutes, just so I could get my cardio in at the end.
He tried to get me to curtail my cardio numerous times, but I was always resistant. For a while we compromised by switching from endurance cardio (30-60 minutes) to high-intensity interval training (a.k.a. HIIT, which lasted 20-30 minutes). I could still run, got my heart pounding, and I thought sure, HIIT makes you burn more calories in a shorter period of time! That’s good!
As Nate did more research on diet and exercise and the effects of both on body composition, he became more and more convinced that the extra cardio I was doing was actually hindering my goals of getting/staying lean. When I decided to compete in the bikini contest, he would only train me under the condition that I follow his instructions without question. I was completely in his hands.
Nate designed my training plan with the following goals: (1) build muscle up top (I’m sort of pear-shaped, so this would make me look more proportionate), and (2) create some kind of muscle in my lower half, where I previously had none. When I started training for the competition, I had what I called a “butthigh” (pronounced “buh-THIGH”) – my butt ran right into the back of my thigh, with no distinguishing difference between the two! Even when I tried to flex my glutes, nothing happened. So pathetic. But the only way to make it better was to work it out! Here’s a sample of what my training plan looked like at the end of my contest training:
TUES — BACK, LEGS I
- Rack pull-ups 3 x max
- One arm rotating dumbell rows 3 x 10
- Lat pulldowns 3 x 10
- Single stiff leg deadlifts 3 x 15
- Single glute bridges 3 x 15
- Sumo deadlifts 3 x 15
WED – CHEST, ARMS, ABS
- Flat dumbell press 3 x 10
- Push-ups 3 x max
- Rope extensions superset alternate dumbell curls 3 x 10
- Skullcrushers superset concentration curls 3 x 10
- Cable crunch 3 x max
- Decline crunch 3 x max
SAT — LEGS II
- Elevated split squats 3 x 15
- Hyperextensions 3 x 15
- Hamstring curls 3 x 15
- Cable glute kickbacks 3 x 15
- Calf raises 3 x 15
- Seated calf raises 3 x 15
SUN – SHOULDERS, ARMS
- Seated dumbell side laterals 3 x 10
- Seated high rope rows 3 x 10
- Alternate dumbell front raise 3 x 10
- Rope extensions superset Alternate dumbell curls 3 x 10
- Skullcrushers superset hang concentration curls 3 x 10
- Cable crunch 3 x 15-20
- Decline crunch 3 x max
It looks like a lot, but by timing my rest periods between sets (40 seconds in between each set), things moved along quite nicely, and I was never in the gym for more than 45-60 minutes. No different than going to a class at your own gym, right?
What’s missing from these workouts? CARDIO!
That’s right, I did no formal cardio during the 12-week period before my contest. Our focus was building lean muscle mass, and using the caloric deficit from my diet to lose fat. You’ve probably heard that muscle burns more calories in your body than fat. Thus, by increasing the amount of lean muscle mass in my body (by weight training), I not only look better and more “toned” (which is the point of training for a bikini contest, right?), but my body then burns more calories throughout the day, which results in more fat loss, which means looking even BETTER. You see the wonderful cycle here?
Were you afraid you’d get too muscular from lifting all those weights?
I was never worried that I’d get huge like a man, because that is physically impossible without using steroids or growth hormones. However, in the past when I trained with both weights and cardio, I did have concerns of getting bigger than I was comfortable with. Each time I started a program (and there were many “new starts”) I would feel my pants get tighter, and I was convinced that I was getting “bulky” from doing lunges, squats, and leg extensions. My ridiculous way of thinking was this: Muscles will just make me look bigger; when you’re wearing pants no one can see your muscles, they just know that your legs are big! RIDICULOUS, RIGHT? My knee-jerk reaction was to cut the weights and increase the cardio.
What I needed to realize, and finally did in time, was that I had to give my body time to adjust. I started to build muscle, and for some period of time I would feel bigger, but that was only until my body actually started losing fat. Until then I’d have my new muscle plus my old fat…I needed to be patient. Nate promised me that if I would just “stick with the plan”, my body would respond just the way we wanted. As always, he was right.
How long did it take to see results?
My upper body responded the fastest, and soon the trainers at his Nate’s gym would see me working out and make comments to him like “Dude, your wife is ripped!” We went to Hawai’i a few weeks after I had started training for the show, and family members commented on my “guns”, which were apparently visible from a balcony four floors up. The comments made me very self-conscious at first. I wasn’t sure if that was the look I wanted…did I really want to be “ripped”? Did that mean I looked like a guy?
After Nate explained to me that these comments were coming from trainers, who know what they are talking about and what their clients aspire to look like, and family members, who are supportive and encouraging, and I became less worried, and more confident. I enjoyed getting stronger and feeling like I was making progress with my training, and that I was making positive gains in some regard. These gains were a sort of positive reinforcement for me, and inspired me to keep working hard.
My lower body took longer to respond. This was expected, but I was still worried. It was slow going at first, but after 2 months I starting losing fat in my lower half. I didn’t even notice it at first, but suddenly my clothes were getting looser, and eventually nearly all of my pants were hanging on me (and looked borderline horrible). It was like a snowball effect, and was actually quite amazing. The last two weeks before the show were the most significant, and the change most noticeable, and the weight just fell off. Surprisingly to me, the “bulky legs” I feared in the beginning never matriculated. In fact, I could have used a little more muscle and definition.
How much weight did you lose? What was your body fat percentage?
To be honest, while I would periodically get on the scale, I never used my weight as a regular gauge of my progress. A person’s bodyweight fluctuates a lot, even over the course of a single day, based on food and water intake, exercise, and hormones, so to track it frequently would mean nothing. It might have been interesting to have taken regular measurements of weight or body fat percentage for data purposes, but when came down to the bikini contest, none of those things really matter. All that matters is how you look on stage, and how you look in person.
What did you learn from this method of training?
I learned first-hand something that Nate has been telling me for years…that when it comes to body composition change, or losing fat, or just trying to look good, weight training trumps cardio every time. From personal experience I can tell you that I was leaner and had a better physique after training for this bikini contest – with no cardio – than I have ever been in my entire life. If you look at my photos, I don’t look overly muscular at all.
Think about it: compare at the body of a marathon runner vs. that of a figure or fitness model. Which one of the two is leaner with more definition in their muscles? Who looks more “fit” or “defined”? The figure or fitness model, who will unequivocally be lifting more weights in their training programs than the distance athlete.
That’s not to say that cardio doesn’t have value. It absolutely does. But you need to be sure you know WHY you are doing the cardio. If it’s because you like it, it feels good to you, you are trying to get your heart rate up for an extended period of time to increase your cardiovascular endurance, etc., then yes, cardio is the answer. But if you simply want to look good – or great – and lose fat and gain some muscle, then get off the treadmill or stairmaster and pick up some weights!
Choosing the Right Program in 2011
One of the “Miyaki-isms” I repeat almost daily in my training business is this: training for performance is different than training for appearance. That slogan has been sprinkled over various articles and posts on this site. As the New Year approaches and everyone starts setting their goals and resolutions, I thought I’d take a moment to readdress that issue. I want to ensure the training program you choose in the New Year matches your training goals.
I would say that most people’s New Year’s goals are related to appearance — we want to change our body composition and lose fat. Great. But here is the problem for you. Very few trainers these days are prescribing programs that are appropriate for physique development (and on a side note, maybe that’s why there are so few trainers who are actually in shape themselves — ever think about that one)? New-age, “innovative” trainers are focusing on things like functional training, balance, unstable training, sport-specific training, multi-directional/multi-movement complex exercises, etc. These are all fine and have their place, but they are not ideal, or lets say efficient, for changing how you look.
There has been a blending of strength training concepts in today’s program designs. This results in a jack-of-all-trades and expert at none kind of a thing. That’s cool if that is what you want, but if you just want to look good/change your appearance, you need to prioritize, and focus solely on the training principles that emphasize specific physiological adaptations. Here are some different responses your body can have to training protocols:
1. Balance: This is mostly a nervous system response, not a muscular one. The body gets better at recruiting the muscles/motor units that stabilize the body.
2. Strength: This is also mostly a nervous system response, with some muscular side effect. A lot of strength development is the body getting more efficient at turning on all of the motor units in a given muscle group, and generating maximum force for a single lift (or 1-5). This is good for producing force, but generally the muscle fibers do not spend enough time under tension for an adaptive response.
3. Endurance: This is mostly a metabolic response, not a muscular one. The body gets better at dealing with lactic acid, and becomes more fatigue resistant.
4. Multi-directional/multi-movement exercises. These have become more common-place in the gyms — twisting, lunging, one arm-thrust curls. Again, because of the complexity of the movement, this is more of a nervous system response than a muscular one. The body gets more efficient at moving in multiple directions and planes of motion, but none of the individual muscles receive enough tension and overload for physique development. Rhythmic gymnastics helps you move in multiple directions too, but its probably not going to help you look much better, unless you are Will Ferrell in Old School.
5. Power: This is all about learning how to generate a lot of force and accelerate through a movement. Golfers generate a lot of power, but most golfers are fat. Are you beginning to see the theme? This is more of a nervous system “thing” then a muscular “G-thang”.
6. Flexibility: This is about improving your body’s range of motion. It has nothing to do with physique development. Sorry folks, but yoga and stretching are not going to get you ripped.
7. Muscular development: Finally, what we really want. Building muscle shapes the body and boosts the metabolic rate (which in turn helps you burn fat). This is about tension and overload on the muscle. This is best accomplished with basic exercises — compound and isolation – working the muscles through their natural functions and planes of motion with enough resistance AND a certain amount of time under tension and volume.
Here’s the thing, most programs these days focus on 1-6, very few focus on #7. Fancy multi-directional movements and training on unstable surfaces are about 1 and 4. Boot camps, group exercise classes, and cross-training programs generally highlight 3-5. Yoga and stretching are about #6. And guys loading up the bar with too much weight, using shitty form, screaming, and eeking out 3 horrible reps is about #1, if anything at all.
I feel bad for the consumers who have no clue about proper training and come into the gym in the New Year. They get hooked up with trainers who have no idea how to train people for physique development. They think they are training for body composition change, but when you analyze their actual programs, you discover they are training for anything and everything BUT their goal.
Take some accountability for your own results. I highly you suggest you read my Body Composition Training 101 Series. This will give you a knowledge-base so you can critically analyze different training programs, and find one that is appropriate for your specific goals.
Maybe if you educate yourself, you won’t have to make a resolution next year because you’ll finally accomplish this year’s goal.
Body Composition Training 101: Intensity
Intensity: Qualitative measure of your effort level in the gym, how “hard” you work out.
Recommendations: Push yourself to momentary muscular failure on most sets.
TOUGHEN UP!
Here is the tough love truth — most people just don’t work out hard enough, or use enough discipline with their nutrition plans, to get noticeable physique transformation results. Trust me, it takes work, it takes A LOT OF WORK, to build a fit body. Sure, many people may be following an intelligently designed plan or program, but they are just going through the motions. They check off this exercise and that exercise like it’s a grocery-shopping list, never digging down and exerting anything close to maximal effort. They don’t challenge themselves or push beyond their limits. They do just what is comfortable. That ain’t body composition training to me.
BAD -> DECENT vs. GOOD -> GREAT
Here’s the deal. Barring psychological issues beyond the scope of this article, it’s relatively easy to go from severely deconditioned, overweight, and out of shape, into decent shape. You clean up the diet, implement some basic fitness nutrition principles with some moderate level of consistency, walk more, and strength train using body composition-based training principles. It takes breaking some bad habits, building some good habits, and kind of just showing up and going through those new motions. You don’t have to challenge yourself too much to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
But to go from decent/good shape into great shape, that’s a whole other ball game my friends. Going from 40% body fat to 20% body fat is one thing. Going from 15% body fat to 5% body fat is another. It takes an incredible amount of discipline, consistency, effort, and intensity. Part of that entails going beyond your comfort zone and pushing your body to the limits with your training program.
This is nature. As human beings, we are not meant to be obese. It’s not healthy, it’s not functional, and it’s not natural. In the Information Age, the prevalence of this condition is so high because we have moved so far away from our evolutionary past. We eat too many processed foods, have never-ending access to an abundance of food, eat ridiculous portion sizes, and don’t move enough. Move closer to our past by eating more natural foods in moderate amounts and exercising/moving more, and you can maintain a more natural, decent weight without a ton of effort.
But at the same time, it’s not natural to be ripped at 5% body fat. It goes against our genes. Keeping a certain amount of body fat for energy reserves was advantageous for survival in caveman times, and our bodies have held on to this natural survival mechanism in the modern era. If a group were stranded in the desert, the fitness model would be the first to die due to lack of energy reserves, the overweight person would be second (because they couldn’t defend themselves or travel far to try and reach safety), and the person with just an average weight and build would have the best chance at survival.
We are training against nature to get ripped to the bone. If you have these higher aspirations of top-level physique development, than at some point you will be going against nature’s intentions. This means incredible discipline with the diet. And for the purposes of this article, it means incredible intensity in the gym. In other words, it means busting butt to push your body well beyond what you think it is capable of.
People who have never attained low, single digit body fat percentages severely underestimate how difficult the process really is. Oh just pop a couple of fat burners and protein shakes, and pull out the “get shredded in 6 weeks” training program from the latest fitness magazine, and presto, you’re on the cover of said fitness magazine. Dude, or sista, I wish it really were that easy. Most fitness athletes, models, and bodybuilders (minus the genetically elite) have been training their whole lives to build their bodies. What makes you think you can do it in 6 weeks by just by showing up and going through the motions?
TRAINING TO FAILURE
The real road to “rippedville” starts with knowledge. Through this article series, I hope I’ve provided you with the base knowledge necessary to train specifically for cosmetic enhancement. But all of that knowledge is meaningless unless it is applied consistently, and applied with a warrior’s level of intensity.
Getting ripped is about maximizing your lean muscle-to-body fat ratio. It’s about building lean muscle levels higher than what nature intended. It’s about slashing body fat lower than what nature intended. This means asking your body to do what it is currently unaccustomed to. In other words, you need to train to failure on most of your working sets to force your body to respond.
If you just do what you are already capable of in the gym, there is no stimulus for your body to change. The body prefers homeostasis, or to remain in its current state of development. If you want to reach the upper echelon of physical appearance, you have to consistently force your body to adapt to higher and higher levels of training stress.
INTENSITY ASTERISKS
1. Intensity is not just about a quantitative measure like how much weight is on the bar. It’s more of a qualitative measure about how hard you push your body. It sounds counter-intuitive, but many people actually reduce training intensity by increasing their training weights, due to the deterioration of proper exercise form. Conversely, many people would benefit by reducing their training weights and focusing more on true muscular overload.
Remember this is not powerlifting or ego training. It is about building and shaping your body. Don’t worry so much about the weights you use, focus on squeezing every last ounce of effort out of the target muscle. The weights you use should be secondary to the effort exerted within the set.
2. People often misinterpret what training to failure really means. In regards to strength training, we are talking about momentary, localized muscular failure. We’re not talking about system wide collapse where you crash to the ground and can no longer move. Simply train to the point where the muscles lose the ability to complete the task at hand with a given resistance.
3. Never sacrifice form for more reps or more weight. That’s not training to muscular failure, that’s cheating, incorporating other muscle groups, and/or using momentum; all which take tension off the muscle. Real failure training means training to the point where you can’t complete another rep with proper form. Anything beyond that is counterproductive.
To summarize lift, lift hard, maintain good form, challenge yourself, and tell nature’s whole body fat survival mechanism to kiss your ripped ass.
Body Composition Training 101: Inter-set Rest
Inter-set Rest — the amount of time you rest in between sets
Recommendations — 30 – 120 seconds
Did you think I would leave any training variable to chance? We get down to every little detail in regards to physique development, including interest rest. Applying sound principles to every step of the process is called proper program design. That’s the way to use scientific knowledge to our full advantage. That’s the way to come up with the most efficient training strategies for body composition enhancement. That’s the way to build THE optimal plan for your goals.
BACK TO THE CHALKBOARD
According the National Strength and Conditioning Association:
The length of the rest period between sets and exercises is highly dependent on the goal of training, the relative load lifted, and the athlete’s training status (if the athlete is not in good physical condition, rest periods initially may need to be longer than typically assigned).
Their rest period length assignments based on individual training goals are as follows:
- Strength: 2-5 minutes
- Power: 2-5 minutes
- Hypertrophy: 30-90 seconds
- Muscular endurance: <30 seconds
In addition:
The use of appropriate exercise intensities and rest intervals allows for the “selection” of specific energy systems during training and results in more efficient and productive regimens for specific athletic events with various metabolic demands.
Their work-to-rest period ratios based on exercise (set) time and primary physiological systems stressed are as follows:
- Phoshagen (5-10 second sets) = 1:12 to 1:20 work:rest ratio
- Fast glycolysis (15-30 second sets) = 1:3 to 1:5
- Fast glycolysis and oxidative (1-3 minutes) = 1:3 to 1:4
- Oxidative (>3 minutes) = 1:1 to 1:3
*Fast glycolysis is the primary systems we are using in strength training programs designed specifically for physique development.
*So a typical 30 second hypertrophy set would necessitate a 90-to-150 second rest period.
You can see that even with the time you rest between sets, training for performance (either endurance or strength) is different than training for appearance. That’s why your training program, and ALL of its individual parameters, needs to be tailored to fit your specific goals.
THE CIRCUIT TRAINERS
There are a lot of training programs based on the principle of go-go-go, with no rest between sets or exercises. Examples would include circuit training, cross training, boot camp style workouts, hot dog eating contests, and the Miyaki Brothers at an all-you-can-eat sushi joint.
As you can see, however, this style of training is more appropriate for building muscular endurance than it is for building actual muscle (hypertrophy) — the most important part (training-wise) of the physique transformation process. With circuit training you’ll be going through a lot of sets and exercises, but you won’t be maximizing muscular development. It’s like going to work, doing a lot of busy-work, but getting nothing done.
Many trainees mistakenly believe that rapid training improves training efficiency. Efficiency, however, involves two factors — doing the best job AND doing it in the least amount of time possible. Rushing through workouts covers “the least amount of time possible part”, but it’s not doing the best job in terms of cosmetic enhancement.
It’s time to dispel a widespread training myth. Despite what you’ve heard, circuit-style training does not help you burn more body fat. This is misguided thinking. Well, because of fuel dynamics, maybe it helps you burn a small fraction more during your actual training. But remember, visual fat loss is not about how many calories you burn while training. It’s about all of the calories you burn in the recovery and repair process in between training sessions. In other words, its not about how many calories you burn in the one hour training session, its about how many calories you burn in the other 23 hours of the day.
How do you increase that number? The best way is to build metabolic-boosting muscle. And how do you accomplish that? By implementing a strength training program that is designed around established hypertrophy principles. Your weight training workouts should never be about “burning fat”. They should always be about building muscle. Lean muscle will IN TURN coax your body into burning more body fat over time.
I guess part of the problem is that we are an attention deficit disorder generation. People need to be moving all of the time, and just want to rush through their training programs. These days they’re so wired up on 32oz coffees or Red Bull’s wings they can’t sit still for a second, let alone thirty-to-ninety.
THE SOCIALIZERS AND STRENGTH GUYS
On the other end of the extreme you have the people who do a set, and then walk around cruising the scene for ten minutes before they do their next set. They are talking with friends, telling everyone about their life, making plans for the weekend, etc. Or, they are staring at the chic’s or dude’s asses, whatever you prefer, trying to make a move, and are more interested in turning the gym into a nightclub scene than they are actually working out.
And the vain meatheads and diva’s, listen up. If I can stare at the mirror and fall in love with myself in less than 90 seconds, anyone can. Besides, you can go right back to the mirror for another 90 seconds after your next set, but you have to get the job done too. You have to stay focused on the task at hand.
In all seriousness, there are ATHLETES who do benefit from longer rest periods — power and strength athletes. Longer rest between sets can be beneficial for two reasons: (1) The nervous system takes longer to recover than the individual muscle fibers (2) Complete resynthesis of ATP stores, the compound that fuels muscular activity, seems to occur within 3-5 minutes. Full recovery equals more strength and better lifting totals, which is the name of the game in these sports.
But remember, training for strength and sport performance is different than training for development and physique appearance.
THE MIDDLE GROUND FOR HYPERTROPHY
As you now know, we have a lot of training parameters we must follow to get the best body composition transformation results. We have lower limits of training volume, lower limits of training load to produce an adaptive response, and upper limits of training duration. The only way to accomplish all of these goals simultaneously is with moderate interest rests.
Rest periods that are too short limit training load. The body needs a certain amount of time to clear lactic acid (a by-product of anaerobic metabolism) from the blood and resynthesize ATP, the compound that fuels muscular contractions. If you try to jump back in too soon, your performance will suffer, and you will not be able to achieve the same amount of muscular overload in successive sets. Lactic acid will inhibit muscular contraction. A sprinter would not be able to perform a 100-yard dash at maximum capacity, and turn around and do it again at the same intensity level without some sort of rest.
Ultra-short rests limit training load, makes your weight training more aerobic in nature, and predominantly uses slow-twitch/endurance muscle fibers to complete the near-continuous tasks. This limits fast-twitch fiber recruitment and overload, which is the key to physique development. You become more fatigue-resistant and build muscular endurance, but you won’t drastically change your physical appearance. Training for growth needs to be more intermittent/interval-based. This allows the system to recover so you can maximize tension and overload with successive sets.
Rest periods that are too long force you to either (a) reduce the amount of training volume per muscle group or (b) exceed training duration recommendations. Neither of these scenarios is optimal for physique development. We need a certain amount of volume to maximize muscle growth, but also need to limit training duration to prevent overproduction of cortisol and muscle oxidation (muscle wasting). This involves finding the sweet spot for interest rest.
Remember for pure strength development, we should rest longer between sets because the nervous system takes longer to recover than the muscular system. But as physique athletes we are not trying to maximize strength, we are trying to maximize development. We can jump back in a little sooner to further overload the muscular system without waiting for full recovery of the nervous system. We are training our body for development, not our ego for maximum lifts. And many believe that training for growth involves some degree of incomplete recovery, oxygen debt, and accumulation of fatigue.
If you’ve made it this far in the series, you probably are beginning to understand that hormones play a critical role in the physique development process. Much of our program design is geared towards maximizing anabolic/fat burning hormone output and minimizing catabolic/fat storing hormone output. Well, moderate rest periods, right around one-minute, provide the biggest increases in acute testosterone and growth hormone output. This is a large reason why these rest periods are associated with maximizing the hypertrophy response.
In short, don’t rush through your sets and circuit train, rest, but don’t rest too long.
Body Composition Training 101: Exercise Form
Exercise form: The manner in which you execute/perform a particular lift
Recommendations: Use various tempo prescriptions, always with a controlled negative/lowering phase. Most common: 3-1-1-0, 3-0-1-0, 2-0-2-0, 2-0-2-1.
If I was forced to put a number on it, I’d say that 75% of the average gym population is exercising improperly. A good percentage of those people are just plain exercising dangerously. You know what I’m talking about. The heaving, limbo barbell curls. The sternum crushing, bouncing barbell bench press. The swinging, hip thrust pull-up. The knee shredding, lower back crushing rebound squat. The list goes on and on…
POINT A TO POINT B, OR SOMETHING MORE?
You see people do all kinds of body contortions to complete a lift, solely thinking in terms of moving the bar from Point A to Point B. This builds the ego, not the body, and predisposes trainees to injury.
Appearance-based training, as opposed to Power lifting or Olympic lifting, is all about stimulating and overloading the muscle, it is less about how much weight is actually on the bar. We are not trying to get better at various lifts for competitive purposes. The lifts are simply a means to an end. They are tools we use to achieve our ultimate goal — physique transformation.
Your muscles don’t know the difference between 50lbs and 500lbs (ok yes they do, but for educational purposes just bear with me), they only know if the workload they’ve been given has forced each and every motor unit and muscle fiber to fire to exhaustion. This is what causes muscular overload, and a resulting adaptive response (muscle growth). For some, that very well may be 500lbs, for some it may only be 50lbs.
Cheating, using momentum, etc. reduces tension and workload on the target muscle and allows it to shift to the other muscles and/or joints. At best this is ineffective for physique development. At worst it can predispose you to training injury.
Coach Scott Abel talks a lot about this in his various works on bodybuilding and fitness training. He advises body composition athletes to think in the following terms, “train the muscle, not the movement.” In other words, we are using the barbell biceps curl to overload the biceps and force biceps growth. We are not barbell curling just to get better/stronger at barbell curling. For physique development, you are better off using 60lbs with proper form (controlled negative, no rebound, etc.) than using 100lbs with improper form (dropping the weight, heaving it up with knees, shoulders, lower back, and everything else EXCEPT the biceps).
Now don’t misunderstand me. We DO want to get stronger. The hypertrophy process is somewhat dependant upon progressive overload and strength development. We just don’t want to see strength as the be-all-end-all (there are other factors involved in the physique development process), and sacrifice proper form for strength increases at all costs.
EGO TRAINING
You should train for yourself, to develop our own body, not for anyone else. We all fall at various places under the strength spectrum. And I can guarantee you this. There is always someone out there who is stronger than you are. At the same time, there is always someone out there who is weaker and more uncoordinated than you are. So don’t even worry about it. Where someone else is at and what they are lifting in the gym makes no difference on what your body is capable of.
Besides, it’s not about where you are at; it’s about where you are going that matters. Feel free to give me a hug in spirit right now.
Despite this, there will always be the strong urge/inclination to ego train, especially when a hot chic (or dude, whatever you prefer) is training right next to you. “Slap a few plates on Joey. Gotta warm up.” So here are a few errors to keep an eye out for:
1. Using momentum/rebound to lift the weight.
The best example of this error is the barbell bench press. The person barely controls the weight down and rapidly and violently bounces the bar off the chest to lift it back up. Not only is this dangerous for the sternum and shoulder joint (most pec and rotator cuff injuries happen this way), it is ineffective for chest development.
The chest fibers are maximally stimulated in the stretch-to-midrange position. The top third of the movement is all triceps. By bouncing the bar off the chest, you are eliminating most of the lift that overloads the chest muscles. For physique development you are better off lightening the load, controlling the negative, and using pure pec power to lift the weight up.
2. Incorporating other muscle groups
The best example of this is the barbell curl. The biceps contract to flex the arm at the elbow joint, pulling the forearm towards the upper arm. What kinesiology tells us, then, is that only the forearm should be moving with a proper barbell curl, at least a barbell curl specifically performed for maximizing tension and overload on the biceps.
If any other body part is moving, you are incorporating other muscle groups to perform the lift, thus reducing tension on the biceps. You are starting to train the movement, and moving away from training the muscle.
Slight cheat would be upper arm movement. Muscles generally work on the insertion point, and thus initiate movement on the limb beneath it. Biceps contract and shorten to move the forearm. If your upper arm is moving, it is being initiated by shoulder contractions.
Major cheats would be lower back swinging, possibly combined with knee movement.
3. Not using a full range of motion
The two best example of this are the squat and leg press. Trainees will load up a bunch of plates on the bar, I assume to try and impress the rest of the gym crowd, and then proceed to barely budge the bar or sled ¼ inch. That does nothing to build the legs, and stresses the knee joints and lower back.
4. Letting gravity do all the work
People think of weight training as “lifting”, but research shows a lot of the structural damage that triggers the repair and growth processes occurs during the “lowering” or negative phase of the lift. If you lift the weight, and drop it down without using the target muscles to control it against gravity, you are missing out on many of the physique enhancing benefits of weight training. You certainly are not maximizing your development, and you are predisposing yourself to either traumatic injury (muscle, tendon strains) and/or chronic pain (join wear and tear).
TEMPO TRAINING
If I could give just one piece of form/technique advice to the average gym-goer, it would be this — slow it down — just a little bit. Not excessively, as with super slow training, which is meaningless for physique development, but just a little bit.
Tempo training is one of the best techniques to teach people proper form without actually being there to correct all of the little technique errors. It’s also a great way to ensure you are overloading the muscles, and not using too much momentum or rebound to initiate lifts.
To get your beach bod, you gotta use good form. Tempo prescriptions (made famous in the strength training world by Charles Poliquin) help trainees accomplish this goal. There are four numbers in the system. I change tempos all of the time but I think a great one to start with is 3-1-1-0.
The first number (3) is the negative or lowering portion of the exercise — when you’re muscles are elongating and working to resist gravity. You should lower the weight under control in three seconds, instead of just letting it drop towards the ground.
The second number (1) is the transition phase between the negative and the positive (lifting) — bottom of the bench press. A one second pause eliminates momentum and forces the target muscle to initiate the movement.
The third number (1) is the actual lift. You don’t want to sling the weight up, but you do want to use some controlled force to stimulate fast-twitch muscle fiber recruitment. Super-slow training (10 second lift) reduces the workload too much and is ineffective for muscle development. That’s why they call it weight lifting, not weight budging. So power the weight up in a controlled fashion without cheating or using other muscle groups to get the job done.
The fourth number (0) is the lockout phase. A good example is the top of the bench press where your arms are extended. Most people lock out their joints, rest for a second between reps, and allow the target muscle to rest. This prolongs the set but reduces tension on the muscle — not what we want for physique development. Stopping just short of locking out and immediately starting the next rep without a rest is the best way to overload the target muscle.
ONE FINAL THOUGHT
If you can’t feel your muscles working during a set, you probably are not doing it right. Look at slowing things down until you can feel the target muscle(s) working, especially with isolation movements. Think slow stretch and controlled, but forceful contraction with each rep. Remember, you are there to train and develop your body, not just sling weights around.
Body Composition Training 101: Reps
Repetitions (Reps): The number of times you lift the weight in a given set.
Recommendations: 6-15 reps per set
THE SCIENCE IS CLEAR
The research and literature regarding adaptations to strength training protocols are quite clear:
- 1-5 reps are primarily for strength
- 6-15 reps are primarily for size/development
- 15+ reps are primarily for muscular endurance
That’s simple enough to apply in the real world, but that’s also the problem. People feel they always need more complicated and revolutionary theories to get results. Trainers and coaches feel the need to invent exotic rep schemes and periodization plans to establish credibility, project value, and remain on the cutting edge.
This problem is compounded by the fact that many consumers are lazy and don’t get results on basic programs because (a) they are not following those programs with any real consistency or (b) they are not working hard enough within those programs to elicit noticeable change. They remain overweight, and bash the program for its ineffectiveness. But the simple, tough love truth is that its not the program, it’s the person.
As a result, consumers feel the need to go outside of basic training parameters and embark on the never-ending search for the magical programs that will produce magical results. They believe any marketing flash and unscrupulous claims, without checking the credibility of those claims. Hence, the market place is flooded with false promises, and training programs that are moving further and further away from the scientific foundations that produce real world results.
If you want to stop chasing infomercial claims and change your physique, you need to get away from the fitness marketing madness, and get back to objective scientific data. Trust me, if you can’t get results busting your ass doing basic exercises with basic set and rep schemes, nothing is going to help you.
IN DEFENSE OF THREE SETS OF TEN
The standard three sets of ten training protocol has taken a beating by the so-called “experts” and “innovative” trainers within today’s fitness industry. This is the first rep scheme to get blasted for its archaic and uninformed recommendations. “Oh, that’s so 1980′s” or “What did you just copy that out of a fitness magazine or bodybuilding book?”
Are these jokers frickin’ serious? Three sets of ten falls right within the parameters of optimal training for physique development. Informed and intelligent coaches and trainers that care more about their clients results (and not just making up new crap to sell) actually copied that scheme out of numerous research journals, University labs tests, and anecdotal evidence from thousands of physique athletes who make their living from their physical appearance. Remember, simple on paper does not necessarily mean simple in research and design. E=MC2 encapsulates a lot in one little equation.
ONE TO FIVE
Perhaps looking at the physiological responses to OTHER rep ranges will help clarify our stance on the optimal rep ranges specifically designed for physique development. What happens with low rep training, or sets of 1-5 reps? Other than meatheads loading up too much weight on the bar and (a) using terrible form or (b) budging it ¼ inch?
Low rep sets primarily lead to nervous system adaptations. The body becomes more efficient at recruiting the maximum number of motor units possible, and generating incredible amounts of force for a very short period of time. This is all about lifting heavy loads. Now that’s all great for performance-based goals like Powerlifting or Olympic lifting, or showing off at the gym, but what about physique development?
Training for performance is different than training for appearance. There are plenty of lifters who are incredibly strong and can move awe-inspiring loads, but don’t necessarily “look” like they can. I’m sure you can think of a few examples in your gym. There are plenty of overweight powerlifters and underdeveloped Olympic lifters that would make you or I feel like the weights we use might as well be coated in pink plastic. However, their physiques remain less than desirable.
That’s cool. Their goal is not to be a pretty boy or pretty girl, and they would probably gag at the idea of training for cosmetic enhancement. Their goal is to lift heavy shit. The real question is what is your goal? If your goals are to lift heavy shit, than train with 1-5 reps most of the time. But if your goal is to attain a certain look, you need to think outside of that rep zone.
While the body gets better at recruiting more motor units and generating more force, the individual muscle fibers within those motor units do not spend enough time under tension for maximum muscular development. This is why we say 1-5 reps results in primarily neural adaptation, not necessarily muscular adaptations. The latter is what we are after for physique enhancement.
Scott Abel is a physique coach who talks a lot about the difference between training for strength vs. training for development. Here is some of the research he presents on his blog:
And in 1995, David Behm’s research was more direct. His research article “Neuromuscular Implications and Applications of Resistance Training” came to the following sound conclusion so important to those of you interested in developing a better physique: “Maximum strength training methods with their high intensity resistance but low volume of work do NOT elicit substantial muscle hypertrophy.” His research some 10 years later served to reinforce this conclusion as well.
“Therefore a higher volume of work, (greater than 6 reps, with multiple sets) [emphasis and references are his] is needed to ensure a critical concentration of intracellular amino acids to stimulate protein synthesis” (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 1995: p271).
FIFTEEN PLUS
So why not just blast out 50-100 rep sets? Well you can every once in awhile to shock the body, but in general, high rep sets primarily lead to metabolic adaptations. The body becomes more efficient at maintaining aerobic metabolism during higher intensity levels, and increases its lactic acid threshold. In essence, it becomes more fatigue resistant and can do more work without “hitting the wall”.
Again, this is great if your sport requires a certain amount of muscular endurance, but endurance training does not “build” or “shape” a body. For development the muscles need time under (an adequate amount of) tension. The load, or “tension”, is not great enough with ultra high-rep training to produce an adaptive response within the muscle fibers.
You could curl a pencil a thousand times and eventually it would start to burn, but it wouldn’t do much for building your biceps. The resistance is not enough to force the body to tap into its higher threshold, larger motor units; the one’s mostly responsible for growth and development. You just get better at the process of curling, which is meaningless for body composition change.
There is another problem with endurance training for physique development. There are certain “intermediate” muscle fibers within our bodies that can take on either the properties of fast-twitch fibers (power, strength) or the properties of slow-twitch fibers (endurance) depending on training style. Endurance training leads to the conversion of those fibers’ characteristics into the slow-twitch type.
The problem for physique development is that slow-twitch fibers don’t really grow and contribute to gains in overall lean muscle mass. Slow-twitch fibers just get better and more efficient at what they do – maximizing endurance. This is great for performance improvements, but lousy for appearance improvements.
Fast-twitch fibers are the ones that grow and are most responsible for gains in overall lean muscle mass. Emphasizing the development of these fibers is what builds, tones, tightens, and shapes the body, or whatever your particular goal may be. Training in the right rep range — the hypertrophy zone — will maximize lean muscular development. This is can have varying effects on performance depending on your sport, but it is awesome for appearance.
This “conversion factor” is my biggest problem (in terms of physique development) with boot camps, cross-training, circuit training, or any other strength training mode that emphasizes high rep training in a non-stop fashion. What’s happening is the body is building muscular endurance with these plans (and more than likely converting intermediate fibers into the slow-twitch variation) — which is why you feel like you are going to die the first session, but after time you get better at completing the course. Getting better at doing something is a performance adaptation, not an appearance adaptation.
Don’t get me wrong, these workouts are challenging and will kick your ass. But will they build your ass? Will they help you in terms of physique development? There are better, more efficient ways to train if that is your primary goal.
There is this prevailing fitness myth that high reps will help you burn more fat and cut-up. Many people who are primarily concerned with fat loss follow misguided training programs that emphasize ultra-high reps along with non-stop circuit training as their foundation. High reps don’t help you burn fat or rip up. Building muscle (through hypertrophy training) to boost the metabolic rate and maintaining a relative calorie deficit (through proper diet, and maybe some cardio) are the two keys to fat loss. You can’t build muscle with ultra-high reps. If anything you will lose muscle, and end up with a soft/flabby appearance.
The hypertrophy range will indirectly help you burn fat and rip up because building muscle in this range boosts the metabolism and helps you burn more calories — predominantly from fat — at rest. We burn most of our fat at rest, not while we actually train. We burn mostly glucose/glycogen while we train. The damage from this training sets up the environment for fat burning in the recovery process. So to try and burn more fat while training (through cardio or higher reps or cross training or longer duration sessions or “fat burners” or whatever other misguided ideas people have) is a relatively ineffective and inefficient endeavor.
In practical terms, don’t use your weight training sessions to “burn fat”. Let your diet, and to a much lesser extent cardio, burn fat. Always use your weight training sessions to try and build lean muscle. And yes, this includes you ladies. Lean muscle is what shapes your body. You won’t get huge like a guy because of the difference in hormone profiles — testosterone/estrogen ratio. And make no mistake, the overly masculine women you see in bodybuilding mags are taking steroids to change their hormonal profile to resemble a man’s.
This means moderate rep hypertrophy training, not high rep endurance training, is the way to go for both men and women trying to attain a lean, shapely appearance.
SIX TO FIFTEEN
Any training will cause somewhat of an adaptive response. You will get some muscle growth training with both low reps (1-5) and high reps (15+). But for the reasons already discussed above, you will not get optimal growth, and will not be maximizing your physique development potential. And as a physique athlete, you want the most effective and efficient training plans to change your physical appearance.
So, we come full circle back to the optimal hypertrophy zone. The majority of your training should fall within the 6-15 rep range if your goals are related to body composition transformation. Here’s what happens in this rep zone:
- There is adequate tension to force all motor units (small and large) to be recruited.
- There is adequate time under tension to cause muscular damage, which leads to an adaptive response (growth). Muscle fibers become larger and more dense by increasing the size and number of contractile proteins (called actin & myosin) within those fibers.
- The area surrounding the muscle is pumped with blood and nutrients, which triggers protein synthesis (and makes you look good in the mirror).
- You get the greatest acute increases in anabolic hormones: testosterone, growth hormone.
A LITTLE EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY
Here’s just a little more science to take this thing home. In Exercise Physiology, there is a principle called the Size Principle of Motor recruitment. This states that:
Motor unit recruitment depends on the force/resistance of the exercise. With light intensity exercise the Type I (slow twitch) motor units are recruited. When the load is increased, the Type IIa (fast twitch) will be recruited with the help of the Type I fibers. When the load becomes even greater, the Type IIb/x will be recruited with the help of the Type IIa and Type I motor units. Therefore Type I motor units are always firing no matter what the intensity. – Jennifer Hill
The hypertrophy zone (6-15) allows this natural neural process to take place. With this rep zone, all of the muscle fibers within a muscle group are recruited (including the one’s that grow the most, the fast twitch varieties) AND those fibers spend enough time under tension for maximum development.
With high reps, only the slow-twitch motor units are recruited. The resistance is not enough to force the higher threshold units (IIa, IIb/x) into action. The problem is, these are the fibers that grow the most, and change a physique.
With low reps (1-5), the tension is great enough to force all of the fibers into action. However, the tension is so great that the body loses its ability to generate force (nervous system fails) before the muscles completely fatigue/exhaust (muscular system fails). Thus, the muscle fibers are not maximally overloaded. They do not spend enough time under tension to cause optimal development.
The take home message is this: Please, just trust me: 6-15 reps is where you should spend most of your time.
natemiyaki
Kalai Diamond
