Should You Lift with High Reps or Low Reps?
If you’re relatively new to strength training, you may be wondering if you should be lifting with high reps or low reps.
Reps — short for repetitions — are the action of one complete strength training exercise. For example, when doing a bicep curl, each time you lift the weight up and bring it back down would count as one rep.
If you choose to lift a heavy weight, you will be forced to do a lower number of reps.
If you choose to lift a light weight, you will be able to do a higher number of reps.
So the question becomes, which one should you do? Heavy weight with low reps? Or light weight with high reps?
Research has shown that you build strength and muscle with both high reps and low reps, so the answer is…
You should be lifting with both!
However, there is one caveat…
Whether you are using light weights or heavy weights, you must push your muscles close to their limit. When you lift weights, you are providing your muscles with a stress. Your muscles respond to this stress by building back bigger and stronger so they can handle the same load in the future. If you don’t provide your muscles with a large enough stress, they have no reason to adapt and grow bigger or stronger.
Therefore, you must push your muscles close to the point of muscular failure.
Muscular failure is defined by the point at which you can no longer complete an exercise with good form. This is not the point of complete physical failure — you could probably do even more reps if you got sloppy with your form and allowed other muscles to come into play… However, this is an injury waiting to happen.
We recommend always leaving “two in the tank.” Whether you are lifting with light weights and high reps or heavy weights and low reps, do as many reps as you can until you feel like you could only do two more reps with good form. This will ensure you push your muscles close to their limit, but prevents you from getting too close to the point of absolute failure in which your form could become sloppy.
Why Do Both Rep Ranges Work?
Assuming you push your muscles close to their limit, both reps ranges work because they each provide a similar load of volume to your muscles.
Volume is one of the key drivers of muscle growth.
Volume = Sets x Reps x Weight
For example, if you lifted 50 pounds for 4 sets of 10 reps, that’s a total volume of 2000 pounds.
You could get the same total volume by lifting 80 pounds for 5 sets of 5 reps.
Studies have shown that if volume is equated, you will get similar results.
However, this does not mean that you should stick with your favorite rep range and do it forever.
If you always lift light weights for high reps, then you should probably do a phase of lifting heavier weights for low reps.
Your body is a master at adapting to the demands it is faced with, so if you always lift light weights for high reps, it’s likely not providing your body with the same level of stress that it once did and you will eventually hit a plateau.
Switching to a phase of lifting heavy weight for low reps will provide your body with a new stimulus to adapt to, bringing about new muscle and strength gains.
Generally, we recommend switching up your rep ranges every 4 weeks. For example, you could do a 4-week phase in which you’re using relatively heavy weight for most exercises for sets of 3-5 reps. Then, you could transition to a 4-week phase in which you’re using a bit lighter weights for most exercises for sets of 8-12 reps. Next, you could transition to a 4-week phase in which you’re using even lighter weight for sets of 15-20 reps. You can repeat this process every 12 weeks.
A final note on rest periods… When you’re lifting heavy weight for low reps, you will need to rest for a longer period of time between sets because you’re taxing your central nervous system a lot more than you do when you’re lifting light weight for high reps. In general as reps decrease, rest times should increase.
Stay strong!
