07/23/2019
Hey Friends, I received a question from a young man studying physiology at a major university about what comprises ideal set and repetition numbers for the purpose of building muscular size.
He states that current research indicates the ideal number of reps per set for building muscular size is 6 to 8 repetitions and that some studies indicate that the results are comparable up to 10 reps. He then asks, "But why should anyone do 10 reps of anything if doing 6 to 8 produces the same result?" His next statement was that research also indicates that performing more than 12 reps per set yields a lower result than 6 to 8. As far as sets are concerned he states that research indicates that the ideal number is not as tightly tied down but that 3 sets seem to be the optimum.
His question, "Why do you insist that 15 to 20 reps is ideal?"
Answer: I don't really insist on anything. Consider: More than 40 years ago I had developed a friendship with Dr. Laurence E. Morehouse, who headed up the human performance lab at UCLA. I discussed things of this type with him on a frequent basis. As relates to reps he seemed to think that it was best to perform 15 to 20 per set and that each set should represent an intense effort. His logic for 15 to 20 reps was that that was the best rep range for infusing highly oxygenated blood into the muscle tissue and therefore delivered a better pump. At that same time I was reading Vince Gironda's material on training and he stated that 8 sets X 8 reps yielded extraordinary results. Yet, at exactly the same time Arthur Jones of Nautilus was promoting just one set as optimum. So who was/is right?
My response is based on reality. No matter who you are, at some point you're going to reach a plateau doing whatever it is that you are doing and at that time you will need to switch things up in order to stimulate further progression. Seriously, it won't matter what anyone else says to do. To the contrary, at that point, nobody else will get to vote on it. It will be you taking the initiative to finetune your exercises to your own body.
For example, my friend Jack King had shoulder injuries from years and years of Olympic Style weightlifting (Jack once totaled 900 on the three Olympic lifts) that made it impossible for him to do pressing movements of any kind and yet he wanted to pursue bodybuilding. Though he could do no pressing movements with weights, he did discover that he could do a specific kind of Push-up with his feet elevated that allowed him to knock out high volume reps that gave him an incredible pump. So much so that five years later he ended up winning the Masters Mr. America contest in 1996.
At the time he won the Master's, Jack wasn't doing 6 to 8 reps per set and he wasn't doing sets of 15 to 20. Truth to tell, he worked himself up to sets of 100 to 150 and he was averaging 10 sets on his Wednesday and Saturday workouts and performing more than 1,000 reps in each of those workouts. In fact, on one Saturday he did 2,000 reps just to do it. Here's the real bottom line. When you are starting out it's great to have certain guidelines but at some point, you're going to have to become your own best trainer and determine your own best training strategy from that point on. The reason I'm telling you this is because the more advanced you become the more intuitive will be your training. So my advice is to not get too hung up on reps and sets and don't expect someone else to give you answers that only you can discover on your own.
