How many reps to start protein synthesis and muscle growth? Find out the correct repetition pattern for fast and slow muscle fibers. Every person is unique. It is for this reason that the rate of muscle mass gain is significantly different for everyone. There are athletes who can gain weight quickly enough, even with a not very careful approach to training. Almost all professionals are of this type. However, most athletes have to put in a lot of effort.
The influence of genetics on muscle growth
People who are gifted with good genetics can use any training methodology, and will constantly progress. Most of the programs that can be found on the Internet or in specialized magazines are just designed for such lucky ones. They can also make even serious mistakes in the training process, but they will gain weight.
The situation is much more complicated with athletes, whom nature has not endowed with good genetics for muscle growth. They need to pay close attention to every little thing in order to achieve their goal. However, genetics only affects the speed of your progress. There are many examples when athletes who do not have good genetic makeup became champions.
At the same time, the statement that human genetic characteristics do not matter in bodybuilding is wrong. Most often, this becomes the main mistake of novice athletes who choose the wrong training method for themselves. They stop progressing rather quickly and end up in a plateau state.
You must remember that for effective training, you must select such programs that will suit your genetic characteristics. It is with this that the question is connected, how many reps to do for muscle hypertrophy.
Effect of repetitions on muscle growth
As many people know, muscle tissue is made up of fibers that do all the work. Some of them are better suited for short-term lifting of large weights, while others show greater strength endurance. This fact is the main reason why it is impossible to advise doing a certain number of repetitions, suitable for everyone, without exception.
There is an average range of repetitions from 5 to 15. As you can see, it is quite wide and it is very easy to make a mistake. For example, an athlete in a certain muscle group contains a greater number of fast (anaerobic) fibers, and he uses a large number of repetitions during training.
Let's try to figure out how many reps to do for muscle hypertrophy. You can find out the optimal number of repetitions only experimentally. The most common uses for this are lifting the EZ bar for the biceps for the upper half of the body and the leg extension on the machine for the lower half. In this case, you should not use any elements of cheating. As an example, consider a biceps exercise. Before doing the lifts, do a good, high-quality warm-up and determine the weight with which you can perform only one repetition. For our example, let it be 60 kilograms. The EZ neck was not chosen by chance, as this sports equipment is safer on the wrists.
After you have found the optimal weight, after a couple of days, set the weight on the projectile to 80 percent of the maximum. Then do as many repetitions as possible.
- If you were able to complete less than 7 reps in one set, then about 75% of your workout should be devoted to strength work (6 to 8 reps), and the remaining 25% to high-rep training (10 to 15 reps). With this regimen, each muscle group should be trained no more than once every six days.
- If you managed to complete 7 to 13 reps, then you should devote the same amount of time to both strength work and high reps. Do strength training once every six days, and high-rep training once every four days.
- If you performed more than 13 repetitions in one set, then this indicates the presence in the tissues of your muscles of a large number of slow fibers designed to perform a large amount of work. For this reason, it is necessary to pay about 75 percent to high-repetitions (twice a week), and power - 25 percent (once a week).
Beginning athletes should also be warned about the risk of injury while finding the optimal number of repetitions. To reduce the risks, you should train in your usual mode for one week, performing from 6 to 10 repetitions in one approach. This will allow you to get a feel for the exercise technique and working weight. After that, you can start looking for the optimal number of repetitions.
Be sure to perform warm-up sets, thereby warming up the muscles. At the same time, the weight of the projectile should be low and perform a couple of approaches with a large number of repetitions. The technique described above will allow you to determine exactly how many reps to do for muscle hypertrophy. If it is not used, then a large amount of time can be spent on these searches. Now you can save your time and your training sessions will become more effective.
This technique is used by a large number of professional athletes and has proven itself only on the positive side. The faster you find your optimal rep limit, the faster you will start to progress. After all, this is precisely the goal of all training.
Of course, in the future you will have to use all the principles of bodybuilding for constant progress, however, knowing the optimal number of repetitions, it will be much easier for you to achieve high results.
