What Is The Best Rep Range For Building Lean Muscle?

By Russ Howe


If you've ever wondered how to build muscle in the gym you have probably also asked yourself how many reps you need to do to get best muscle gain results. Today we are going to answer that question for you.

The majority of people who train are a little bit lost so if you're in a situation at the moment where you don't know what to do the first thing you should do is stop worrying. You aren't alone, that's for certain. But today you'll be well on your way to getting some results.

Most guys are attempting to do the same thing you are. They want to build a more muscular physique, one which both makes them proud and gets you attention.

The human body only changes when it is forced into it. If you are not doing that, not progressing in your workouts, your body won't change. Why? Because it doesn't have to! How many people do you see in your gym who have been doing the exact same thing for months and don't seem to be getting any results? Quite a few, I imagine, because this is a common issue which most people never address properly. Your body adapts to your workout. Even though you're working hard, your body knows it can handle it. Why? Because you probably did the same thing last week and it can remember. To get change you need to force change.

The first thing to do is to understand the different repetition ranges and what they do:

* The hypertrophy zone.

* Muscular endurance.

Given that you want size and strength you should be trying to hit your hypertrophy zone. This means you should be aiming towards the eight to twelve rep range. This will ensure you fall within the correct zone for building a more powerful physique.

If you were to continue pushing you reps, say, into the 15-20 zone, you would find yourself in the muscular endurance category. This would help you to tone up and really build up the stamina of whichever muscle you were training but it wouldn't work as effectively as the hypertrophy zone if your goal is pure size.

Most people can openly tell you what they want to achieve in the gym, what type of body they are striving for, but for some reason that's as far as it goes. They never actually tailor their workout plan to be specific to that goal. Now you know what you are doing, you will begin to notice this all the time in your local fitness center.

The majority of people don't learn the different training methods and as a result they don't make much progress. It's up there with common gym myths, such as women who are afraid to touch resistance machines for fear they'll get big.

Before we end today's class we also want to bring your attention to a second fact. This fact is the single most important aspect of your training, without it you won't get anywhere. We are talking, of course, about steady progression. Resistance training is something which your body is built to adapt to and, as we pointed out earlier, you will need to progressively challenge yourself more in order to keep forcing results from it.

Use your rep zone to determine how much weight to lift as well as deciding when it is time to increase the resistance. How? It's actually very simple. Whereas most people don't know when the right time to increase a weight is, or most women are scared for fear of gaining muscle mass, simply remember the rules of your target rep zone. If using the hypertrophy zone use a weight which you can manage to lift eight times. Stick at that weight until you are able to get past 12 reps with good technique, then it's time to increase the weight, consistently forcing yourself to increase loads and stay within the right rep zone.

And there you have it, guys. You now know the two things which many gym users never discover. You know how to build muscle with the right amount of reps for your goal and you know when to increase the resistance. Say hello to new results.




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