How Many Reps to Build Muscle?
Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer for the seemingly age-old question: How many reps should I be doing? There are many factors that come into play when determining the best number to aim for during a workout. It is necessary to take into consideration what the goal is: is the athlete most concerned with wanting to lose belly fat, or is he or she looking for the ideal bicep workout? In any sense, the number is bound to vary.
One thing that should be taken into consideration when deciding how many reps a person should do is how new they are to the workout. Going too high with the poundage of the weights could cause the muscles to strain and a person could end up with a serious injury. On the other hand, it is also dangerous if a new athlete tries to overdo it on the number of repetitions. A new weight lifting program should be taken easy so the person can decide what feels comfortable.
Then, the athlete should establish a goal. For example, some people start doing weight lifting exercises because they want to build large amounts of muscle. This goal determines how many reps the person should be doing. Ideally, to build the largest amount of muscle mass quickly, a person should partake in heavy weight lifting to build muscle with low repetitions. He or she should use the highest poundage that can be managed while still doing three sets of five to seven reps and maintain the ideal form for the workout.
How many reps one should use in order to simply tone muscles and build strength slowly for everyday activities will vary from muscle building. In these weight training programs, the athlete should instead execute about ten to twelve reps and a few sets of each. These should still be done with semi-challenging amounts of weight, as lifting weight that is so light it can hardly be felt does not help a person to make progress. After each set, the athlete should feel a fair amount of fatigue.
The amount of reps a person decides to do might vary from workout to workout. He might want to do more reps in his bicep exercise than during deadlifts, which is fine, as long as the workout routine is challenging. Once weights and reps are established, an athlete should always keep track of how much he is exerting in order to make sure that he is moving up regularly. It should not be difficult to increase the amount of weight and do the same number of repetitions over time.
Knowing how many reps to do during weightlifting exercises is extremely important, especially if a person wants to make progress. However, it is all a matter of whether you are trying to build or maintain muscle and what types of workouts you are doing. In the end, this is going to vary for everybody, so it is important to experiment and learn what works best for different parts of the body and different body types.
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