Figure out the goal behind your training and consider your training status
Rep range targets take into consideration a couple factors, but the goal of the exercise being performed, and how well conditioned you are, are the primary factors. I generally recommend nearly the same thing for beginners, which I will explain later, and much more variety with trained individuals depending on their goals.
What do I recommend beginners do?
For nearly all beginners I recommend staying in the higher rep range, regardless of their goals. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that the most important thing to do when getting into the gym is to master the basics and build a good foundation. Work on having good technique and getting as many repetitions in as possible. If you go for a rep range of 5, you will not get nearly as much practice as doing 15. To become proficient at anything in life its by doing it repeatedly and building mastery at that particular thing, and if we want to build mastery at the bench press we need to do it repeatedly. The most important thing as a beginner is to master your technique before you start adding on weight, because bad technique is going to lead to injury at worst and worse results at best. The other reason is because your connective tissue is much slower to adapt to heavier loads than your muscles are, and it is easier for them to sustain less weight at higher reps than it is to sustain heavier weights at lower reps.
For Muscle Growth Emphasis
Hypertrophy is the word we use to describe the process of muscle growth within the body. People will argue about what the best rep range for hypertrophy is, but the science leads us to believe that anywhere from 5-30 reps is the best. However, proximity to failure is a more important driver of hypertrophy than rep range. A set of 20 taken to failure is going to be much better for hypertrophy than a set of 8 that were taken to an easy success. The best rep range is whatever you find the easiest to be able to consistently take to failure.
Theoretically higher rep range can take you to closer to failure. If you perform a set of 8 and on the 8th rep you fail, you had 1/8th of the set left. If you perform a set of 20 and on the 20th rep you fail, you had 1/20th of the set left. That means that with the set of 20 you were closer in proximity to failure than the set of 8. So doesn’t that mean I should do all my sets in the higher range? Not necessarily.
The higher the rep count and the closer you approach failure the harder it is to complete a rep. The last reps are going to burn a lot more than the first ones. If you perform of set of 8 the last 2 might really hurt, however, if you do 20, the last 5-6 are going to really hurt. It’s a lot less mentally taxing to complete a set of 8 to failure than a set of 20 for that reason. From my experience, the best rep count is the one you can take to failure the most consistently.
I try to think about size of the muscles being worked and duration of one rep when I take into consideration my rep count. When performing heavy compound lifts such as squats and deadlifts, I’ll usually stay in the 6-8 rep range. When Performing moderately big lifts such as bench press and lat pull downs, I’ll usually stay in the 8-12 range. When performing isolation work such as bicep curls, I’ll usually stay in the 10-15 rep range. And for exercises that are either on small muscles such as rear delt flies, or exercises with a small range of motion such as shrugs, I’ll usually stay in the 12-20 rep range. This is because the structure of smaller muscles and their attachments is such that they usually don’t respond well to heavier loads, and small range of motions still need to have enough time under tension to grow.
For Strength Emphasis
Similar to hypertrophy training, training with intensity and pushing to failure is going to lead us to have the best results, however, we generally want to have a much lower rep count. That is because with lower reps we are better able to prioritize our force production rather than our muscle breakdown. Additionally, the primary lifts being performed for strength use a large amount of muscles and you will generally be out of breath before your muscles are properly fatigued if done for higher volumes. In powerlifting the big 3 are deadlift, squat, and bench press and these are the lifts I would make a strength program around as most strength plans orient towards powerlifting. I recommend training below 6 reps, however, I have found 3-5 to give the best results and minimize injury. Besides the big 3, most compound lifts will work in this range. Squat variants and deadlift variants work great, such as front squats and sumo deadlifts, as well as bent over rows, and overhead press.
Generally in a strength plan I won’t program all the exercises in this rep range. I usually program the compound lifts first and in the 3-5 range and when I get to the isolation work I perform them in the 6-8 range. Sometimes I will exceed this count though because doing exercises that work smaller muscles such as lat raises below 8 reps is more likely to lead to shoulder pain and are not a lift worth prioritizing strength for given the risk.
How do I combine these two emphases?
The best way to combine strength and hypertrophy is by doing some sort of A and B day split. A days prioritize one and B prioritize the other. I recommend putting the one you want to prioritize as A days, and the other as B days. An example would be a Upper A, Lower A, Upper B, Lower B. On Upper A I would program my rows for 10 reps and on B day I would program them for 5. This way I am still hitting my muscles twice a week, however, I also emphasize both strength and hypertrophy.
Common misconceptions
Some people will see charts like I posted above and then get stuck in these rigid ways of thinking, and believe that if you do 12 reps you can only get bigger, but not stronger, or if you do 5 reps you can only get stronger. If you pick a rep range and you work hard, you will see results in both strength and size, however some rep ranges are better suited for certain results.
Another common misconception in a similar vein, is that if you workout in a certain rep range you will get those results. Rep ranges are just a part of the equation, but workout intensity and proximity to failure is infinitely more important. Additionally, properly performing reps, which I will touch on in another article, is also much more important. The reason I made the recommendations I did were because I found those ranges to be the best to balance workout intensity, time under tension, and mind muscle connection.
Reach out with any questions or help making a plan
If anything I said here was confusing to you or you just need a little more clarification reach out or leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to help you out. If you need help making a plan reach out for a consultation and we can talk. I hope this article was helpful for you!
