Frodo Posted November 2, 2003 Posted November 2, 2003 I'm a little confused about some things I've heard about weight training. Ryan said on another thread that cardio is a waste of time. Ok, cool, but if I focus on weights, should I do more reps or fewer reps? Let's say my max weight is 100lbs on some part of my body. Is it enough to do 1-3 reps at the full 100, or will I get better weight loss benefit by doing 12 reps at 80 lbs? If I'm doing the exercise to muscle failure, then it seems like my body rebuild itself about the same no matter which approach I use. But if this is so, then it doesn't make much sense as to why people do different rep #s.
Ryan Posted November 2, 2003 Posted November 2, 2003 First, proper strength training does not directly influence fat loss in a significant way. The purpose of it, aside from the general fitness benefits, is to maintain (or increase, which is damn near impossible to do in most situations) muscle mass and metabolic needs while in a reduced calorie situation. The body will have a tendency to reduce your metabolic needs to meet the less-than-baseline calories you are consuming. The strength training delays and mitigates that process. If I'm doing the exercise to muscle failure, then it seems like my body rebuild itself about the same no matter which approach I use. But if this is so, then it doesn't make much sense as to why people do different rep #s. Excellent question. One factor is safety. If you stick to a low repetition scheme, that means the weight will be higher. That means the FORCE on your body will be higher....which means an increased risk of injury. By using a larger number of repetitions, the forces will be lower while still receiving significant stimulation. That leads me to my next factor....which is stimulation. Let's say your maximum strength is 100 (I'll leave it unitless for now) and you train with 90 to failure. You've reached the point where your body can only produce 89. Now let's say you train with 70 but do more repetitions. You've now failed at the point where your body can only produce 69. The inroad is greater. Of course, there's a point where more inroad is not better.....this is why people typically do not train with 40 repetition sets. There is yet ANOTHER reason, although it is more technical. We all have two basic muscle fiber types (this is going to be somewhat vague and oversimplified, but it gets the point across). One type can be used almost indefinitely without fatigue, but it doesn't produce a lot of force. The other type fatigues quickly, but produces large amounts of force. All of our muscles have varying proportions in these types...and it varies from person to person as well. One may want to adjust a routine to accomodate for this...although it takes some more advanced knowledge and experience to judge it, really.
UCFKevin Posted November 2, 2003 Posted November 2, 2003 Well, it ain't the healthiest thing to do, but since my girl and I broke up, my appetite has dwindled BIG TIME and I basically only eat once a day now, it's not that I'm starving myself, it's just that I'm not hungry at all sometimes. When I'm hungry, I eat. I don't make myself eat. I've lost 15 lbs in the past two months. Adding the lack of eating to working out almost every day intensely for a half hour or more (I've recently stopped for no good reason) really made quite a difference.
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