Number of Reps and Sets

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One of the most important aspects of building muscle is to know the adequate amount of exercise to do. If you do too much, your muscles will atrophy rather than grow. If you do too little nothing will happen at all. So how can you tell the correct to perform?

The general rule of thumb for building muscle is to use progressive weight and lift as heavy as you can for between 5-8 reps while keeping perfect form. This means that each time you do an exercise you must either do more reps up to 8 or lift more than the previous time. Most people over train without knowing it. If you are doing 3 sets of 12 reps you are probably overtraining assuming you are lifting heavy enough. Some people judge their progress by how much of a pump they get in their muscles when working out. This really is no measure of progress however.

The best set/rep combination for building muscle is 2 sets of between 5 and 8 reps for most core exercises. This assumes that you perform about two sets of warm ups with lighter weight first. That does not seem like much, but any more and you risk overtraining. Remember muscle growth takes place outside the gym while you are at rest. The only purpose of lifting in the gym is to break down muscle tissue by challenging your muscles with heavier weight each time. This progression is what causes muscle to be added later when at rest.

There are certain exceptions to this rule. Certain exercises, particularly for the abdominal muscles, tend to require higher set/rep combinations. Crunches for example will only be effective when you get into the higher ranges of 3-5 sets of 20 or more. This is mostly because this exercise is primarily to tone the abs and not build them bigger. Weighted crunches on the other hand would follow the same 2 sets of 5-8 rule if done properly with the most amount of weight possible.

Remember that proper form and working to failure are the two keys to building muscle. You want to structure your workouts around core exercises and perform 2 sets of between 5-8 reps lifting heavy enough to take you to failure. By continually adding reps up to 8 or weight each workout, you will find your muscles getting bigger and bigger very quickly.

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