Is it better to lift heavy or more reps?
Zoe Green
2025-06-24 18:51:30
Count answers: 10
For bigger muscles, the research has changed since a young Arnold bestrode the competitive stage. Up to around 10 years ago it was believed you had to exercise at 70-80 per cent of your one rep maximum weight, 10-12 reps for three sets and going to full fatigue so you can’t do a single extra rep. But during the last 10 years we’ve noticed that intensity is not that key. The more recent view is lighter weights can also gift you bigger muscles. Sets of 20 and up can build bulk. But what remains unchanged is that you need to get to a fully fatigued state.
Professor Granacher recommends sticking with the old 10-12 rep pattern simply because it quickly becomes boring to lift a light weight 20 times.
If strength is the goal with as little bulk as possible then the protocols change to very heavy weights you can only lift for one to three reps, three to five sets. We’ve been working with wrestlers and ski jumpers, and they need to be explosive, a high level of maximum strength but they don’t want to gain weight, so they train up to 90 per cent of their one rep max.
The way you combine these approaches and engage your brain benefits hugely from a clear mental focus on your goal. If your programme is three sets of 12 reps, your first set, you’ve done 12 and you feel like you could have done 13, I always say, on your second set push the weight up and aim to fail before you get to rep 12.
It’s possible to use the low reps strength training style and the higher reps muscle bulking approach in the same workout but the order in which you use them is important. Ideally you want to have a week of strength and perform the hypertrophy the next week.
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