Myo-reps in English | Borge Fagerli – aka Blade

Myo-reps in English | Borge Fagerli – aka Blade

"holy-grail outcomes"

Let’s illustrate the difference between a “traditional” 3 sets of 10
vs. a Myo-rep set, the asterisk ‘*’ denoting “effective” reps:


First a normal rep set:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8* 9* 10*

1-2min of rest

1 2 3 4 5 6 7* 8* 9* (a typical drop off in reps if using a 10RM load)

1-2min of rest

1 2 3 4 5 6 7* 8* 9*

So you did 28 total reps in about 6 minutes, where 9 reps were “effective” reps (at sufficiently high fiber recruitment).


Now a Myo-rep set:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8* 9* 10* –
15sec rest – 1* 2* 3* –
15sec rest – 1* 2* 3* –
15sec rest – 1* 2* 3* –
15sec rest – 1* 2* 3* –
15sec rest – 1* 2*3*

Here you did 25 total reps in about 2 minutes, where 18 reps were
“effective”. The premise here is to *manage* fatigue to get in more work
in less time, and you have to balance the reps and rest periods in the
Myo-rep set appropriately.

Rep Ranges 101 – What You Need To Know To Grow | How To Beast

Rep Ranges 101 – What You Need To Know To Grow | How To Beast








The following is a guest post from SJ at www.IgnoreLimits.com.
I really like his style – honest, straightforward advice that’s geared
towards real people (ie. not steroided-up bodybuilders). For more from
SJ, check out his site at www.IgnoreLimits.com.



10 reps?

It seems to be the magic number, if you’ve hired a personal trainer,
read a workout regime in a men’s health or bodybuilding magazine chances
are you were told to do X number of sets, each set containing 10 reps.

Now, here’s the thing…

As a natural gym-goer (aka. Someone who does not ‘supplement’ with anabolic steroids) there’s a far more efficient way to train and progress.



Train in the single digit rep ranges !

If you’re like me – a normal guy with average genetics, looking to
build both size and strength naturally you cannot go past the 4 – 7 rep
range for your major compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, overhead
press etc.)

You’re probably thinking that’s all well and good but…



“What about when I want to get shredded, should I be doing 12 – 15 reps per set?”



Regardless of whether you are in a cutting or bulking phase your
workout does not need to change at all, you won’t get increased
vascularity or striations by performing a higher number of repetitions,
that’s a load of crap. I keep my rep structure the same all year round
and simply manipulate my caloric intake based on whether I want to gain
mass (calorie surplus) or burn fat (calorie deficit).

Performing higher reps when attempting to lose fat is a surefire way
to lose muscle mass, in order to preserve as much mass as possible you
need to lift HEAVY. 



I’m certainly not the first person to advocate lifting heavy for fewer reps…

“If you must use dumbbells for daily training, use heavy ones
with fewer repetitions rather than light bells with numerous
repetitions” – Arthur Saxon, 1906

Now, you may still think high reps are beneficial, but let me tell you they’re far from it.



High repetitions result in increased stress on your CNS, increase in localized inflammation and increased soreness.



This ideology dates back a long way

“Movements or exercises that do not give the muscle the required
resistance, but are the kind that involve a great number of repetitions,
never break down any tissue, to speak of. These movements involve a
forcing process that cause the blood to swell up the muscle, and simply
pump them up”– 



George F. Jowett, 1926

I highly recommend you give low rep training a try! If you’re new to
low rep training it’s worth noting that you will not get the immense
‘pumps’ you may be used to from performing hi rep training.

So you have an idea of exactly what a low rep workout regime may look
like, here’s a sample of the chest workout I performed a couple of
hours ago:



Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

5 sets x 4 – 6 reps



Flat Barbell Bench Press

5 sets x 4 – 6 reps



For an addictive training routine and dietary approach to building more muscle and burning more fat check out my new book “Shredded Beast”.

Is Lifting Super Heavy Weights Needed For Big Muscles? -

Is Lifting Super Heavy Weights Needed For Big Muscles? -:

The Answer Is Somewhere In The Middle

If your goal is to simply build muscle mass, doing reps under 5 is absolutely not needed unless your routine is part of a system that focuses more on total workload rather than sets and reps.

If you goal is strength, performing sets of 3 is also the lowest you need to go before maxing out in a competition. Usually people are able to do between 10-30 lbs over their 3 reps maximum. This depends on the exercise and the individual.

Bottom line: Maxing out does not build strength. It tests it. Lifting moderate weight with good form is where it’s at. Get strong, safely!

5 Muscle Myths Holding You Back: Do 8 to 12 Repetitions

5 Muscle Myths Holding You Back: Do 8 to 12 Repetitions

Do 8 to 12 Repetitions ?

The claim: It's the optimal repetition range for building muscle.



The origin: In 1954, Ian
MacQueen, M.D., an English surgeon and competitive bodybuilder,
published a scientific paper in which he recommended a moderately high
number of repetitions for muscle growth.

 


The truth: This approach places
the muscles under a medium amount of tension for a medium amount of
time, making it both effective for and detrimental to maximum muscle
gains.



A quick science lesson: Higher tension—a.k.a. heavier weights—induces
the type of muscle growth in which the muscle fibers grow larger,
leading to the best gains in strength; longer tension time, on the other
hand, boosts muscle size by increasing the energy-producing structures
around the fibers, improving muscular endurance. The classic
prescription of eight to 12 repetitions strikes a balance between the
two. But by using that scheme all the time, you miss out on the greater
tension levels that come with heavier weights and fewer repetitions, and
the longer tension time achieved with lighter weights and higher
repetitions.



The new standard: Vary your
repetition range—adjusting the weights accordingly—so that you stimulate
every type of muscle growth. Try this method for a month, performing
three full-body sessions a week: Do five repetitions per set in your
first workout, 10 reps per set in your second workout, and 15 per set in
your third workout.

StrongLifts 5x5: A Simple Classic Approach to Workout

StrongLifts 5x5: A Simple Workout To Get Stronger

Thousands of guys worldwide have used this routine to gain strength,
build muscle or lose weight while training only three times a week.

Stronglifts 5×5 uses five free weight compound exercises: the Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, Overhead Press and Barbell Row. You do three of these exercises each workout, three times a week, for about 45 minutes per workout. You Squat every workout, three times a week.

5×5 stands for five sets of five reps. These are the sets and reps you do on every exercise except Deadlifts. Deadlift is only one set of five reps (1×5) because doing more would beat you up. Plus, Squatting three times a week will get you stronger at Deadlifts since it works similar muscles.

Unlike most bodybuilding routines, your goal on StrongLifts 5×5 isn’t
to reach failure, get “pumped” or be sore. Your goal is to add weight.
Here’s how: start light, focus on proper form and add 2.5kg/5lb each
workout for as long as you can. This is the simplest way to get stronger
– fast.

Contents

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 History of StrongLifts 5×5
  • 1.2 Summary of Stronglifts 5×5
  • 1.3 Videos of Stronglifts 5×5
  • 1.4 How To Get Started
• 2 Goals
  • 2.1 Getting Stronger
  • 2.2 Building Muscle
  • 2.3 Losing Weight
  • 2.4 Losing Fat
  • 2.5 Adding Bulk
• 3 Exercises
  • 3.1 Squat
  • 3.2 Bench Press
  • 3.3 Deadlift
  • 3.4 Overhead Press
  • 3.5 Barbell Row
• 4 Equipment
  • 4.1 Power Rack
  • 4.2 Olympic Barbell
  • 4.3 Olympic Plates
  • 4.4 Fractional Plates
  • 4.5 Bench
  • 4.6 Chalk
  • 4.7 Shoes
  • 4.8 Belt
  • 4.9 What I use
• 5 Frequently Asked Questions
  • 5.1 What does 5×5 mean?
  • 5.2 What does 1×5 mean?
  • 5.3 Why only 1×5 Deadlifts, not 5×5?
  • 5.4 How much weight should I start with?
  • 5.5 How long should I rest between sets?
  • 5.6 What should I do between sets?
  • 5.7 How long should I rest between exercises?
  • 5.8 How fast should I lift? What’s the tempo?
  • 5.9 How should I warm up?
  • 5.10 How should I breathe?
  • 5.11 Can I change the order of exercises?
  • 5.12 What if I fail to get 5 reps?
  • 5.13 What if I keep failing at the same weight?
  • 5.14 How long should I do StrongLifts 5×5?
  • 5.15 Does StrongLifts 5×5 work for women?
  • 5.16 What if the answer to my question isn’t here?
• 6 Apps
• 7 Spreadsheets
• 8 See Also

Just two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten) - T NATION | Question of Strength: Vol 36

T NATION | Question of Strength: Vol 36

I've always found that when you get to the elite level, most athletes do best just doing two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten), and then training again six hours later.

Total Body vs. Body Part Splits... Again

Question:Some T-Nation coaches advocate training the whole body in one session; others usually use a body part split of some sort. The debate is endless, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Answer:
I'm the first one to want to improve on any training system, but I do not know anyone successful in the strength coaching business who uses full body routines exclusively.
I've trained Olympic medalists in sixteen different sports, from energy system sports such as swimming to short-term explosive power sports such as shot put.
For almost every single one of them, 70% of the time, I've used split routines and switched to whole body routines as their competition was nearing. Whether it's Adam Nelson who won the World Championship in the shot put or Dwight Phillips who won it in the long jump, they all trained with split routines.
Workouts have to be short and effective, and when you train for relative strength you have to do a lot of sets. If you do a lot of sets, you can't do a lot of exercises. Athletes need split training to get adequate recovery.
Adam Nelson's split looked like this:

Day 1: Chest/back
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Rotator cuff and arms
Day 5: Off

Adam, by the way, incline benches 525 pounds using a fat, three inch bar. bodybuilding, I don't think Ronnie Coleman trains whole body three in days a week. I've never known a successful bodybuilder, even the low set guys like Dorian Yates, to do whole body training.
The key is to recruit as many motor units as possible, and you have to think about the law of exercise order. There have been a few good studies done on this, but here's the Reader's Digest version:
If you have a group of lifters who do exercises A, B, C, and D in a workout, and you have a group do the same exercises in the reverse order (D, C, B, and A), what you find is that the first group makes the most progress on exercise A and the second group makes the most progress on exercise D. Basically, you'll make the most progress on whatever you do first.
I've always found that when you get to the elite level, most athletes do best just doing two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten), and then training again six hours later.
Every single Olympian I've trained used split routines. I've been in this profession for 26 years and no one has ever convinced me, by their results, that full body routines are the only way to go.
Having coached at three different Olympics, I've had the opportunity to talk shop with many successful colleagues. Whether they were from Norway, Germany, or Finland, they all came to the conclusion that split routines were far more advantageous than total body routines.

Heavy Weights Low Reps – 180 Degree Health

Heavy Weights Low Reps – 180 Degree Health

Posted January 28th, 2013

 739 64  3  

I don’t have much time to post today, but I received an email from a girl just the other day, and she mentioned jumping back into Crossfit after resting and refeeding for about a month.  Not good.  She experienced major insomnia as so often happens when doing really grueling exercise, which seemed to only worsen as she continued.

Research and ideas I came across touting the benefits of high intensity interval training managed to seduce me a couple of years ago.  While it may be true that higher intensity exercise (like Crossfit or HIIT) yields certain benefits, the fact of the matter is that really hard, grueling exercise has some negatives too – and I just don’t find it very sustainable.  There’s only so many times that you can realistically motivate yourself to face a bout of exercise at your absolute cardiopulmonary threshold.  Even Dr. Mercola who had great results with it and began eagerly sharing information about it, eventually found that he couldn’t keep up with the routine.

Needless to say, in the new Diet Recovery that I’m currently finishing up, there is no talk of “MAXercise,” or pushing yourself to such an intense and uncomfortable place.  Rather, there is a focus on sustainability with exercise, and finding the minimum effective dose of exercise to continually make progress.  The combination of progress and sustainability is what actually takes someone to a really high level of strength and fitness and keeps them there - done with the minimum amount of wear, tear, struggle, and strain, which is even more important for someone with a history of a low metabolism and major dietary and weight cycling stresses than it is for an abnormal person.

If you are looking for a safe, but productive form of exercise to do while following the rest and refeeding strategies lined out in Diet Recovery, or when you feel like you are done with that phase, or even just in general if stumbling across this post through a Google search, try heavy weights with low reps.  Do a basic few exercises with a weight that is really hard for you to move – just a few reps, or even just holding the heavy weight in place (static holds/contractions).

In a 30-minute workout or less, without even getting winded, and doing it as infrequently as once every week or two, you can gain tremendous strength over time.  Interval training is time efficient as well, but it’s just too damn draining and grueling.  Doing heavy weightlifting with low reps?  Piece of cake, even more time efficient, and even more productive.  You can literally increase you strength by 50% or more in a year without ever getting out of breath.

This isn’t the only physical activity people should do of course.  We should all spend time on our feet, moving around, playing and enjoying life in physical ways.  But for those wanting to do some real training, and like that kind of thing, a sustainable and effective strength training program is a great thing to prioritize.

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1. Sangita January 28, 2013

   First!! And just what I wanted to hear!
   

   Reply
   • cyndi January 28, 2013

     Ohhhhhh great! I have been resting and trying to get my body temp up so I decded to try your “MAXercise”. Well, last night I had to urinate like a thousand times, worst sleep of my life, woke up in the middle of the night and literally could not sleep. This morning, i haven’t moved from my chair and am eating for heat and i’ve been able to pull up the temp just a tiny bit. I took two steps forward and two steps back i believe. Learned the hard way I guess…:( Can’t wait to read the second version as I have been playing around with it for about two weeks now and am just stunned.
     

     Reply
     • Matt Stone January 28, 2013

       That’s why I’m taking the time to rewrite this book. It has mistakes. Big ones.
       

       Reply
       • cyndi January 28, 2013

         How many more BIG mistakes are we talkin….:) And when does the new edition come out?
         

         Reply
       • Reyaz January 29, 2013

         Matt, that’s why you need to give this update FREE to those who purchased the original version. I know 99 cents is almost nothing, but it is a matter of principle….
         

         Reply
         • Matt Stone January 29, 2013

           It’s not an update. It’s a completely different book rewritten from scratch. It just happens to have the same title. Originally I was going to title it something different. I still might, at least call it Diet Recovery 2.
           

           Reply
2. Tyler January 28, 2013

   Only hitting the gym once every week or two? Makes a gym membership sound less appealing to a poor college student. I think I’ll just find some heavy rocks and leave those in my backyard.
   

   Reply

Low Reps vs. High Reps for Gain: Expert Roundtable

High Reps vs Low Reps For Muscle Gain: Roundtable With The Experts
by Martin Berkham - Leangains

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Summary

Do high reps build more muscle than low reps? This is the first hot topic up for discussion in this upcoming series of roundtables where I bring together the brightest minds in nutrition and weight training science.

4 sets to failure at 30% 1RM increases protein synthesis more than 4 sets to failure at 90% 1RM. This is not surprising given the much greater training volume in the 30% 1RM group. The 30% 1RM group almost did five times as many reps as the 90% 1RM.

However, as everyone was quick to point out, only looking at protein synthesis does not tell the full story. A better marker for muscle growth would be protein balance/accretion (protein synthesis - protein breakdown), but in this study protein breakdown was not measured.

Other studies clearly show that a higher load is more effective in terms of increasing protein synthesis. James mentioned a study (read the free full text version here: "Age-related differences in the dose–response relationship of muscle protein synthesis to resistance exercise in young and old men") which looked at intensities ranging from 20%-90% 1RM (i.e. 27 reps to 5 reps), suggesting the 75% 1RM load provided maximum MPS with no further increase beyond that.

It's very important to think long term and not get focused on the short term. It's also important to consider the "downstream effects" of every training session.

For example, consider squats using German Volume Training (10 x 10 at 60% 1RM, 1x/week) vs Starting Strength (3 x 5 at 82-84% 1RM, 2-3x/week).

Lots of people have had success with the latter, very few with the former.

Even if a GVT squatting session increases protein synthesis more than a SS squatting session, there is no way you can do a GVT squatting session more than once a week. The absurd volume (100 reps is actually very close to the study we just discussed where subjects did 96 total reps) would also lead to whole body fatigue, predispose towards overtraining, hellish DOMS and negatively affect other lower body movements such as deadlifts.

Due to the crippling effect of GVT, properly cycled SS with 2-3x/week squatting wins out in the long-term; greater frequency and less negative downstream effects make up for a lower short term protein synthesis.

As a closing point, while this was an interesting study, the majority of the evidence still points to intermediate rep ranges being optimal for muscle growth.

As for our personal experiences, no one outright claimed greater results with either low reps or high reps exclusively. If anything, there was a tendency to favor intermediate rep ranges or using low(er) and high(er) reps in combination.


The experts:


Besides the original four horsemen, that is yours truly, Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon and Borge Fagerli, I have invited James Krieger to the table.

Lyle and Alan hardly need any introduction but what about these other cats?

James Krieger has a very impressive set of credentials and his input today will be very valuable due to his experience as a published scientist. He's done a great deal of research and published several peer-reviewed articles on weight training. Most known among these is his extensive research on single vs multiple sets of resistance exercise for muscle hypertrophy.

Some of you might not be familiar with Borge but that's just because I, Lyle and Alan prefer to keep him a secret and use him for fun and profit. Just kidding... Borge is the CEO of MyRevolution, a Norwegian supplement company and fitness community. He is also a respected fitness and bodybuilding coach with a tremendous amount of real world experience and many interesting ideas. If you're looking for a new and effective way to approach weight training, check out his Myo-reps protocol.

Today we'll discuss a study that has been causing quite a stir in the fitness and bodybuilding community since it was published two weeks ago.

Read the free full text version here: Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men