reps for hypertrophy, after ss

[donio95]

why do you think 10-12 reps is better for hypertrophy than 5?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm not sure that I do. That which makes you the strongest also makes you the biggest.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

The biggest guys that I've ever been around work in ranges from 1 to 20.

All depends on the exercises, the sport, and the athlete. I have never been around a bodybuilder who ONLY trained with 10-12 reps, and I have never been around a strength athlete who ONLY trained with 5's. Its silly to assume otherwise.

A typical "Westside" lowerbody day might be:

Box Squats for heavy singles
SLDLs for sets of 5
Glute Hams for sets of 10
Reverse Hypers and Abs for sets of 15-20.

Not that hard to train up and down the spectrum and get the best out of everything.

[CraziED]

Actually, the rep range mumbo jumbo only looks good on paper. Strength is directly correlated to size.

You can't really target specific muscle fibres they way you think you can, even with Arnie's super Mt Everest biceps visualization mantra. They are activated by specific neuro-pattern, and you have to fully activate all of them to really develop appreciable hypertrophy.

Come to think about it, even Hypertrophy-Specific-Training also mandates "progressive-overload". Coincidence?

[Carlos Daniel]

While getting strong and getting big are obviously related, there's a reason bodybuilders don't do heavy triples as the base of their training. Kirk Karwoski's legs are huge, but Ronnie Coleman's are just cartoonish and I'm not convinced it's the drugs that make the difference. Someone on power and bulk put it in an interesting way: you want to get strong? get stronger on the low rep range. Want to get big? get stronger at the medium-high rep range.

[hamburgerfan]

I don't look like a bodybuilder, and there are guys bigger than me, but I've found doing many many low rep sets with a heavy-ish weight builds muscle just as well as anything else.

[LudwigVan]

A relevant T-Nation article, assuming Rip doesn't mind:

Why Bodybuilders Are More Jacked Than Powerlifters

[donio95]

first of all i saw this messege taliking about the same subject http://startingstrength.com/resource...d.php?t=16102&

in pp you wrote that- "Muscular hypertrophy is produced by using higher reps,
8 to 12 RM" you wrote that if intermediate-advanced trainer want to focus on buildung muscle mass , this is the rep rang(or this was the main idea..)

i am a new coach, i study "wingate sports college" in israel.
at wingate i learned that for hypertrophy best results, you need to do short rest (of 30-90 sec between sets) in a range of 8-15 reps. they said if you do this the growth hormone increase and bla bla bla.. but i didnt find a research that support it, and guss what?, they dont have any research to support it too.

i dont have a real hard proof and maybe the only reason to do what they said is Fatigue stimulus. you wrote in pp that for muscle mass higher rep range(10-12, and even 15) is better for muscle mass. i will appreciate for your knowlage support for it.

as a coach i have a trainer that his weight is 64 kg(142 lbs) his height is 1.72 (5'7)
we are working toghter already 6 month.
his bench is-280 lbs,
press- 175 lbs
barbell row- 270 lbs
squat- 300 lbs

his on a high volume program, he never worked on ss prog. is a very strong little guy even withou intensity prog..
i thought that he dont eat enough so i told him to drink 2 liters a day + diet.
what kind of program you recomend for this guy to gain muscle mass?
is texas method with 5 reps range is the best choise for his hypertrophy?

[Tom Narvaez]

This is a question that I have been trying to workout in my head for a while.

In a very simplistic way of looking at things, assuming proper form and the ability to perform a movement skillfully, I can either increase performance in a given lift via improvement in neural efficiency or by creating more contractile tissue through hypertrophy. Obviously, it is going to be very difficult, more likely impossible, for a lifter with any kind of appreciable time under to the bar to isolate either factor.

However, like most things in the strength world, the way you train will influence your results along a continuum. Constantly training with singles and heavy triples, to my knowledge, should result in superior ability to recruit motor units. Anecdotally, this is certainly true if you compare LBM to strength ratios among weightlifters, powerlifters, and bodybuilders. This result is a function of intensity. If you are training in much higher rep ranges, without a focus on speed and power development, maximal motor unit recruitment will not be necessary until the lower threshold fibers become fatigued. On the other hand, when performing a heavy single, a lifter will recruit as many motor units as his current level of adaptation allows. If volume is similar, you'd expect the lifter with more exposure to higher intensity to be more neurally efficient. If powerlifters and weightlifters are significantly more neurally efficient, it would stand to reason that they would be need to be proportionately stronger, in terms of the difference between the two groups' levels of neural efficiency, to be the same muscular size.

And yet this doesn't seem to be the case. Most of the authors I've read like to chalk this up to superior levels of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. I may be talking out my ass, but, unlike Carlos, I think this primarily comes down to two things: drugs and glycogen storage.

Bodybuilders are notorious for inane levels of volume. I think that it only makes sense that one of the adaptations that results from their relatively lower intensity, higher volume training is a superior ability to store glycogen. Anyone who has purposely done a glycogen depleting workout, and followed it up later in the week with a carbohydrate binge, can attest to the fact that you appear to be able to hold supramaximal amounts of glycogen; you can hold more water weight than you otherwise would. If someone continually followed diet and exercise programs that induced this response, they'd obviously, at least to me, adapt to be able to store more glycogen over time. In the grand scheme of things, an extra 5lbs to 20lbs of water weight can make someone look much larger than another person who has similar muscle mass, but is holding less water.

Talking about drugs is usually neither welcomed nor productive but, I don't think powerlifters can even hold a candle to the drug protocols followed by Mr. Olympia candidates nor do they care to. I'll leave it that.

If anyone can help point out the errors I undoubtedly made, I'd welcome it.

[Briks42]

The difference in hypertrophy for rep ranges between say 5's and 10's is probably negligible if you eat for growth, recover well, keep adding weight, and lift heavy.