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Ever since humans first picked up heavy things and put them down again, this debate has persisted: Is it better for your gains to lift lighter weights for higher repetitions or heavier weights for lower repetitions?
“I want heavier weights to give better hypertrophy results,” explains powerlifter and PhD Layne Norton. gq“Because then I could sit here and feel smug about it.” But he says that it does not seem so.
Norton cites Professor Stuart Phillips of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University, whom he considers one of the best protein researchers in the world. Phillips was one of the first to discover that, when it comes to hypertrophy (muscle growth) and increasing muscle protein synthesis, Low-load training, when taken close to failureShows similar results to heavy weights lifted to failure.
In plain English: You can make profits without lifting heavy weights. But you have to lock the functional trainer until then feels Heavy, and you’re only a few reps shy of not being able to lift more.
data all around this debate The trend has been going on in this direction for about 15 years. The original literature on strength and resistance training “wasn’t really very good,” says Norton, because they weren’t sure what to standardize for. So early studies on resistance training comparing high and low loads are not entirely useful, as both groups were not training frequently to near failure. One group was simply lifting less weight.
Delegates are just one variable
Today, from Norton’s perspective, it is clear from the research that when controlling for “proximity to failure”, there is no statistical difference between lower reps and higher weights compared to the opposite.
This understanding was not always there. A few decades ago, the common practice was to focus on lower rep ranges for strength, middle repetitions (6-15) for muscle building, and higher repetitions for muscular endurance. You’ll still see that advice, and Norton himself used to tell people the same thing.
In fact, he still thinks focusing on middle reps is a good general principle for building muscle, even if the scientific reasoning was wrong. “This is really good advice in practice because it’s such a low load that it doesn’t scare you as much as lifting really heavy weights, but it’s heavy enough that you get close to failure. It doesn’t take you more than a minute to set up,” he says. Failure to lift lighter weights will simply take longer.
Progressive overload does not always mean weight gain
A relevant concept to making gains on the power rack is “progressive overload”, the idea that increasing the difficulty of your workout is necessary to continue building strength. One way to “progress” – but not the only way – is to increase weight.
“The word ‘load’ in progressive overload makes people focus on the weight on the bar, but more reps are also a form of progressive overload,” says Norton. Adding more “hard sets”, or ones that get you close to failure, is another form of progressive overload.
One caveat: It’s difficult to increase your numbers simultaneously on the three main lifts (bench, deadlift, squat). For advanced lifters who want to continue progressing, they may want to consider “volume cycling,” a term coined by scientist and exercise expert James Krieger. For a period of three to four months, you will hit a specific muscle group with progressive overload, while all of your other lifts will be pulled back to “maintenance mode”, switching to the targeted muscle group after that period.
