Low Weight, High Reps Is Good for Overall Health HIIT workouts can also help control and improve blood glucose readings, a measure of diabetes risk. Workouts that use low weight with higher reps are also safer. If you try to lift weights that are too heavy, you are more likely to cause a muscle tear or strain.
Training with greater weights or more reps is more effective depending on your personal fitness goals. Heavier weights with shorter reps are generally preferable for growing muscle mass, whereas lighter weights with more reps increase muscular endurance.
YES, doing more reps with lighter weights can indeed help build muscle. Reason: Performing exercises with lighter weights and higher reps engages your muscles for a longer duration, leading to increased muscle endurance and contributing to muscle growth and toning over time.
High reps can be beneficial for weight loss as they increase calorie burn and muscle endurance. However, a combination of both high reps and heavier weights is usually more effective for burning fat and building muscle. Focus on full-body exercises and incorporate some cardio to maximize fat loss.
The 6-12-25 Protocol is a powerhouse training protocol that harnesses the intensity of giant sets to pack high-volume work into a short period. By targeting one muscle group or body part per set, this method takes you through three different exercises with minimal rest, hitting 6, 12, and 25 reps in quick succession.
Up to 30% of your muscle's size is attributed to the sarcoplasm, so focusing on this type of hypertrophy helps build overall size (i.e., increased cross-sectional area of the muscle). If you're looking to get bigger: Target a rep range of 6 – 12 reps per set. Aim for 3-5 sets.
"Muscle pump" is really just fitness slang for a phenomenon called transient hypertrophy. Hypertrophy refers to the growth of a muscle, and transient means it's only temporary.
This holds that regardless of whether you're trying to build muscle, strength, power, or endurance, performing three sets of 10 reps per exercise is a good place to start. The scheme mostly works, especially if you're just starting out with strength training—because everything works in the beginning.
Activities like running, cycling, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) burn more calories and fat throughout the body, including the upper belly, lower belly, and obliques. So, while ab exercises can help define your core, it's a holistic approach that will help you lose the fat covering those muscles.
Fact: Light weights with high reps alone don't tone muscle or burn fat. People often use light weights and high reps exclusively when aiming to lose fat, but this is a huge mistake — especially if you want to have toned muscles, because lifting weights doesn't stimulate muscles enough for fat loss.
You can lower body fat.
But regular light lifting, along with regular cardiovascular exercise and healthful eating, can build lean muscle mass, says Benten. With consistent light lifting, your body will look leaner and more toned, and your clothes will fit better.
Rest between set durations should be based on sets/exercise (volume), and not load or training goal. General recommendations include moderate (2 min) rest between sets if performing 2 sets/exercise, long rest (3 min) if performing 3 sets/exercise, and very long rest (> 4 min) if performing 4 sets or more/exercise.
The rule that both NSCA and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommend is the “2-for-2 rule.” After a few workout sessions, you can increase the weight for a certain exercise once you can perform two more repetitions beyond your repetition goal for the last set for two weeks in a row.
Lifting lighter weights with higher reps helps tone muscles and build muscular endurance and strength. Compared to lifting heavy weights, light weight and bodyweight movements don't cause muscle fatigue as quickly, allowing you to perform repetitive motions for a greater period of time.
The Science of Fat Loss
Think of it like a balloon losing air—it deflates, but doesn't disappear immediately. Over time, your body adjusts, but the jiggly feeling can be a temporary step along the way.
Before you lift weights, warm up with five to 10 minutes of brisk walking or other aerobic activity. Don't rush. Move the weight in an unhurried, controlled fashion. Taking it slow helps you isolate the muscles you want to work and keeps you from relying on momentum to lift the weight.
Do 3 sets of 10 reps 2 or 3 times per week. The benefit of this approach is you are working the muscles more frequently, increasing the stress on the muscle to cause muscle burn and stimulate growth. This is not a conventional approach to muscle growth, but we have found it does work.
Subjects were randomly assigned to exercise one, two, or three times a week for 24 weeks, performing three sets of their 80% 1‐RM. This study concluded that once‐weekly resistance training was equally as effective in increasing the strength in older adults as two or three times weekly.
Yes and no. Post-workout soreness does mean that your workout was challenging enough. Muscle soreness does tell you that you have incurred some degree of muscle damage, which we know is vital for muscle growth. However, muscle soreness doesn't reflect the extent of muscle damage that results from your workout.
Hormonal imbalances can lead to water retention, making your arms look inflated. Stagnation, or a lack of physical activity, can cause you to have extra weight in your arms as well as other areas. This is because you're not getting enough physical activity to tone your muscles.
Increase the intensity of your workouts instead of working out for long periods of time. Make sure you're getting enough calories and protein in your diet for muscle growth. Get plenty of sleep and give your muscles time for recovery. Try supplements for more strength, energy, and power, like creatine and HMB.