#lowreps

I've been motivated to write this article from the large amount of misconceptions regarding high rep training. It is widely popular for females to consider high rep training as the way to get toned. Though I'm this is mainly directed at females, males will still be able to apply the discussed principles to boost training efficacy and results, as men also do too much 'pump' training with 10 reps and above for muscle size. 

Not to negate the fact that you can get toned with high reps, it is neither efficient, nor will you reach your potential doing solely high reps. 

1 - Little Variance Training is about pushing your body, and forcing it to adapt. Whenever you get your body to do something new, which could be a new exercise, different rep range, different amount of weight for example, you are giving your body a new stimulus. 

When your body encounters a new stimulus, it will cause a different training response, forcing the body to adapt to what you've asked of it. By constantly adapting, we are constantly eliciting results. Without asking the body to adapt, you will elicit very little results.

The best way to ask the body to adapt is to change the rep scheme. The rep scheme is simply how many reps you performed in a single set, and the amount of reps preformed per exercise. 

When the amount of reps are decreased, the amount of weight lifted is going to be higher for each rep to maintain the same perceived effort.  A lot of variables are impacted when this happens, which causes a different training response, eliciting different and more noticeable results. 

The impact this training effort has on the body is noticeably different. This is because you aren't doing what you're used to, plus the added weight lifted is causing a higher demand of stress on the body. 

2 - High Reps Don't Build Strength Building strength is a performance indicator, and a progress indicator. Building strength is seen to be highly related to muscle size, but this isn't always the case. 

Using different strength training protocols have been shown to elicit high levels of muscle tone due to the heightened neurological efficiency of the muscle, from strength training, creating a look where the muscle always looks tensed and hard. 

Generally a larger muscle is associated with stronger muscles, though we see athletes like Kayla Itsines able to do body weight pull ups. If you were as strong as her, do you think you would have a better chance at looking like her? Well of course, and it's from a moderate amount of sets of low rep training, which doesn't stimulate muscle size like a high volume of low rep work does.  

Another reason to build strength is because once you are strong, you will be able to use a heavier weight for your high rep training, which means you will be burning more calories each set, and every workout.  

If you have no strength, then you don't have any muscle, which also incurs a slower metabolic rate than if you had a reasonable amount of muscle. Building strength to your potential is impossible whilst training with high reps.  

By working with high reps, you are working your slow twitch endurance muscle fibers, whilst strength training is working your fast twitch 'sprinter' fibers. If you are predominately comprised of fast twitch muscle fibers rather than slow twitch, you'll have a higher potential for muscular strength gains.

3 - High Reps Aren't Athletic We've seen a large increase in popularity for crossfit, as it first started in the year 2000, with their biggest year being 2015, as it continues to grow.  

This is partly due to the fact that crossfire is an athletic sport and people want to look like crossfire competitors. They are undoubtedly strong, and their nervous systems are extremely efficient (brain to muscle connection) which is developed by performing a moderate to high volume of low rep work, and a moderate amount of high rep work. 

You might be thinking crossfire athletes are too muscular, and too bulky and I understand that. Have a look at other sports, like the upper body of female hurdle athletes. Maybe then they're the body type you're going for. And again, they perform a great deal of low rep, explosive moves in the gym. 

An athlete, or someone who is trained to do athletic movements, will look different, to someone who only performs a general mix of free weights and machines. The athletic, toned, and strong look is a desired body composition, which is made from a mix of athletic, low rep, and conditioning exercise. 

4 - High Reps are Low Intensity The lower the intensity of training, the lower the calorie expenditure will be in total. What is meant by intensity is also perceived differently. A 10 rep max is very difficult, but a 5 rep max is more intense. 

There is a greater neurological demand on the body from a lower rep set, for one reason because more fast twitch (think of a sprinter) muscle fibers are recruited to lift a heavy weight. Fast twitch muscle fibers are more responsive, more athletic, than slow twitch muscle fibers (endurance). 

By developing the correct muscle fiber type by performing athletic, low rep, and the correct conditioning exercise, you will instantly become faster, more powerful, stronger, and you will have the athletic look without the bulk necessarily. 

5 - High Reps are Too Similar to Cardio Doing a lot of cardio, or even a moderate amount of cardio, especially the wrong type of cardio is exactly what you shouldn't be doing to lose weight, improve body composition, or even to improve health. 

And if you're doing 15 reps plus with little rest, then its getting pretty close to just doing cardiac. There is a time and place for this, but doing this all the time is a huge mistake. In my view that training scheme is appropriate to make up a small percentage of the overall training of an individual who want to improve body composition, lose weight, and get toned. 

If a fraction of the time spent trying to build aerobic capacity, could have been dedicated to building muscle and strength with low rep resistance training, then you would be preventing muscle loss associated with aging and increasing strength, insulin sensitivity, metabolic rate, and even aerobic capacity. 

If you're lifting 4kg weights, or something really light for you, you're pretty much doing aerobic exercise in which is not the best use of your time. 

6 - Creates no Muscle Density Muscle density gives a firm and hard look to the muscle. This is the main difference between looking toned, and being skinny fat.  

Usually when an individual wants to look toned, they don't know how to get there, and they don't know what makes the toned look. Muscle tone is when someone is strong, and they have a reasonable amount of muscle. If you don't have any muscular strength, then there is no muscle to tone! 

Muscles respond differently to everything, such as cardiac, high reps, low reps, different exercises, different exercise techniques, and rest periods. High reps with low rest periods tells the muscle to build endurance, slow twitch muscle fibers, which does build some muscle but does not give the end appearance of a toned, dense, firm and harder looking muscle. 

Budding muscle tone is through strength training. Muscle adapt and respond best to this!

7 - High Rep Training Neglects Your Nervous System Strengthening your nervous system should be top priority.  

2 individuals with the same physical features are compared, and the more efficient nervous system of the 2 will be faster, stronger, and look more athletic.  

This is because they have a better brain to muscle connection. Muscle tone is really your ability to fire on your muscles, and keep the tensed look even when you relax. Explosive work, like plyometrics and low rep, heavy exercises engage the nervous system the most.

Medicine ball slams, squat jumps, clap push up, heavy deadlifts, sprinting with the sled push, are a handful of basic exercises to develop your nervous system. 

In basic terms your muscles will just work and perform better from this style of training. Anyone who is illegitimately toned, has an efficient nervous system (brain to muscle connection), so if your nervous system was like theirs, do you think you would have a better chance at looking like them, the answer is yes.  

8 - High Reps Have Less Metabolic Impact You'll burn more calories at rest after a strength training session in comparison to a high rep workout. You'll also burn more calories in an hour session by just performing high rep work than a strength training session, but your metabolic rate won't be raised to the same extent.

Most people's metabolism is quite slow, and the modern day lifestyle promotes sedentary activity. People need a metabolism boost to burn fat, and that's generally all they're missing to get results. Their metabolism is too low. Boost it up by performing a high intensity strength training session, and you'll notice a difference in body composition from the heightened metabolic rate. 

9 - High Reps Allow Less Weight Lifted Strength training is built on the premise of lifting heavy. Training with intensity is built on the premise of lifting heavy. Higher intensity = more calories burned in total. The amount of weight lifted is a performance and progress indicator.  

How do you implement low reps training?

Well lets break this up into 3 parts for low, mid range and high reps to put it simply. Low reps is the 1-6 rep range, mid range is reps 6, 7, 8, and high reps are 9 reps plus. 

Lets compare 5 reps to 15 reps. When programming for high reps, a low amount of sets are used (3-5), when low reps are implemented, a high amount of sets are used (6-12) This is because doing a 15 rep set takes a lot longer to do so with 5 reps, a much greater amount of weight is able to be used than for a 15 rep set. 

Further, 5 reps demands a larger rest interval between sets because of it's intense nature on the nervous system. The nervous system take 5-6 times longer than the muscular system to recover. 

There are many benefits of high rep training, and those benefits are for another article. I wanted to make low rep strength training more beneficial in contrast to high rep training, in the hope to shed light on the more favorable benefits of strength training, so that others can implement and reconsider their own training program, as to what is most beneficial to implement. 

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In health,