HOW MANY REPS - The How Many Reps Question Answered!

How many reps are best to build muscle? How many reps to gain mass? How many reps should I be doing to get cut? When it comes to working out by far the number one question that comes up revolves around the concept of the number of reps that are necessary to accomplish a certain goal.

While it's certainly a factor when it comes to achieving a training effect (lower for power and strength...middle ranges for muscle hypertrophy....higher for muscle endurance) it's not the only consideration, or in my mind the most important.

Instead, what I think people should focus on is HOW you are performing the reps and not HOW MANY. This can make the difference between seeing results and not seeing results. Far too often people have a rep goal in mind, say...10-12 reps, and as long as they get to that number they feel as if they have reached their goal.

Well what happens if most of those reps were done without focusing on the actual muscle group that you're trying to train. What if you didn't bring the necessary intensity on the first 5 reps of the set? Would you still think that 12 reps was going to be good enough to get the job done?

I hope not.

That's the point. If you only think about How Many Reps you need to do to build muscle or how many reps to burn fat or get cut instead of HOW to do the reps, then you'll definitely missing the most important piece of the puzzle!

[churchiglesiabethel-piano]

How does this not have more views hes talking straight truth

[DrQuad]

This dude was still giving solid good advices 11 years ago, thanks jeff

[Lethargo]

That's one hell of a good advice. Not only training until failure and counting down the reps/sets but putting as much effort in every single rep as possible. Quality over Quantity.

[ruhlnews]

Jeff Cavalier the type of dude to ask "How many reps?" after the judge gave him a life sentence.

[DaLeadBull]

There is no perfect rep range, your muscles can't count.

[josephh]

example: 3 rounds only , ****Round 1 start with 140, or whatever your controlled weight of 10 is. Hold the weight at fulll extention, and count (2 sec hold ) fully extended 1, 1000, 2, 1000, and then back down, repeat. That hold and squeeze at full ext, will make you get the full max work from muscles, with this you wont do so many reps, and you will exhaust fast, but this is the key to knowing you got the max out of your press. ****Round 2, drop to 120 repeat, with (2 sec hold) fully extended, max out, ****Round 3 drop to 100, repeat to max. for 2 weeks, after 2 weeks add start weight by 10 pounds Good luck!!!

[jermdouglas]

Once again thanks for the video!!! Everytime I don't feel working out, your videos helped me get off my butt and do it. Your program has help me know what to do in the gym. And even better when I working out at home, with is where I do it 98% of the time. And for someone that never has a interest in doing te same workouts over and over again. Your program has tons of different work outs or varieties of way to do a curls or bench press. And that that is freaking amazing. I grow up skateboarding

[joelee]

8-10 rep range with 30 sec rest in between sets and always go until failure on last set works for me.

[Guitarfit]

I know this isn't a new post, but as I'm trying to get back into training after a few months off I find this inspirational as you can worry to much about reps and not the muscles. I have just finished a week of endurance just to activate the muscles again and today I started my new workout routine which consists of chest and triceps, then back and biceps and at the end of the week will be legs and shoulders, in between this I will be doing abs and cardio. For at least 4 weeks I am going to have to find my weight limitations again as some exercises are failing earlier than others so by feeling the muscle this will help my strength hopefully get some gains back aswell as lose some fat. Thanks Jeff 💪🏻

[alastair]

He's quite right here, repetitions don't build muscle, its time under tension amplified with progressive resistances.You can build muscle without even doing a rep if you know how.The Squat is a great exercise for Core Strength, but is your Core doing a "rep" when you Squat?

[yousif]

So what he is basically saying is that it all depends on the quality of the repetition. In other words: technique and enough weight so you have to use the muscles are the most important factors. If so, nicely explained.

[jaredanwyl]

I feel as though I have a grasp of reps and sets, however, I lack an understanding of how many exercises should be grouped into a set. I.E. on leg day 4 exercises x 10 reps x 3 sets or single exercise x 10 reps x 3 sets then move on to the next exercise

[tenkid]

JEFF!! been following you for 1+ year, im 16, and I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS PROGRAM! LOVE YOU

[jiff]

thand for this. I will definitely make this a main focus

[gixxerk]

Yea I know about type I, type IIa and IIb but is there a set amount of fibres for specific muscles or does it change depending on the training you do? Also, hammer curls don't add width. Neutral to pronated (palms in to palms down) grip work the long head of bicep which increase the peak and neutral to supinated (palms up) work the short head which add thickness and for a better contraction of short head lift little finger higher than thumb and end of rep. And to increase long head contraction

[mikeee]

Hey Jeff thanks a lot for this vid man. You have really helped me out for this summer :D
Keep up the good work!

[ybwhp]

high reps for endurance 12+. would be good to do sum 6 to 8 aswell. to get that explosive power.

[Chanmasta]

Not Jeff, but what you are doing is more for strength training. You'll get stronger, but it isn't going to really get you mass fast (obviously, you will get mass eventually even with strength training). You probably want to do about 75-80% of the weight you are hitting now (at 6 reps) and try to hit between 8-12 reps per set. Once you can hit 12 reps per set, you should add 5 lbs (or 10 lbs if you can still hit 12 reps).

[monocyte]

glad i saw this video, jeff is still thebest

[dieselmanmike]

Hi Jeff! I'm 15 years old and have been following your workouts for months. However, I'm about to finish my 3rd week of p90x. I am also interested in your idea about the teen Ath-LeanX. I was planning to do Ath-LeanX next summer, but now I don't know whether to do the normal Ath-LeanX (I can do almost all of the exercises you put out) or just start with the teen version. If you could get back to me that would be awesome. Thanks, Mike