Group: General Fitness & Exercise

General Fitness & Exercise
Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 383, Messages: 54581

Various general exercise related discussions. Find out what it takes to reach your fitness goals through daily effective exercise. With so many options we try to find out what works best.

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reps vs weight

wingman
wingman
Posts: 2
Joined: 2003/03/18
South Africa
2003/06/20, 04:09 AM
hello again everyone. My free trainers program officially only starts next week but I have started this week already. One thing that clearly stands out from what I used to do in the past is the number of reps the f/trainers program has you do. Eventhough I listed my goal as gaining strength and muscle mass my program still has me doing four sets of each exercise with as many as 20 reps on most of the sets. These high rep requirements have forced me to do considerably less weight than I am capable of.

I was always under the impression that for strength and muscle mass it's better to do fewer reps but higher weight.
Is this all factored into the program? or should I ignore the target reps and do as much weight as possible.

..also - it seems my work gym doesn't have the flat bench or bench incline machines, I have had to use free weights instead - does this make any major difference?
arondaballer
arondaballer
Posts: 1,054
Joined: 2003/06/14
United States
2003/06/22, 12:55 AM
Well, it's not gonna be as benificial without the benches, but with hard work there will always be good results. As for the reps, I like to start out with less weight and as the reps go down, the weight goes up, and I've heard that is the best way to go. Good Luck!

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