High reps low weight?!
Question: so I know that heavy weights+low reps=more muscle and strength, but could you still get muscular and very strong with light weight, but lots of reps with good form at a slow pace
Answers: so I know that heavy weights+low reps=more muscle and strength, but could you still get muscular and very strong with light weight, but lots of reps with good form at a slow pace
Heavy weights + low reps will increase your max strength faster, but grows soft, sloppy muscle that tears easily.
Light weights + more reps are the better way to go. You gain more condensed muscle that is solid, less likely to tear, and has much more definition.
Nope...You will get great definition but if you are skinny to begin with it will look really bad. Like a dried out prune!
i think you shouldnt waste your time with this slow pace and high rep schedual. if your gonna lift and you want to get stronger you have to put the time and effort into it. you will benifet from doing some lifting but your muscles will not get any stronger if you dont increase the amount of weight your lifting. your body will become use to they light weight and if your looking for strength light weight is not the way to go. and on the slow pace, form is more important than the amount of weight that your lifting. sometimes slow movements are good and sometimes faster is better. you have to always shock the body so it dosent get use to what/how your lifting.
We need to talk about muscle fibre types.
There's basically two types of muscle fibre (well actually there's more than that - you get intermediate ones too but lets not complicate matters).
One type of muscle fibre is good at endurance work. It's got loads of mitochondria in it to produce energy for it. Contains lots of myoglobin - a protein like haemoglobin which binds oxygen so it's there and ready to use - and respires aerobically.
This type of fibre is better at low intensity prolonged exercise and not good at lifting heavy weights. If you cut open a marrathon runner this is the kind of muscle fibre which would predominate). You may notice marathon runners never look 'built' (in fact they sometimes look decidedly scrawny - there's a reason this muscle type isn't bulky we'll come to it later).
There's a second type which respires anaerobically (prodominantly) and consequently tires quickly. It contains much more stores of raw energy (in the form of glycogen and creatine kinase) than the other type of muscle fibres - a thing which is nescessary as anaerobic respiration is far less efficient.
This type of muscle is good at contracting quickly and powerfully producing fast strong movements. It's not good at endurance work. Cut open a body builder or 100 meter sprinters and this is the kind of muscle fibre you'll find predominates.
Lastly it should be mentioned that due to the greater amount of glycogen stored in these muscle fibres, and the greater amount creatine kinase (both are stores of fuel) this draws in more water by osmosis. This indrawing of water, and, of course, the glycogen and creatine kinase itself, makes this type of muscle look much bigger - making the person look 'built'.
How do we govern which type of muscle we end up with?
How we train each muscle group effects how it develops. Interestingly enough it seems to be mostly down to how the nerve which innervates a particular muscle fibre sends it's impulses as to which fibre type it becomes. Not only that but you can teach a nerve to innervate the fibre in the other way and the result will be that the fibre switches between the two above types (over time).
If you do high reps low weight you will teach your body that you require the endurance type of muscle. You won't get built (in the muscle groups you do this for). You will develop better endurance for low weight work.
If you do low rep high weight conversely you will get built.
Hope that helps! (of course this isn't medical advice)
There are basicly two types of muscle cells Long and wide. Long muscle cels are created by your body when you do lighter weights a lot of times This gives you endurance.
Wide muscle cells are from useing heavy weights and lifting it less than 7 times. This creates power.
Keep in mind not everyone has the genetics to have a body like the guy on the bowflex comercial.