As time has gone on and I’ve continued to learn from the best in the business, I’ve noticed more and more a lack of understanding when it comes to repetition ranges and how they should be used. Even in the industry itself at certain levels training providers are not informing their students of how the rep ranges really work.
You might be familiar with the standard rep ranges;
· Strength 3-5reps
· Hypertrophy 8-12reps
· Endurance 15+
But there is a whole lot more to it than that! The ranges in question are essentially a guide for how long in should take to complete a set for the desired goal whether it is gaining strength or muscle mass. This guide is related to something know as Time Under Tension (TUT).
This is the time your muscle spends under tension during a set. This includes the time spent in the concentric (shortening) phase, peak contraction phase, and eccentric (lengthening) phase. So, for example, if you perform a 10-rep set, and each rep takes you 3 seconds to complete, so 1 second on each point of the lift your muscles experiences 30 seconds of time under tension.
If the training goal is to achieve hypertrophy that tempo is not enough to elicit the gains in muscle mass that we are looking for by doing that rep range in the first place. The whole idea of 10 to 12 reps being the magic number for hypertrophy came from studies that show that ultimately the place that you make the most gains is when your time under tension Eclipse's 45 seconds as it gets closer to say 60seconds for a given set. So, if you were to do a rep with a tempo of let's say 1second up, and then 3 seconds on the way down prolonging the eccentric contraction, that's four seconds per rep times 12 is 48 seconds, this crosses the desired threshold. We could even add a second pause to isolate and a little 2 second down, you're still at four seconds, or if we did a 3-1-1 (concentric –contraction – eccentric) giving us five seconds per rep you would be in the 62 second range. If you do it at too fast a pace you won’t get the benefit that you were going for again predicated off the fact that time is what is driving the rep range, not the rep range itself. So, we need to watch that we don’t become so fixated on the number 12.
When we look at the other rep ranges, endurance as we’ve already seen is guide lined at 15 reps and beyond. Just as with hypertrophy the speed and control of the repetitions are an important part as we aim to overcome a lower-moderate resistance over a longer period of time.
In the strength range you want to maintain the control, but now speed up the tempo. When the weight is getting heavier, we need to generate more power, to much focus on controlling the tempo would mean taking away the power needed to achieve the lift in question. So, in this instance the time per rep is not the important factor but the efficiency of the movement and recruiting the right muscles at the right time.
