Last week’s blog was pretty successful, so I’m following on from that content with something pretty similar. Last week we talked about was it better to do long, steady bouts of cardio for fat loss or was high intensity interval training the answer? This week, what’s better for achieving the toned, athletic look… high rep strength training or low rep? Let’s get into the details.
One thing I’ve heard over and over again is “I want to drop fat and tone up”. Last week we learned that fat does not turn into muscle and muscle does not turn into fat. So, what people want is two different things. 1) drop fat and 2) build muscle. Now, a lot of people, not just women, get a bit worried about putting on muscle. I think people’s view on muscle is like a bodybuilding figure but that is so hard to do, like it doesn’t just happen by accident so don’t worry there. If you’re scrawny you’re going to need to build muscle to get ‘toned’.
How do we build muscle? Volume is the answer to that. Like anything in the body. Think about running a marathon, do you just get up and go? No. You build it up gradually with a long term training plan. Starting off, high reps is a great option. To grow the muscle, you’re programme needs to follow a protocol that’s called a hypertrophy. This just refers to the method in which muscle is built. There are a lot of different methods to achieve this depending on your training level. For beginners a protocol of 8-12 reps works great. For more advanced lifters things like isometrics and tempo could be needed. Can you follow this protocol forever and keep seeing results? Not really… the body will stop adapting at some point.
Plus, not everyone wants to keep growing muscle. But how do you maintain it after? This is when I suggest dropping to lower reps. Lower rep ranges help you put strength into the muscle. Because you’re lifting the weight less times you can lift more weight. Strength is nothing to be afraid of. I think most people’s views on this are warped by social media and some misinformation that’s out there. Yes, hypertrophy will make the muscle grow but doing 25 reps of banded crab walks won’t really. Muscle needs progressive overload. The stronger the muscle the more you can overload it over time. Not to mention all the other benefits we’ve previously talked about here when it comes to being strong.
So when people tell me they want to look lean and toned and ask how to do I say it’s going to take a mixture of both methods. Hopefully by now you guys are realizing one method won’t ever give you everything you need.
A number of factors contribute to getting the toned look many crave. Nutrition is always a big point of emphasis. Training can only do so much for you if you’re nutrition is off. But let’s say nutrition is in check… What else do we now need for the look? We need to improve body composition, this basically means increase our muscle and drop fat.
If I was developing a programme for someone starting off I would definitely start on medium to high reps. This means I’d get them to do 8-15 reps over the course of a month or so depending on how they progress. With that amount of reps the weight won’t need to be too high, this means we can really groove and improve the movement patterns and technique. As they improve over time and make their way through the programme I would start to bring the reps down and increase the weight. This is more strength focused. The hypertrophy and technique work gives us a foundation to build on, the strength work reinforces those foundations and gets them ready for another block on hypertrophy. Remember, you can’t just do this once and stop, when it comes to muscle, use it or lose pal. Obviously it’s not as simple as that… many factors come in to play when programming like history and goals but that’s the basics.
If you’re training on your own don’t get pigeon holed into one single method. Switch it up every 2-3 weeks. If you’re really serious about it do some research on linear block periodization. Or check out the daily undulating model for something different that works pretty well with athletes. Third option is join a semi-private training gym or get a good coach to do all the programming for you.
So there’s my views on another this or that question that often comes up when it comes to fitness. If there’s any other fitness related questions like this one, please don’t be afraid to reach out and ask me to cover it. This blog was created for a few reasons, one of them was to get good, unbiased information out in the public to squash the myths that are often associated with strength and conditioning and fitness in general.
Catch you next week,
Rory.