Once More, With Different Feeling - Different rep ranges in the same workout.
Early on in someone’s fitness program, simple set and rep schemes work best. As we progress with our fitness, there can be value in somewhat more complex set and rep schemes. In fact, as years go by, complexity benefits you more and more. But that complexity still has to be tempered with a focus on foundations. So, what would that look like in a program?
Source: Practical Programming for Strength Training, 3rd Ed.
A side note before we continue. Note that graph above. Complexity isn't important until year 2 or 3 of a consistent training program. A HUGE mistake novice lifters make is pushing for complexity way before it's needed. This slows the bus right the fuck down. Don't fall in to that trap.
Example Time
Let’s take a squat for example. Early on in your fitness journey, you might spend a cycle of training doing your squats at 3 sets of 15 reps.
Your next cycle of training might have you doing 5 sets of 10 reps with a heavier weight.
Your next cycle of training might have you doing 3 sets of 5 reps, or even 2 sets of 2 reps with a tremendously heavy weight.
Each of these rep ranges needs a weight that’s heavy enough to make progress. But the weight you’ll use to make each range feel difficult is dramatically different.
If a weight is heavy enough to make 2 reps hard, you won’t be able to do 15 of it. Similarly, if a weight is a good challenge for 15 reps, then 2 will be a piece of cake and you won’t get a training stimulus.
So, there’s an inverse relationship between weight and reps. And in a good program you’ll spend time with heavy and light weights in low and high reps, respectively. If your program doesn’t consider this waving in intensity, you need a better program. You do have a program, right?
Source
Why the difference?
The short answer is that heavy, low reps sets do different things than lighter high rep sets.
One is great for bone density, one is great for endurance.
One is great for flexibility, one is great for work capacity.
One preferentially focuses on one type of muscle fiber and the other a different type (you have a variety, and all need training)
One trains one energy system, the other trains another process to create energy in the body.
So, you need both. And both need to be hard.
Simplicity vs. Complexity
As I said above, at the beginning of your journey it might be sufficient to spend time in each of these rep ranges for a few weeks of training each. And after a while, you’ll be very good at this type of training. The body adapts. This is a simple approach, and it results in very quick results. It’s great.
But eventually progress will slow, and that’s when we can add some complexity to keep the bus moving. But, unlike the latest bullshit exercise video you saw on instatubebook, we’re not going to be adding some weird ninja backflip squat. We’re keeping the squat, and making the reps complex.
What that might look like is this:
You do squats early on, right after your warm up when you have tons of energy and focus. You do 3 sets of 5 heavy ass squats. Or 2 sets of 2. Each set should be super heavy and have you crying out to whatever deity will listen for help. Then you rest.
This is amazing for strength, flexibility, and bone density as well as natural testosterone production.
Later in the same workout you’re also doing squats. Maybe light weight. Maybe no weight. And maybe you’re going to do 5 sets of 10 - 20 squats. Again, they should be hard enough to really make you beg for divine help, but they will feel very different. They will burn. This is amazing for building stamina, muscle, and energy.
Synergy, Fuck yeah!
2 sets of 2 heavy reps is hard in a certain way.
5 sets of 20 is hard in a completely different way.
Heavy sets make you strong enough to use more weight in your light sets over time.
Lighter high rep sets give you the muscle and ability to recover to continue progressing your heavy sets.
It’s an upward spiral.
Mindfulness benefits.
The biggest challenge in coaching people often lies in getting them to that A-HA! Moment where they finally learn what “hard” feels like, and can push themselves there without overdoing it and impeding recovery.
Most people will either push way beyond their current limits with no application of mindfulness, or they will never approach the level of challenge necessary to make progress. It’s a learning process to get to the point where you can ride that knife edge. This is mindfulness.
Part of this challenge comes from folks lacking the understanding that every rep range should be hard, but in it’s own way.
Doing the same exercise for different rep ranges teaches you what hard feels like for different training stimuli.
THIS. IS. IMPORTANT.
Conclusion
You must learn how to make the same exercise feel incredibly taxing, while not destroying you, whether you’re doing 2 reps or 20. Because of how fatigue accumulates at different reps and intensities, these feel very different.
Your long term progress depends on understanding how to make 2 reps just as difficult as 20 and vice versa. 20 reps will make you feel the burn. 2 reps will make you feel mentally fatigued from hitting a level of focus, mindfulness, and internal effort in ways that most people rarely experience.
So, if your workout program has you doing a variety of rep ranges for the same exercise, this is an opportunity to progress in so many different ways both physically and with mindfulness.
So, if you have squats, or push ups, or curls, or whatever twice in the same workout, remember…
Once more, with DIFFERENT feeling.
P.S. If the title made you think of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, treat yourself to a protein shake or something, then go train to kill some vampires.
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