How Many Reps Should I Do to Build Muscle

The age-old question of the perfect amount of reps. It is one that all levels of bodybuilding enthusiasts search for. We all desire to know the answer that maximizes gains, giving us the best results in the fastest amount of time. 

The question itself is the wrong question to initially be asking. Even if you know the perfect amount of reps that does not mean you are effectively activating the muscle. Nor does it mean you are pushing enough force to create a demand for muscle growth. So before we talk about the correct amount of reps, lets first discuss those two facts. 

Activating the Muscle 

Seeking to build a muscle requires you to work the muscle. That might seem obvious, but rarely do I receive the question “how do I engage the muscle?.” Therefore, it needs to be discussed. Proper form for the purpose of building muscle is not an option if you want to build mass. 

The way you learn to activate the muscle during the movement is most importantly through careful practice. Most people only take their working sets serious. The warm-ups are not given the attention they deserve a missed opportunity to learn to engage the muscle effectively. 

If you train your chest with two warm-ups and two active sets for six sets per week, you are missing 312 opportunities to learn to engage the muscles. 

Proper form is not simple and it is unfortunately not a one size fits all model. You cannot simply follow the recommendations of “how to bench press” and expect to engage the muscle. Many other important factors play a role in how much emphasis is placed on a muscle.

For example, an individual who is 5’6″ with short limb length and a large torso will bench press for pec growth in an entirely different way than my 6’2″ long leg frame. If with proper form you do not deeply feel the muscle working a change needs to be made. 

You may need to adjust your form somehow within the exercise. Different grip widths, angles and incline/declines may help you feel the muscle more effectively being worked. 

You may also need to disregard that popular exercise entirely. This is where your own intuition and understanding come into play. Since we do not have muscle activation technology at our disposal, you must pay attention to how your muscles engages. It makes all the difference in the world that you are able to put that specific muscle under the maximum amount of stress.

Training with Intensity 

The perfect amount of repetitions will never matter if you are not training with enough intensity. You must force your muscles to adapt to an overload of stress. It is through the weakening of the muscle that stimulates a need for growth. While there is a limit to your body’s ability to adapt at a given time, most do not reach it. 

It is crucial that the muscle fails during the set. Since we have already addressed activating the muscle, you now need to ensure that the fibers fail before you do. Most gym rats experience mental failure far before the muscle actually does. Are you one of them? 

The reason why so many succeed at building massive muscles through low, mid, and high repetitions is because of intensity. It is a primary factor for building muscle and is more important than how many reps you perform. 

We are only able to perform high-intensity if we are completely focused. Training with any sort of distraction will limit our ability to let nothing stop the rep from being completed. Limiting distractions should be a top priority for ensuring that your best is available for the set. 

Unfortunately, we cannot always perform at a high-intensity. There are those who max out every week with little results to show for it. These rare overachievers need to periodize their programs for mid and low-intensity periods. As mentioned, these are anomalies and most of us need to give it more during the set, not less. 

The Perfect Rep 

There are generally accepted ranges for what we prioritize in the gym. 

• Strength with some muscle growth: lower rep ranges of 1-5 repetitions are traditionally performed.
• Hypertrophy (muscle growth): rep ranges of 6-12 are typically performed.
• Muscular endurance: rep ranges that exceed 12 are typically performed and generally not to failure.

For the one who really wants to maximize muscle growth. consider training in the hypertrophy range for 60-80% of the time. This leaves 20-40% of your training in the other two rep ranges.

The reason we want to train in the other rep ranges is for two reasons. First, science is not absolute in the hypertrophy range being the superior choice. It has been shown in shorter lengths of time (approx 8-weeks) that equal growth can occur with higher reps. Equal gains have been had through high volume, muscular endurance repetitions as high as thirty reps at a given set.

This happens theoretically because your body adapts to the shock it experiences in this new training style. The body adapts to the stress by an increase in fibers utilized with this level of intensity. While it may not work in the long term, it can be beneficial in infrequent use. 

The other reason is that this change in volume gives the hypertrophic fibers a break. It allows them the ability to recover where they otherwise wouldn’t. It allows them to be less of a priority not to the point where they begin to atrophy (muscle loss). It gives them the time to prepare for when you go back to the rep range where they become activated.

Getting In the Reps 

Straight forward sets are not the only way to get in strength and muscular endurance reps in your program. You can also include different modalities such as drop-sets, super-sets, and rest-pause-sets. Additionally, you can use strength-curve sets to maximize all fibers at different points of the movement.

Consider the following drop-set example. If performing the bench press, you might choose a weight that only allows you to lift it for 3-repetitions (strength range). You then perform a drop set of lighter weight, which you are able to perform another 5 repetitions. This gives you a total of 8-repetitions and puts you in the hypertrophic muscle-building range.

These types of workouts, however, are much more taxing to the body than straight forward sets. It is important that they are less in frequency and time than straight forward sets. It takes a great deal of recovery from this level of intensity to ensure your body is equipped to grow. 

Bodybuilding is an Art 

Because we are not able to give you an exact answer as to the perfect amount of reps, bodybuilding becomes as much an art as it is a science. Your ability to build muscle is unique to you and while there may be common truths we all can apply to our training, it is what makes us different that matters. 

When determining the perfect amount of reps for you, be sure that you understand that it is a period in time, not an absolute for the rest of your life. Commit to a workout program and give it everything you’ve got. 

In the end, review how the reps, sets, and muscle groupings worked together both in science as well as art. Connecting with the muscle matters. staying engaged in an exercise matters. flowing through the workout matters. All of this matters for what is the perfect rep for you at this period in your life.