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Originally Posted by Love2liftkat

So, I have this on going disagreement with a friend of mine who swears you MUST lift 12-15 reps in order to loose weight. I currently train for strength while cutting calories (5 reps on my main lifts and up to 12 on my accessory work.) I have tried to explain that nutrition is the key for fat/weight loss. That I want to maintain the muscle it's taken me forever to gain and I want to get stronger....I would love to hear your thoughts and reasoning on why people think this way Why is there so much bro science out there...etc.

hopefully i dont offend anyone but the height of people's ignorance today just absolutely blows my mind. their is no magic number of reps or sets that determine if you are gaining or leaning out or whatever. now with that said if you are trying to gain strength and strength only then the reps do matter. diet is 120% on what happens with your body. if you are in a cal surplus then you will gain tissue be it fat or muscle and if you are in a cal def then you will lose tissue be it muscle or fat. the rep range really has a marginial impact on what is going on. that you need to do 10-50 reps blah blah to get cut is like 1950s style info. you need to strike a balance of high and low end reps to maintain as much muscle as possible when your in a cal def. the next trainer or coach i hear say that in person i am going to punch in the face. pick up a book or talk to someone that is successful and dont get stuck in the 1950s your fools. i am glad you know what you are doing kat because unfortunately their are far more stupid people than smart ones running around

Tweet100% what guns said. I can't count how many times someone has come up to me and said they are doing super high reps because they want to cut up. You can cut down with high or low reps depending on your diet. Lifting to get stronger is really where your rep scheme will come into play.

TweetWhat is sad is the fact many trainers and coaches are teaching it, like you said @guns01. I fell into the bro science trash early on. It's like we try to make some kind of magic to it all. Yes, it's hard as heck to achieve the results we are shooting for but there's no magical potion or combination to lifting to make muscle pack on or fat fall off! Sure there are reasons for each style of training and it effects your performance per say ...depending on your goals, training should be adjusted. But in general I think people just don't want to admit the hardest and almost always weakest area is nutrition! ...Now, if only I could explain this to many of my gym friends.

Tweeti think the logic is if you do high reps it takes longer to do so you are burning more fat.

for me it is diet and cardio. lifting alone does not burn much fat. also why can't you do high reps on the first set, heavy weights on the second and third then burnout with a light set again?

they are not mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by Love2liftkat

What is sad is the fact many trainers and coaches are teaching it, like you said @guns01. I fell into the bro science trash early on. It's like we try to make some kind of magic to it all. Yes, it's hard as heck to achieve the results we are shooting for but there's no magical potion or combination to lifting to make muscle pack on or fat fall off! Sure there are reasons for each style of training and it effects your performance per say ...depending on your goals, training should be adjusted. But in general I think people just don't want to admit the hardest and almost always weakest area is nutrition! ...Now, if only I could explain this to many of my gym friends.

ok, let me see if i can break it down a little bit from what i have learned over the years. i will also touch on ladies as well because they are a completely different beast to work with than men are. ok so two types of fibers in a muscle. 1-fast twitch and 2-slow twitch. so you type 1 fibers are what are targeted when performing lower end reps and used during explosive work. they are also the most visable and larger fibers in most people. type 2 fibers are your endurance fibers that are used during your long reps and long extended duration types of activities. these are not as numerous in most people and are much smaller in comparrison to the type 1. you will find that you can train to have more of one or the other depending on genetics but size and strength come from type 1. women also have a higher abundance of type 2 fibers for the most part. a female can tolerate much more time under tension and more endurance type activity than most males can. that is from a strength training aspect so dont go beating me up about marathons and other that other hoopla. so here is what i have taken away from my abundance of learning over the years. you have to sprinkle a little bit of both into your training to keep your body guessing. that's a starter. you also have to push heavy weight for lower end rep ranges in order to maintain the most muscle as possible during a cal def. that is of course within reason because you are going to lose strength but you still go as hard as possiblee while maintaining safety. if you opt to go with all out higher end reps you will lose almost all of your strength as well as a pretty significant amount of muscle mass.
now let's touch a little on females in general. since the ladies already right out of the gate genetically dont have as much type 1 explosive fibers, you have to train them a bit differently to develop those to their genetic potential. we do this by doing lots of low rep work and explosive work. even going so low as 1-3 reps with explosiveness. doing this allows you to help build both a solid base of strength and dense muscle mass almost along the lines of power lifting type of training but done for someone looking to improve their physique. this will not have the same effect in a male. the male will not actually benefit as much from hypertrophy doing this type of training but strength will go up. kind of funky but the science backs this approach up pretty well. so the take away and what i do with my ladies is i will do explosive benching inclines deads and squats as well as box jumps. this is a corner stone to their training all the way up to 2-3 wks out from shows and sometime all the way to a week prior depending on their joints and abilities.

so that in a nut shell is how the body and training is broken down haha. the best way i can explain it in my own dumb way

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Originally Posted by guns01

ok, let me see if i can break it down a little bit from what i have learned over the years. i will also touch on ladies as well because they are a completely different beast to work with than men are. ok so two types of fibers in a muscle. 1-fast twitch and 2-slow twitch. so you type 1 fibers are what are targeted when performing lower end reps and used during explosive work. they are also the most visable and larger fibers in most people. type 2 fibers are your endurance fibers that are used during your long reps and long extended duration types of activities. these are not as numerous in most people and are much smaller in comparrison to the type 1. you will find that you can train to have more of one or the other depending on genetics but size and strength come from type 1. women also have a higher abundance of type 2 fibers for the most part. a female can tolerate much more time under tension and more endurance type activity than most males can. that is from a strength training aspect so dont go beating me up about marathons and other that other hoopla. so here is what i have taken away from my abundance of learning over the years. you have to sprinkle a little bit of both into your training to keep your body guessing. that's a starter. you also have to push heavy weight for lower end rep ranges in order to maintain the most muscle as possible during a cal def. that is of course within reason because you are going to lose strength but you still go as hard as possiblee while maintaining safety. if you opt to go with all out higher end reps you will lose almost all of your strength as well as a pretty significant amount of muscle mass.
now let's touch a little on females in general. since the ladies already right out of the gate genetically dont have as much type 1 explosive fibers, you have to train them a bit differently to develop those to their genetic potential. we do this by doing lots of low rep work and explosive work. even going so low as 1-3 reps with explosiveness. doing this allows you to help build both a solid base of strength and dense muscle mass almost along the lines of power lifting type of training but done for someone looking to improve their physique. this will not have the same effect in a male. the male will not actually benefit as much from hypertrophy doing this type of training but strength will go up. kind of funky but the science backs this approach up pretty well. so the take away and what i do with my ladies is i will do explosive benching inclines deads and squats as well as box jumps. this is a corner stone to their training all the way up to 2-3 wks out from shows and sometime all the way to a week prior depending on their joints and abilities.

so that in a nut shell is how the body and training is broken down haha. the best way i can explain it in my own dumb way

Pretty well broken down! That was what I had in my head but you are very good at explaining it all and breaking it down. Lol Maybe I'll just share a link to the thread instead of trying to explain and stumbling all over myself!

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Originally Posted by Love2liftkat

Pretty well broken down! That was what I had in my head but you are very good at explaining it all and breaking it down. Lol Maybe I'll just share a link to the thread instead of trying to explain and stumbling all over myself!

i was a platform instructor for a few years haha and what i figured out about myself even with all the schooling i got on teaching stuff is that i am a far better teacher with practical applications than i am running my mouth or writing something out for someone haha. i must be getting better if i broke it down good enough for you. must be i am getting better with age lol

TweetGood thread and info...thanks