Greekgoddess

I had the honour of meeting Tom Platz 23 years ago when I competed in my first contest. He was guest poser at a Nabba contest I had entered at Southport. He was very kind to me when I arrived late, very flustered and very nervous after having to push our car uphill (so it could coast down the other side ) when the cylinder head gasket went on the moors!

His thighs were the size of my waist........awesome!

Getting back to the thread...when building muscle I use eight to ten reps usually to failure. When cutting (as now ) I use between 15-25 on the weights and sets of forty on abs. Same number as a pump set on legs after 4 sets of 25 have been done.

Paul

Not if you only train each bodypart once a week, it is important to push yourself.

Im not talking about being lazy and instead of benching 130kg, doing 80kg for 10 sets of 20 or anything silly like that, im talking about pushing yourself so you can only really do low amounts of reps but not being limited to a specific number!

trickymicky69

so more stregth based in the 3-6 range?

or higher?

nathanlowe

Yesterday at the gym i did
30kg x 12, 40kg x 10, 50kg x 8, 50kg x 6

Im planning next time to do
30kg x 12, 50kg x 8, 55kg x 5 ( about failure ) and then an assistance set with 60kg.

Tinytom

I will try to explain here.

When I work with people I get them to remove the modality barriers that exist in a workout. These include

Weight
Reps
Gym attire
Gym conversation
Traditional 'psyche' techniques that set up for a failure e.g. you are psyching yourself up because you know the lift is heavya nd you need extta or you fail = fail sooner.

Once they are out of the way all you need to do is think about lifting, eliminating any other stimulus.

I also have had success with backtracking people so when lifting a 3 plate bench they dont think about how heavy etc it is they think about how they would lift a 2 plate bench as the modalities attatched to it are dfferent i.e. you know you can lift it so you are more confident about lifting and handling the weight.

Plus a few other mental visualisations this normally illicits a better performance.

I've worked with many people in my gym doing this also showed James L one of the techniques for reps when he came down as well as Clarkey when he was down a few weeks ago.

Reps are just a barrier, As soon as you define a number you immediately start to fail at 2 or 3 before the end as you know mentally you are nearly there. What about if you never know where the end is? Never knowing where you will finish until your partner says stop and then tells you that you've just done 23 reps on a heavy shoulder press. Sound silly? Not really as I've done it.

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nathanlowe

So your suggesting working till failure with heavy weights and not setting rep targets ?

Tinytom

No not really

Safety is an issue so trying to smash out many reps with a max weight is not intelligent.

Cant really explain it any more deeply than I have above as its how I train my clients. Each client has a different requirement.

Plus unless you incorporate certain confusional NLP techniques you will always count in your head.

__________________
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www.performancehypnosis.co.uk - believe in change

Sponsored by Extreme Nutrition.

nathanlowe

Ino that the weight should be within reason and that form should be perfect.

But what i have read and may have interpreted it wrong.

If im going to lift say 55kg on bench on my last set. Im better not setting an amount of reps to aim for, but doing as many as i can with perfect form. As the weight is high it might be around 6 reps.

I understand there is a difference in working to failure with light reps, where 20 to 30 reps could be reached and failure with heavy weight, were failure could be around 5 to 8 reps.

ghostdog

6 for me

Tinytom

You havent really understood mate

You're still setting yourself boundaries so if you do 6 this time does that mean you have to do 6 next time? So is that a measure of your progress.

I do as many reps as I feel that set needs and as many as I feel I need to stimulate the muscle. As you are just starting out then having a goal is arguably a good thing but you may get too set in the number game and this translates into the weight game.

I measure a workout on how I feel afterwards and during. Im a bodybuilder not a powerlifter so reps and weight are secondary factors

__________________
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www.performancehypnosis.co.uk - believe in change

Sponsored by Extreme Nutrition.

nathanlowe

Im still learning alot about bodybuilding and gaining size, so lots of things are getting confusing to me.

shauno

aslong as im getting stronger im not bothered

Lost Soul

Tom, I see some of your points and see where they fit in. I think thats quite advanced for most

Now...can you apply the barrier theory to the weight you decide to pick up when you do your set?

TaintedSoul

Nathan as you learn your body you would not start lifting a weight that you can smash out 20 to 30 reps unless perhaps you warming up. You would put on a weight that you generally fail at around 6 to 12 reps. Broad number range but we all have good days and bad days. And Tom is trying to highlight not setting a point where you going to fail or except you can give up when the body could do another 2 reps perhaps.

It's so true that mentally we can be our biggest enemy and remove those limits we can achieve so much more. I have always not counted the bar so that my benches only seem 120kg's on the bar not 120kg's + the bar. Small mental thing to make me see it as something lighter.

need2getbigger

when i started i was told 3 sets of 10 reps which seems to be the norm,

however I now do between 8 and 12 reps per set i aim to do 8 at its a bonus if I manage to bang out 12..then I increase the weight for the next session so that the 8 is hard enough to achieve.

Whether this is right or wrong I don`t know