If you’re looking to increase your muscle and make your body harder than ever, then you’re going to want to lift weights like a body builder. What does that equate to in regard to reps?
Think About Physical Exhaustion
To gain the most strength and size that you can, you need to push your muscles to the point where they are physically exhausted. In other words, you have to not be able to lift that weight one more time or push against your body weight for one more rep.
To achieve this goal, you want to aim for three sets of 8 to 10 reps for each exercise you do. If you can do any more reps than that, the weight is too light and although it will tone you, it isn’t going to give you the size or definition of a body builder.
Breaking It Down
When you are strength training then, you want you first two reps to be about a five on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being completely easy and ten meaning you cannot do another one. The third and fourth reps should be around a six or seven and the fifth, sixth, and seventh reps ought to be somewhere around an eight or a nine. Your eighth rep should feel like a ten and if you aren’t there yet, that is when you need to do a ninth or tenth rep.
If you complete the 8 to 10 reps and you don’t feel as if you have exhausted the muscle, you aren’t lifting heavy enough weights. Go up a pound or two and try again.
Also, give your body 30 to 90 seconds between each set to relax and restore some of your energy. Do this and you’ll look like a body builder soon enough. That’s a nice image, don’t you think?
