Gaining Muscle Weight

you ask people their opinion on what the best rep range is for gaining muscle mass and what is the best for leaning out, I would be willing to bet that over 90 percent of the answers you receive would be: low reps for mass and high reps for cutting. If you've been in the gym mix for any length of time, you've probably heard the same. The problem is that this philosophy isn't necessarily accurate.

Let's first tackle gaining muscle mass. If you were to lift heavy weights and perform low reps, you will indeed increase strength. And although strength and muscle mass seem to go hand in hand, stronger doesn't always mean bigger and vice versa. Competitive bodybuilders are extremely strong and have an overwhelmingly amount of muscle mass, however, powerlifters are typically much stronger but will not have as much true muscle mass as a bodybuilder. This is mainly due to their difference in training techniques and diet to support their ultimate goal. Since we're talking about gaining muscle mass and not necessarily gaining strength (though strength will increase with having larger muscles), just doing low reps will not deliver absolute gains in size. What produces gains is overloading the muscle which is triggered by training …show more content…
Many believe that doing a lot of high rep sets is the key to this, but that isn't necessarily true. You could do three sets of 20 reps and notice no difference at all in body composition. The purpose of leaning out is to shed body fat and retain (or perhaps gain) muscle at the same time so that the muscles are well defined and visible. Like training for muscle mass, the same principles apply. The intensity of your workout and overloading the muscle is not only going to force your muscles into growth, but will also burn more calories enabling you to shed unwanted body fat. Again, as stated with gaining mass, your calorie intake is going to play a huge role in shaping your