I’ve read that 4 sets of 8 reps better for hypertrophy.
Hypertrophy range = 6-12
All the guys I know who are big do 3-4 x 8-10.
4x8 is good if you can handle the volume. If not 3 x 8 is a good balance between strenght and hypertrophy.
Arnold wasn’t talking crap when he talked ablout the pump. I promise you I made as good or better size gains on 3 x 10 than I did on 5 x 5. Did the former for a cpl months, did the latter for 6.
Google set / rep ranges and you will be overwhelmed with scientific information that 1-3 reps is for power, 3 - 5 for strength and a tiny bit of the kind of hypertrohy that actually makes your msucles look bigger, whilst the ideal range is around 8 - 12. This does include extra strorage of water and glycogen etc, so could be seen as ‘stuffing’ or ‘fluffing’ - but hey if you’re doing it for LOOKS then that;s what you want I guess.
And you can still get big on higher reps and be stronger. Maybe not as strong as on a strength programme, but if your lifts are progressing - then you are lifting heavier wieghts and thus are stronger.
So if you were lifting 40 pounds lighter on your deadlift and have more gains, would you be upset that you’d be lifting more on 5 x 5 and be stronger?
Well
Some Bodybuilders do it to LOOK GOOD.
Switch it up to 4 x 8 or 3 x 8 depending on your frequency and see how it goes perhaps? I’ve been on 3 x 8 and 4 x 8 for literally a month now and my friends have (as well as I) noticed my growth and I only ingest 2g protien per kg of bodyweight and about 2700 cals daily and I do one day on with two days of cardio between, and guess what - cardio don’t make you not gain either! It makes you fitter and your gains slower but leaner. Bulking diet on a 5 x 5 will just make you a bigger version of the out of shape guy you were when you started.
http://www.freedomfly.net/Articles/Training/training29.htm
There is an inverse link between strength gains and hypertrophy (Sale, 1992). When you lift weights, your muscles learn to work better (through neural adaptation) and you become stronger. However, your body recruits less muscle fibre the more it adapts (Ploutz et al, 1994). And the less muscle fibre you stimulate, the less you grow.
Trained Olympic lifters, for example, were shown over a two-year period to have significant strength increases with barely noticeable increases in muscle mass (Hakkinen et al, 1988). I had a similar experience when I used AST’s Max-OT principals. My strength went up like crazy, but I gained very little size.
Obviously, traditional strength training with low volume and low sets (1-6 reps, 3 or less sets) is not the best approach. Strength training does cause hypertrophy (Hakkinen et al, 1985), but it won’t cause maximum hypertrophy.
High volume, multiple set programs (6-12 reps, 3 to 6 sets) have been shown to create greater hypertrophy for two important reasons:
The higher workload is more effective at creating microtrauma because of the extra time under tension and extra number of fibres recruited (Shinohara et al, 1998; Smith & Rutherford, 1995; Moss et al, 1997)
High volume, multiple set programs are more effective at increasing the body’s production of testosterone and growth hormone (Kraemer et al, 1991; Kraemer et al 1990
Just stuff I’ve been reading, I’m far from an expert and the experts actrually suggest periodisation and changing up rep and set ranges every so often, from eeach 3 month cycle after a deload, ro even prgrammes that have you lifting heavy for lower reps on some session and higher reps on other sessions in the same week!
Guess the answer is to experiment and find out. I tried 5 x 5 and got stronger but I find 6-8 reps gives me more visible gains.
So many factors in play, body composition, diet, basically finding what works for you.
I’ve decidd to go 4 x 8 for three months and see where I stand and if Ifind it noticeably better than 5 x 5 for hypertrophy.
It’s confusing and the best advice seems tobe to pick a programme stick with it and then consdier changing it after, but certainly not chopping and changing and not following through. 12 weeks seems to be the number I’ve read for the minimum time to invest in commiting to a programme and seeing it through.
This is not my opinon, it’s just hwat I’ve been reading on many varied bodybuilding sites.
There are a lot of myths. Yeah powerlifters are big and thick, but big thivk guys might naturally drift towards those types of sports anyway. Strongmen event competitors are huge and thick but a lot of the exercises they do and train for are very much strength - endurance based, so why aren’t they skinny.
Arnold built his physique on high reps and Mentzer on single sets. It seems all of them can work and it’s best to mix them up unless you luckilly stumble on the perfect one for you and it just keeps working. Or you’re on steroids.
Just my very layman’s recently educated opinion.
Heck the guys that work at my gym have amazing bods and they advise me to do 6 x 6! Screw that! But hey, they are paid to be in a gym all day, they don’t have other day jobs to go to afterwards…