Strength/Hypertrophy training questions (Mods, could use your input please)

[Zyglamail]

Re: Zyg-

So how do you figure out set scheme? Before I was doing 10 sets for quads and and bi's and tri's. 12 for back, 9 for chest and so on...Do I keep it within the same range or not or will it depend on whatever type of strength routine I may be using at a given time? Thanks Zyg.

The method I outlined is typically employed by strength athletes who concentrate on just a few compund exercises so keep that in mind if trying to adapt it to a bodybuilding routine. With that in mind the set scheme is irrelevent. Generally speaking low rep work does not fatigue the muscles like a high rep scheme. The key to getting stronger is push your limitss of weight/tension and not reps or exhaustion. Many powerlifters also dont train to fialure, however failure and intensity are two different things. After all you could curl 20lbs for a huge amount of reps but you really wont get any intensity until the last couple reps when your totally exhausted. The key is to apply maximal intensity (tension of muscles, slowness of movement etc)into a low rep set. These low rep sets actually allow you to train more often and recover faster. Many people falsely beleive the pump you get after a workout is from blood flow, but thats only partially correct. An intense, high set-high rep(ie greater than 5) workout depletes muscle stores of ATP and without it your muscles ability to not only contract but uncontract(or relax) is severly impared which gives you that hard feeling. Im still doing a lot of experimenting to find out what works best for me and im sure there are many more qualified people on the powerlifting board to answer your questions.