A lot of naturally skinny guys put so much emphasis on what exercises they are doing from workout to workout that they don’t take the time to think about the perfect repetition range for maximum muscle growth.
This is something that you have to take into consideration because regardless of what exercises you are performing, you have to stick within a certain repetition range if you want to build muscle mass quick. There is a huge difference between doing a workout in the 1-3, 4-6, 6-10, and 10-20 repetition ranges.
This article is going to give you guys the knowledge and expertise to help you figure out how many reps it takes to build muscle and what the ideal repetition ranges are for your muscle-building goals.
This is something that I was screwing up myself for the first few years of my training. I was training for maximum strength gains similar to a power lifter but luckily got smart with my training and figured out the ideal repetition range to build muscle quickly.
If you are a naturally skinny guy and serious hardgainer, this is some of the most important information you will ever read for your muscle building. If you have been following my advice for some time, you know how I love to preach the importance of compound exercises.
Compound exercises build lean muscle mass quickly because they emphasize the body’s largest and strongest muscle groups. This puts overload on really large muscle groups such as the pectorals, back, deltoids, quadriceps, hamstrings, etc. These are the perfect exercises to maximize your anabolic hormones and build lean muscle mass quickly, but if you aren’t performing these exercises in the ideal repetition range for building lean muscle mass quickly, you will not see fast results. Your muscle requires a certain amount of “time under tension” to maximize lean muscle gains and create those micro tears that you need.
When you are lifting heavy weights, you are actually creating “micro tears” in your muscle. When you are resting, these micro tears will help and you will grow back bigger and stronger! The goal should be to create these micro tears every single workout so you are progressively getting bigger and stronger. There is an ideal repetition range that will force the muscle to be challenged every workout and create these muscle-building “micro tears.”
Let’s dive in and discuss several different repetition ranges and their effects on your muscle building. They all serve a purpose, and you will find that implementing a few different rep ranges may be the perfect storm.
How Many Reps To Build Muscle?
Many guys follow drastically different repetition ranges, and that is why you see such different muscle-building results across the board. While some naturally skinny guys learn the perfect rep range for their body very quickly, other guys play around with a variety of rep ranges and struggle for years. We want to make sure this does not happen to you!
The first rep range that I want to get into is the 1-3 repetition range. This means that you are lifting really heavy weight for 1-3 repetitions. This is most likely done on exercises like the bench press, squat, dead lift, barbell row, etc. I notice a trend every single time that I go in the gym with a lot of guys “maxing out” just about every single chest workout. This is not the best way to build muscle! You have to understand what actually builds muscle before you waste your time maxing out on the bench press every single workout.
If you’re reading this article, I’m assuming that you want to build muscle for the aesthetics. You want to look shredded and build lean muscle mass while minimizing fat gains. Now let’s think about what kind of athletes lift super heavy weights in the 1-3 rep range. Power lifters! These are typically naturally really heavy guys who are pure bulk and mass and typically have higher body fat levels. If you are a naturally skinny guy, you are most likely never going to be a power lifter, nor would you want to be if you’re into “body aesthetics.”
While maxing out frequently may get you stronger on the compound lifts like bench presses, squats, and dead lifts, it will not be your quickest path to rippling muscles. The reason is quite simple. When you are lifting really heavy weight, you are putting a lot of overload on your muscle, which is great for building it; however, your “time under tension” is only 5-10 seconds. The perfect storm for quick muscle building is a combination of overload on the muscle AND time under tension. That deep burn you feel when you are working out at maximum intensity for 5-10 repetitions is what you want to feel.
It’s okay to try and lift really heavy weight on all of the compound exercises once a month to test your progress and change it up, but if you want to build lean muscle mass quickly, this should not be the foundation of your workout regimen.
So how many reps does it take to build muscle quickly? Most guys count repetitions, but it’s actually more of a combination of the weight and overload you put on your muscles and the “time under tension.” Your muscles require a large amount of overload combined with 20-30 seconds under tension to build muscle effectively. That is why the ideal repetition range for building muscle is somewhere in the 6-10 range with slow and controlled reps. The key is that these repetitions are slow and controlled and that you are controlling the weight on the way down and on the way back up. Many skinny guys don’t realize that you actually create more micro tears when you lower the weight. This is why I suggest taking 2-3 seconds on the way down on all of the exercises.
A total repetition should take you 3-4 seconds depending on the exercise, so if you do the math, that 6-10 repetition range is ideal for maximum muscle growth.
Another repetition range that you can throw into your routine to change it up is the high repetition workout where you are under tension for 45-60 seconds. You won’t be able to put much overload on your muscles with this repetition range, but you will get a crazy deep burn and a ton of lactic acid build-up from this. This elicits a nice growth hormone response and can help you burn fat quickly when you need to. I typically train a muscle group with high repetitions once a month to change things up.
Have you guys ever counted how many seconds your muscles are under tension per exercise? Try it out next workout and make sure to stick to 20-30 seconds for maximum muscle growth.
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