Posted February 1st, 2023

Have you ever wondered how many reps and sets to do in order to build muscle? In this article, we'll discuss the best way I know of to figure out how many reps and sets you should be doing. We'll talk about RIR (Reps in Reserve) are and how it can help you get stronger without overtraining. We'll also go over some basic guidelines for measuring your weight training results over time.

Read this handy guide to learn the number of reps you should be doing to build muscle.

If you're wondering how many reps and sets you should be doing, don't worry. It's not as complicated as it seems. The best way to measure your weight training results is by tracking your strength, performance, and body composition (how much muscle versus fat). Tracking these three things will help ensure that your training regimen is working for you!

Strength: This is one of the most important aspects of measuring progress in any type of physical activity because it directly affects other areas such as speed, power, or endurance. For example, if someone gains 5 lbs over a 6 month period while also increasing their squatting ability by 50 lbs during those same 6 months, then we can safely say that their strength has increased significantly. On the other hand if someone loses 10 lbs during those same 6 months but does not increase their squatting ability at all, then we would know that perhaps, there wasn't enough focus put towards improving this particular aspect during training since there was no improvement seen here despite losing considerable amounts of body mass.* In either case though both cases show signs that something went wrong somewhere along the line which could mean needing extra rest days between workouts; changing up intensity levels slightly etc...

Let's start with a little history...

As a Physical Therapist and a Fitness Coach I get asked all the time, “how many reps and sets should I do?” The truth is, there's no one correct answer for everyone. The number of reps and sets you should do, depends on your fitness goals, your fitness level and experience, as well as other factors like medical history, age, and gender.

There are many different schools of thought regarding to how many reps and sets one should perform in order to achieve their desired results (i.e., building muscle or losing fat). For example: one school teaches that fewer reps with heavier weights leads to greater gains in strength than performing more repetitions with lighter weights--but this approach has its drawbacks because it increases the risk of injury due to heavy loads being lifted repeatedly over time without adequate rest periods between sets.

The best way to measure your weight training results is by tracking your progress over time.

One of the most important things you can do to measure your weight training results is to keep a record of your workouts. You should always write down the exercises you did, how many reps and sets of each exercise, how much weight was used, and any other notes about how it felt or how well it went. This will help you keep track of what's working and what isn't so that in your next workout session, you have some idea where to go next in terms of increasing difficulty or changing up exercises altogether. Also note: if changes aren't happening fast enough (or at all), then maybe something else needs attention besides just adding more weight! Maybe an injury has been holding back progress; maybe there's another aspect affecting performance; maybe there's just too much going on right now with life outside the gym? Whatever the case may be--keep an open mind!

There are a few different ways to figure out how many reps and sets you should be doing in order to build muscle.

There is the RPE scale (Rate of Perceived Exertion), which tells you how hard an exercise feels at any given moment. The original RPE scale was developed by Gunnar Borg over 40 years ago and has been primarily used to monitor aerobic exercise However, more recently RPE has been used to gauge effort during resistance training (Helms, et.al, 2016). It's a subjective measure, so it's important to be honest with yourself when rating your RPE. The scale ranges from 1-10, where 1 is very light and 10 is maximum effort.

We'll be going over the RIR method. This method involves rating intensity relative to the maximum capacity of your muscles by measuring something called Reps In Reserve (RIR). RIR measures the intensity of the lift by describing how many more repetitions you could perform before a breakdown in technique and mechanics. The RIR-based scale should be implemented only as an additional variable to be tracked alongside normal training data with novice lifters (Helms, et.al, 2016). Due to the decreased awareness of how close each set is performed to failure. Once one is aware of how close you are to failure, the RIR based scale may be utilized.

RIR can be the most useful in building muscular endurance, muscular development (hypertrophy), strength, or the max strength exercises in the power phase (Helms, et.al, 2016). Here is how RIR can be applied to your workout:

Training Goal: Power/Max Strength

Sets/Reps: 3-5/1-5

Recommended RIR: 1-2, occasionally 0

Training Goal: Muscular Hypertrophy

Sets/Reps: 3-4/6-12

Recommended RIR: 2-4

Training Goal: Muscular Endurance

Sets/Reps: 2-3/12-20

Recommended RIR: 0-1

Conclusion

Although, lifting to failure is critical for muscular hypertrophy and strength development. Utilizing RIR will help prevent overtraining and decrease risk of injury. It’s acceptable to train to failure every so often to reach a max strength goal, but training to failure often can cause changes in resting hormone concentration and increases in strength may be compromised due to overtraining (Helms, et.al, 2016). RIR is not the only way to assess reps and sets. It's a good idea to experiment with different combinations until you find one that works best for your body! We are here to help you! We hope that this guide has helped you figure out how many reps and sets to do based on your fitness goals.

References

Helms, Eric R. MS, CSCS1; Cronin, John PhD, CSCS1,2; Storey, Adam PhD1; Zourdos, Michael C. PhD, CSCS3. Application of the Repetitions in Reserve-Based Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale for Resistance Training. Strength and Conditioning Journal 38(4):p 42-49, August 2016. | DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000218