Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / 5 Rep Ranges You MUST Know for Hypertrophy After 40 (Andy Baker)

Transcript

5 Rep Ranges You MUST Know for Hypertrophy After 40 (Andy Baker) · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: You've probably heard that rep ranges don't matter as long as you train close to failure.
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: You've also heard that only the last five reps of a step count, which is a misinterpretation of the effective reps model.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: Both of those are tied to legitimate research, but don't tell the full story.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: My guest Andy Baker is back on the show today, and based on his experience coaching lifters for two decades, he's going to walk us through five rep ranges and discuss why you might use each one, and for which exercises and hypertrophy or strength goals.
• 0:29
  Philip Pape: You'll learn why you should care about rep ranges at all, when low versus high rep sets are worth doing for the best results, and why age does matter, especially if you're over 40 like me or you have some beat-up elbows and knees.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: If you've ever wondered about the best rep ranges for your strength training program to get strong, big, or jacked, this episode is for you.
• 0:48
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that puts a popular piece of fitness device under the microscope, finds a hidden reason it doesn't work, and gives you the deceptively simple fix it does.
• 1:01
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and the premise that we're going to challenge today is that rep ranges, maybe they don't really matter for building muscle.
• 1:08
  Philip Pape: You've heard this from the science-based corner of the internet that anything from five to 30 or more reps works the same as long as you go close to failure.
• 1:16
  Philip Pape: Or on the other hand, that only the last five reps matter.
• 1:20
  Philip Pape: And there's some truth in all of this as always, but it's also highly misinterpreted and miscommunicated.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: So tons of people are confused about their programming.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: My guest today is Andy Baker back for, I think, his fourth time on the show.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: We never have technical issues on how to do this.
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: And you guys know Andy, but if you don't, he owns Baker Personal Training in Kingwood, Texas.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: Also the online Baker Barbell Club, which I'm a longtime member of to this day.
• 1:44
  Philip Pape: He co-wrote practical programming with Mark Ripito and the barbell prescription with John Sullivan.
• 1:49
  Philip Pape: Andy coaches all the populations from teenagers to lifters in their 70s and 80s.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: And he sends out a really good training newsletter.
• 1:56
  Philip Pape: In fact, today's episode came right out of an email he sent last week called Your Guide to Selecting Effective Rep Ranges for Hypertrophy.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: So what better way to walk through rep ranges than with Andy himself?
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: So he's going to explain what each of these rep ranges is for, the exercises in each range, why your age and joints might factor in, and what he thinks of things like the effective reps model.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: And we'll get into some other topics like variation and training to failure.
• 2:21
  Philip Pape: Andy, welcome back to the show, my man.
• 2:24
  Andy Baker: Thank you.
• 2:24
  Andy Baker: Thank you for having me.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: So your email walks through the rep ranges, but before we get there, you know, I'm thinking of when I was a kid and my friends would be training in the gym in the garage.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: And, you know, when you're 12 or 15, you're just like doing curls until you can't, and your ego is the only thing stopping you.
• 2:40
  Philip Pape: And, you know, a lot of people carry that into their older years.
• 2:44
  Philip Pape: Bodybuilders, I imagine Arnold in Austria was like not really thinking about rep ranges when he was young.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: He was just training the heck out of it.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: And so like the fundamental question I want to start with is why should we care about rep ranges?
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: Like before we get into the camps, why do we even need them?
• 3:01
  Andy Baker: Well, I mean, when you start a set or you write a program, I mean, you're you're you have to have you have to have some aim of the set.
• 3:09
  Andy Baker: You know, you have to have some system in place to where you track progression from workout to workout.
• 3:15
  Andy Baker: And, you know, there there is practical reasons why different rep ranges may work better based on the goal of the individual, based on the specific exercise that you're doing, based on the outcome that you would like to have from that.
• 3:29
  Andy Baker: So the rep ranges do matter.
• 3:32
  Andy Baker: There's flexibility in those rep ranges, but I think more than anything is that you need to assign to your exercises that you do, even if it's arbitrary, a rep range that you're going to do for that movement so that you can have some measurable metric of progression from workout to workout.
• 3:48
  Andy Baker: You know, I want to assign five to eight reps for the squat and I want to progress within that rep range.
• 3:55
  Andy Baker: Otherwise, it's too hard to measure if this workout, if it's all random, and oh, today I feel like doing heavy threes, and tomorrow I feel like doing sets of 15 to 20, and then I'm gonna go for some heavy, it's when it's kind of random like that, it's it's very hard to structure any sort of programming or any sort of model that you can progress within.
• 4:14
  Andy Baker: And so, I mean, that's why that they matter.
• 4:16
  Andy Baker: I mean, do they have do different rep ranges have different effects?
• 4:19
  Andy Baker: Of course.
• 4:19
  Andy Baker: And so kind of knowing what those are and then assigning it to each exercise in a practical sense where it makes sense for that exercise and for the goal of the person doing it.
• 4:29
  Andy Baker: I think understanding, you know, how how these different rep ranges work and when when it matters and when it doesn't matter so much, I think is important just for the structure of your programming.
• 4:39
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and I know a lot of my friends or lifters or in your group, they're like, Why are you asking such a dumb question, Philip?
• 4:45
  Philip Pape: But it's a good question because I did P90X back in the day, I did CrossFit.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: Like there's modalities where you realize in hindsight, there are elements of total randomness and just going to your sweat, going to your store, it changes from day to day.
• 4:58
  Philip Pape: And there's almost like a pedestal that that stuff gets put on for for its own sake.
• 5:02
  Philip Pape: But then there might be some truth to okay, if you're if you're doing certain things like training to failure for mechanical tension, it's because some of that matter less, right?
• 5:09
  Philip Pape: And we're gonna get into some of those, like the camps, which actually I want to ask about next, is that you talk about, I guess, two camps of nerds arguing about the the Brad Schoenfeld, like just train to failure crowd, and then Chris Beardsley effective reps crowd, and and you say in your email, like the claims about them aren't always true.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: Like what they say might not match what people interpret them on the interwebs.
• 5:32
  Philip Pape: So, what are the claims they're sharing, or what have they shared through evidence, and what are the camps that we have?
• 5:37
  Andy Baker: So the the famous kind of Schoenfeld study, I believe it was 2017, maybe wrong on that, doesn't really matter, but it's been around for a while.
• 5:45
  Andy Baker: Oh, you're right, it is, which was basically a meta-analysis of a bunch of different aggregated studies.
• 5:50
  Andy Baker: And, you know, basically at the end of the study, what they reported was that hypertrophy can occur basically anywhere between five and 30 reps, so long as that like RIR RPE was equated.
• 6:03
  Andy Baker: In other words, those sets were taken, you know, right up to failure.
• 6:08
  Andy Baker: So a set of 30 could grow muscle, a set of five could grow muscle, set of 10, 15, 20, all of those had the capacity to grow muscle as long as those were limit sets.
• 6:20
  Andy Baker: Now, what a lot of people interpreted that as, and I'm not sure, I'm not gonna put words in Schoenfeld's mouth one way or the other, because I I don't, I didn't investigate, you know, all the stuff that he said or didn't say about it.
• 6:31
  Andy Baker: I'm not sure that he made the claim that then rep ranges don't matter, but a lot of people did.
• 6:38
  Andy Baker: A lot of people that read the research and kind of look at the results of that study kind of just said, well, it doesn't matter any as long as anywhere from five to 30 and you're good.
• 6:46
  Andy Baker: So don't worry about rep ranges.
• 6:48
  Andy Baker: And I think that's kind of a misinterpretation of it.
• 6:50
  Andy Baker: And what I said in the newsletter was that reporting the results of a study is not the same as generating real-world practical advice.
• 7:00
  Andy Baker: So, what that study kind of told you is that there's some flexibility in rep ranges and that multiple rep ranges can work for the stimulation of hypertrophy.
• 7:10
  Andy Baker: That doesn't necessarily mean that rep ranges don't matter, and that a set of pro a program that uses mainly sets of five or six reps is going to yield the same result as a program that uses mainly 25 to 30 reps.
• 7:24
  Andy Baker: I think that's one of those things where you just have to use your brain, you just have to use your eye, the eyeball test, some practical experience of being in gyms for you know 30 years and be working with lifters, observing lifters, that you know, if you put one guy on a program of nothing but five to eight reps and another guy on a program of 25 to 30 reps, it's probably not going to get the same outcome.
• 7:44
  Andy Baker: I mean, just some that's just and I and I don't so I don't that study didn't necessarily say just do whatever.
• 7:50
  Andy Baker: I, or at least that's not that's not how I interpret it, just that there's some flexibility there and that, you know, as needed, situationally dependent, that you can get that you can generate some hypertrophy with a variety of rep ranges.
• 8:04
  Andy Baker: I mean, I would I would actually expand that to below five reps.
• 8:07
  Andy Baker: I think a heavy double, a heavy triple has a stimulative effect towards hypertrophy.
• 8:12
  Andy Baker: I don't think that's the best way to train, but to say that a heavy double or a heavy triple has no effect towards stimulating, you know, some sort of hypertrophic response.
• 8:21
  Andy Baker: I I also don't think it's so I think actually the rep range is even broader than that.
• 8:25
  Philip Pape: I wonder if they weren't even testing that.
• 8:26
  Philip Pape: That's the other thing with people taking research.
• 8:28
  Philip Pape: It's like five is a minimum, but they didn't test below than five, let's say.
• 8:31
  Andy Baker: Right.
• 8:32
  Andy Baker: And so I think that the takeaway there is that there's flexibility, not that it doesn't matter.
• 8:36
  Andy Baker: So I still think it's on the lifter, the coach, whoever, to kind of take that and apply it, you know, apply it to real-world programming that we kind of that we kind of know worse and realize that you don't necessarily have to pin yourself down to a very narrow rep range, that you have some flexibility there.
• 8:51
  Andy Baker: But I think a lot of people interpreted it as it doesn't matter.
• 8:54
  Andy Baker: But a lot of these studies, I think just to a broader point, you know, that's what I was saying is like reporting here's what the study found is not the same thing as saying, here's how you should train.
• 9:04
  Andy Baker: Like there's a there's another level there where you have to take the results of a study or whatever and use it to kind of maybe influence the way that you program or the way that you train, but not you don't necessarily generate programming directly from what a study found, because then you have to go back and look at, you know, how were the a lot of these studies as we know the protocols themselves are not necessarily realistic.
• 9:24
  Andy Baker: They're doing, you know, there are studies that have done where the, you know, the only exercise that would that was used was a unilateral leg extension and it found this, but that doesn't mean you would take the result of that study and then just universally apply it to all of your training.
• 9:39
  Andy Baker: It's just it's a singular data point that may or may not have some degree of small influence in the way that you go about thinking about programming and training.
• 9:47
  Philip Pape: Okay, so if we assume that there's flexibility, but there's still constraints within that you want based on goals, outcomes, and progression and measurement, like you mentioned before.
• 9:55
  Philip Pape: Talk, let's talk about the other camp for a moment, which is the effective reps model, which I I think is more in line with like what we often talk about, but it gets so miscommunicated.
• 10:06
  Andy Baker: Well, and but I and uh and the so the effective reps model, and that's that's Beardly saying, Chris Beardly saying that's kind of I I'm pretty sure he's the one that kind of coined the coined the term, the effective reps model.
• 10:16
  Andy Baker: And basically the very simplified version of that is that in any set, it is only the last five, uh assuming this set is taken to failure or you know, technical failure or whatever, that it's only the last five reps of that set that are that are really stimulative towards hypertrophy, because only at that point where you're getting where you're within five reps of failure.
• 10:39
  Andy Baker: So five reps out, four reps out, three, two, you know, zero reps out from failure, it's only in those repetitions where you have where you're at more or less full motor unit recruitment.
• 10:50
  Andy Baker: And so you you're you're bringing in because at the beginning of the set, let's say of 12 reps, the first five or six reps, those are going to be relatively easy.
• 10:58
  Andy Baker: And you're not gonna be recruiting in those large type two motor units into the exercise yet, because what we call the size principle, and I mean science principle is basically that in any given movement, the muscle is going to start using the smallest motor units, the smallest muscle fibers, those slow twitch, you know, muscle fibers are going to be used first.
• 11:17
  Andy Baker: It's just a conservation of energy type of principle.
• 11:20
  Andy Baker: It's to stand up out of a chair or walk out to get your mail, your your body's not gonna turn on those big, powerful, you know, high threshold, the type two motor units, right?
• 11:29
  Andy Baker: It's it's going to it's gonna use the smaller ones.
• 11:32
  Andy Baker: Okay, so it's only, and that's gonna happen, let's say, at the at the beginning of a set of 12, you're not gonna be using those big type two muscle fibers at the beginning of that set.
• 11:40
  Andy Baker: It's only as you start to fatigue and you get closer to failure, now it's gonna turn those on.
• 11:45
  Andy Baker: It's gonna have to recruit those in order to finish the set.
• 11:48
  Andy Baker: So it's only those five reps, and then that's where those speed of the rep becomes involuntarily slow.
• 11:55
  Andy Baker: In other words, you may try to move that weight fast, but you can't because you're starting to fatigue.
• 12:00
  Andy Baker: It's starting, it's starting to get heavy towards the end of that set.
• 12:03
  Andy Baker: And that's what's necessary for mechanical tension, which we say you hear this repeated ad nauseum, which is just mechanical tension is the primary driver of hypertrophy.
• 12:12
  Andy Baker: Well, where does tension come from?
• 12:13
  Andy Baker: Tension is not a load thing, it's two types of tension.
• 12:16
  Andy Baker: There's tension of if you're holding a heavy deadlift, you know, there's tension on the entire system, there's tension across the muscles, the skeleton, the tendons.
• 12:26
  Andy Baker: That's a that's a musculoskeletal type of tension.
• 12:30
  Andy Baker: There's also tension, though, at the level of the of the sarcomere within within the muscle fiber itself.
• 12:36
  Andy Baker: That is a different type.
• 12:38
  Andy Baker: Okay, so there's tension within the muscle fiber itself at the level of the sarcomere.
• 12:43
  Andy Baker: Everybody can go look that up.
• 12:44
  Andy Baker: It's what the actin actin and myelin fibers do.
• 12:47
  Andy Baker: So the this is stimulated by involuntary slowdown of the contraction.
• 12:53
  Andy Baker: Okay.
• 12:54
  Andy Baker: So this is not the same thing as intentionally moving a weight slow.
• 12:58
  Andy Baker: This is where I want to move this weight fast, but I can't because it's getting quote getting heavy.
• 13:04
  Andy Baker: Okay.
• 13:04
  Andy Baker: So that's what has to occur for tension to take place.
• 13:08
  Andy Baker: And that's only going to occur in those last five reps of a set, let's say.
• 13:13
  Andy Baker: Okay, that's the effective reps theory.
• 13:15
  Andy Baker: So it actually confirms the Schoenfeld thing, which is that five to 30 reps are all effective so long as you're reaching failure or reaching cloth very close to failure.
• 13:29
  Andy Baker: Does that all make sense?
• 13:30
  Philip Pape: It makes sense.
• 13:31
  Philip Pape: And I think where people screw up the logic is they'll say, okay, if it's five, does that mean sets of five?
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: Well, no, you're saying five from failure, from zero R I R or 10 RPE to five RPE.
• 13:44
  Andy Baker: Right.
• 13:44
  Andy Baker: So that it confirms the Schoenfeld thing, which is that a variety of rep ranges can be effective for hypertrophy so long as those are taken, you know, it to or very close to failure.
• 13:58
  Andy Baker: But what a lot of people again kind of misinterpret with the effective reps theory is that okay, if only the last five are effective, then just do five.
• 14:07
  Andy Baker: And I don't think that that's necessarily wrong in a lot of cases.
• 14:11
  Andy Baker: I do think that like, like that confirms a lot of the starting strength stuff that I buy into, which is that fives are maybe the perme.
• 14:18
  Andy Baker: If you were gonna pick maybe one rep range in terms of you know, build the building both strength and muscle, that that might be it.
• 14:25
  Andy Baker: But that doesn't mean that, you know, that work may work for a novice for a while, but that's not gonna work for everybody for over a you know, across a long period of time.
• 14:34
  Andy Baker: You're gonna have to expand outside of those rep ranges.
• 14:37
  Andy Baker: But that's what kind of a lot of the people that really closely adhere to the effective reps model kind of took away was if if we only need the fat last five reps of a set, then just do five, or what they would tell you like four to six, you know, the kind of so and then just apply that to every single exercise, and then you cut out the inefficiency.
• 14:54
  Andy Baker: In other words, you don't why do a set of 12 if the first seven reps are just a waste of time?
• 15:00
  Andy Baker: Just get to those last five.
• 15:02
  Andy Baker: So just go heavier and only do five or let's say four to six reps.
• 15:06
  Andy Baker: That's kind of that's kind of how that was interpreted.
• 15:08
  Andy Baker: And I don't totally disagree with that, where it's applicable, I think that sometimes just going heavier and cutting out some of those inefficient reps, let's say, or let's unnecessary reps is a better idea.
• 15:22
  Andy Baker: And so why do 20 when only the you know only reps 15 through 20 are valuable?
• 15:28
  Andy Baker: Why would why take the time and energy to do those first 15 reps, just make the weight heavier and do sets of five?
• 15:35
  Andy Baker: Um which again, I would agree with in a lot of contexts, yeah, but not all the time.
• 15:40
  Andy Baker: So I think it's a misinterpretation to say that both of the kind of zealots or whatever of those models tend to be it, it's kind of it's just narrow thinking on both it's narrow thinking to think that we have to only we have to reduce everything down to four to six reps or rep ranges don't matter.
• 15:58
  Andy Baker: Yeah, it's like it's it's like you know, it's actually kind of somewhere in the middle, you know.
• 16:02
  Andy Baker: They do they do matter, but it's but there's flexibility.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get in and and that should become more obvious once you describe each of the rep ranges, but real quick on the starting strength thing, because a lot of people think about that.
• 16:14
  Philip Pape: It's okay, if you've got three sets of five and your goal is for each of those sets of five to be at the same load, but you have this fatigue buildup, understanding you have rest periods, and even in your very first set, you must not be going to complete failure.
• 16:28
  Philip Pape: What's going on there?
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: And and I think maybe maybe you could explain it better than I, but like in the effective reps model, it's not like you need all five reps.
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: Like we've seen that you need at least two or three of those in a lot of cases, and there's a fatigue component too.
• 16:40
  Philip Pape: So yeah, like what are your thoughts on that?
• 16:42
  Andy Baker: Well, yeah, you're not in general, most novices, if you actually, you know, would if you observe a workout that they're going through, if they're doing especially especially early on, that those three sets of five are not all taken, you know, it's not three sets of five all to failure.
• 16:56
  Andy Baker: And well, and and so two things here.
• 16:58
  Andy Baker: So yes, so maybe let's say if you're we're gonna if we're gonna look at it through the lens of the effective reps model, maybe you're only getting three effective reps from each of those sets, two or three effects, but that's part of the reason you do three sets and not just one, because you're because they're on they're not taking a failure, so it's not five effective reps.
• 17:16
  Andy Baker: And here's the other thing Lyle McDonald has has asked this a lot, and I think it's a good question, which is because he recognizes that it has some validity, as do I.
• 17:24
  Andy Baker: And I think this is a good question as like a as a broader community.
• 17:28
  Andy Baker: Is it everybody tends to think of how much volume do we need?
• 17:31
  Andy Baker: How many sets and reps do we need for you know to stimulate progress?
• 17:35
  Andy Baker: And the better question is how many effective reps do we need over the course of a workout or the course of a week?
• 17:40
  Andy Baker: And I don't think there's a lot of agreement on that.
• 17:42
  Andy Baker: And I think beginners, intermediates, and advanced people probably wind up getting about the same amount, but they get there differently.
• 17:49
  Andy Baker: So that's part of the reason, you know, if it's a if it's a five, a true five from a more intermediate to advanced trainee, if a true five rep max, by definition, you can't repeat that for another two sets.
• 18:01
  Andy Baker: You're done after that.
• 18:02
  Andy Baker: I mean, you may you may unrack that weight again, but you're only gonna get two to three reps out of that.
• 18:08
  Andy Baker: You know, you're not you're gonna have a performance degradation because it was a true five rep max.
• 18:13
  Andy Baker: And the more advanced you are, the stronger you are, the more that's gonna be true.
• 18:16
  Andy Baker: A really advanced guy who takes out a true no shit five rep max, rest five minutes and try it again, he may get zero or one rep because he's so he completely emptied the gas tank with just that one set that he can't do another one.
• 18:30
  Andy Baker: But if you're gonna do, say, three sets of five, that's kind of by definition gonna mean that that you're leaving at least a rep or two in the tank.
• 18:39
  Andy Baker: I think novices who don't have that that that real ability to recruit a lot of motor units yet, like they're not that neuromuscular system is not as developed as a more advanced guy, they can do three sets of five with all five of those repetitions being closer to failure.
• 18:55
  Andy Baker: If we're using percentages, maybe that's maybe they can operate like closer to 85% of a one rep max and still do three sets of five.
• 19:03
  Andy Baker: The more advanced you are and the stronger you are, the more that that say percentage of one RM would come down.
• 19:09
  Andy Baker: If you're gonna do three sets of five, that number is gonna be closer to like 75%, not 85%.
• 19:16
  Andy Baker: And the intermediate's probably around like 80% of one RM, if that makes sense, because you just you develop that ability to fatigue yourself more.
• 19:24
  Andy Baker: So when a more advanced lifter is doing more volume, like multiple sets, three, four, five sets of five, something like that, each one of those is going to have to be further away from failure than it would be for the novice.
• 19:36
  Andy Baker: Okay, so that's that's kind of an important point to understand with all this.
• 19:41
  Andy Baker: It's kind of that proximity to failure changes a little bit, changes the volume equation from beginner to intermediate in advance.
• 19:48
  Philip Pape: Yeah, that's a that's a really good point based on training age, let alone the micro differences in a session you were talking about where the fatigue is based on the fatigue before it, the order of exercises, like your week, your recovery, your sleep, all the other fun stuff, too.
• 20:03
  Philip Pape: So why don't we dive into the rep ranges then?
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: Let's start with the one to four.
• 20:07
  Philip Pape: Many of our favorite, some people hate it, some people have never done it.
• 20:10
  Philip Pape: So it's gonna be, you know, yeah.
• 20:11
  Andy Baker: That's kind of what I did in the email is I just broke it down.
• 20:13
  Andy Baker: I try to just give like break it down into like these little segments, like these kind of rep range segments to show, like, and the thing is before I get off on this, is like one that like the list that I gave is it's not absolute.
• 20:26
  Andy Baker: There's lots of gray area and lots of overlap.
• 20:29
  Andy Baker: So, like, but what when you start listing stuff like this out, like like right now, I'm gonna say, like, for training for absolute strength, you know, one to four reps.
• 20:37
  Andy Baker: And most people aren't gonna agree with that.
• 20:38
  Andy Baker: If you're trying to train for, you know, for powerlifting or any other in some sort of sports application where you're training for absolute strength, you've got to do at least some of the work during your week or during your training block has to be heavy, low reps, or else you're not you're just not training maximum force production.
• 20:56
  Andy Baker: So that's gonna be that one to four rep range, which that's gonna be about 90% of one RM and above for most people.
• 21:03
  Andy Baker: It's gonna be a low dose of that, but some of it needs to be in there.
• 21:07
  Andy Baker: And again, like I said, it's not the best rep range for hypertrophy.
• 21:10
  Andy Baker: It does it doesn't mean that a set of one or two or three or four doesn't have any uh hypertrophic hypertrophic effect.
• 21:18
  Andy Baker: It just means you can't train that way and do enough volume.
• 21:21
  Andy Baker: You can't get enough of those types of sets in to really move the needle because there is some threshold of volume that we all, and it varies, I feel like by the individual, but there is some threshold of minimal volume that we all need to hit in order to actually grow.
• 21:35
  Andy Baker: I don't think that there's broad consensus on where that is.
• 21:38
  Andy Baker: Even the science guys will say, well, it's 10 to 20 total sets per week per muscle.
• 21:42
  Andy Baker: Well, that's a broad range.
• 21:43
  Andy Baker: There's a big difference between 10 and 20 sets per week.
• 21:46
  Andy Baker: I think for a more advanced guy, it's lower than that.
• 21:48
  Andy Baker: It's it's somewhere in the like six to 10 total sets per week.
• 21:52
  Andy Baker: You know, if you really know how to train, you really know how to push it and you're moving loads.
• 21:55
  Andy Baker: I think the total amount of you know, stimulative sets you week is per week is closer to like.
• 21:59
  Andy Baker: Six to ten, but you just can't get enough of those sets in at those very, very heavy.
• 22:05
  Andy Baker: So those are going to be used just for absolute strength.
• 22:07
  Philip Pape: You mentioned a couple of things in your email specific to this as well.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: Like one is you said it's easier to gauge proximity to failure, which you've kind of already mentioned earlier today, in a way, but also said you're not limited by like your conditioning or fatigue of the non-target muscle groups.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: Explain that one.
• 22:23
  Andy Baker: Yeah, I mean, you know, in a set of two versus a set of 20, the target muscle, depending on what, let's say, what exercise that you're doing, but it's you're going to be able to gauge whether you have one rep left in the tank, no reps left in the tank, or three reps left in the tank, much, much easier at a heavier load than you will at a set of 20, because there's other factors that start to kick in, you know, the higher the rep range you go.
• 22:49
  Andy Baker: One of one of which is your conditioning, your cardiovascular conditioning, which has, you know, really nothing to do with the strength adaptation, but your your ability to breathe may be the thing that causes you to hit failure at rep 18 versus your quads or your glutes or whatever muscle that you're really trying, you know, whatever muscle group or groups you're trying to hit.
• 23:11
  Andy Baker: You know, in order to hit failure, ideally for hypertrophy, we want the target musculature to be the thing that fails, not some other aspect.
• 23:19
  Andy Baker: And so if you're if you're if you're failing to hit 20 reps on your squat and you've you failed at rep 18, not because your legs gave out, but because your breath gave out and your heart rate is so high and it's you know, your your heart's beating through your ears, that's not the best way to train for muscle growth.
• 23:37
  Andy Baker: It may be a decent effect for cardiovascular conditioning, but it's it's not the best way to train for growth because something else is failing.
• 23:45
  Andy Baker: You know, similarly, if there's a lot of in a in a complex movement like a like like a squat or a deadlift where you've got lots of muscles all working together, there's lots of peripheral fatigue, meaning there's lots of other muscle groups that are may get tired first before the target muscle does.
• 24:03
  Andy Baker: You know, you're you may get that, you know, if you've ever done really high rep squatting, you know, sometimes what happens is that the fatigue that builds that limits you and causes you to rack the bar is like in your lower back.
• 24:15
  Andy Baker: Like you just get this disgusting like pump in your erectors that you just can't do another rep anymore.
• 24:21
  Andy Baker: And it wasn't your quads or your your you know, your aduct or your hamstrings or whatever that failed.
• 24:26
  Andy Baker: It was your you had to rack the bar because your low back just got so tired, you know, or some some other aspect that happens.
• 24:31
  Andy Baker: It's that kind of stuff happens less with lower rep ranges.
• 24:35
  Andy Baker: It's much easier to gauge is the target, is the target muscle or musculature, you know, being is is that the thing that's failing?
• 24:42
  Andy Baker: And also there's things like just with with massive amounts of fatigue with high rep training, there's going to be degradation of your form, especially not so much on an isolation movement, which we'll get into in a minute, but certainly on a complex movement pattern like a squat or a deadlift or an overhead press or something like that.
• 24:59
  Andy Baker: You know, you get into those really high rep sets, almost, you know, and not maybe not as much if you're a very experienced guy, you can hold it together, but certainly more, you know, beginner and intermediates.
• 25:09
  Andy Baker: Things go to shit when fatigue really, really kicks in.
• 25:11
  Andy Baker: They can't buckle down and hold things together so that they're getting a good stimulus and a safe stimulus.
• 25:17
  Andy Baker: So that's one thing.
• 25:19
  Philip Pape: Now that you talk about that, I'm gonna add one thing to that, Andy, and that is the psychological limits too.
• 25:24
  Philip Pape: Oh having gone through like 531 and 852 and all the rep ranges now, and I've only been lifting properly for like five years.
• 25:31
  Philip Pape: I always look forward to lower reps from a mental standpoint.
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: Like they just it's like they're easy in their own way and super hard in another, and you kind of flip those around when you go to higher reps, you know.
• 25:41
  Andy Baker: So I've been I've been I've been training clients for 20 plus years, and one of the I mean, I mean, this is almost universal, is beginners will always think that lighter weight and higher reps is easier and they're scared of the heavier weights.
• 25:56
  Andy Baker: The longer they train with you and the more experience they get under the bar, the more they will say, Give me sets of two and three all day long, and fuck those sets of two today or 15.
• 26:06
  Andy Baker: You know, if you tell a really advanced guy, hey, we're gonna do three sets of 15 on squats today, is it'd be like, is there any other alternative?
• 26:14
  Andy Baker: Like, how much can I pay you to do that five today, not three sets of 15?
• 26:18
  Philip Pape: Like it's far and like But you often say leg presses respond really well to 15 to 20 reps.
• 26:23
  Philip Pape: I'm like, really?
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: Come on, man.
• 26:25
  Andy Baker: They they do, but that's that's the thing, is that they're they're like, like, that's the thing with like the whole thing about 30 rep sets.
• 26:31
  Andy Baker: Like, okay, let's just say we want to have one of those crazy kind of off-schedule workouts, and we're gonna do something crazy, like go for a maximum set of 30 reps on a leg press.
• 26:40
  Andy Baker: Like we're just gonna, we're gonna put uh you know, as much weight as we can on there and we're just gonna just go, you know, no, no lockout and just go until we truly hit failure, 25, 30 reps of leg press.
• 26:51
  Andy Baker: Like that's really, really fucking hard.
• 26:54
  Andy Baker: Now, are you gonna put together a program where you're doing that week in and week out and trying to get some sort of progressive overload, some sort of linear progression week in and week out, you know, doing those sets of 30 like that?
• 27:07
  Andy Baker: Because, like you're saying, it's it's psychologically demanding.
• 27:09
  Andy Baker: Like you have to really dig deep for a long period of time in order to do those.
• 27:14
  Andy Baker: Now, there's are there some absolute savages out there in the like the bodybuilding world and stuff that can do that week in and week out?
• 27:21
  Andy Baker: Yeah, there are, but it's really, really tough.
• 27:23
  Andy Baker: And you have to be very, very committed to a very, very specific goal and highly motivated to get in there and and truly, and I'm talking about sets of 25 or 30 that are truly like I did 30 reps, but I could not do 31 or 32.
• 27:36
  Andy Baker: Like, people don't realize how hard that is.
• 27:38
  Andy Baker: Like the amount of pain that you're gonna be in doing that, yeah, and especially if you're more advanced and can actually do that with quite a bit of load, like doing that week in and week out, you have to be a savage in order to do that.
• 27:50
  Andy Baker: And psychologically, it's just harder than it is to do, you know.
• 27:53
  Andy Baker: Like I said, for a beginner, the heavy weight is a little bit scarier when they unrack that bar and it's like, oh, I've never felt that before.
• 28:00
  Andy Baker: But that's one of those things that you kind of get used to over time.
• 28:03
  Andy Baker: You know, you still get a little, I still get butterflies.
• 28:05
  Andy Baker: I've been doing this a long time.
• 28:06
  Andy Baker: And when I unrack a really heavy squat, you know, that five a weight that I haven't done in a long time, you still get a little butterflies in your stomach, you know.
• 28:13
  Andy Baker: It's only natural, but it's not like that.
• 28:15
  Andy Baker: You know, I get more butterflies going into a set of you know, 20 rep, you know, all bike presents.
• 28:20
  Philip Pape: So it's like it's like when I hear people talking about like BFR, I'll do BFR, then you don't have to lift heavy.
• 28:25
  Philip Pape: I'm like, no, thanks.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: I've done it, I've done it.
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: Or or when I go on a podcast and it's like a woman podcaster who I could tell she's asking for her audience, like, do they really have to lift heavy?
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: And I'm like, well, for you first of all, you have to define heavy.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: Are you talking about close to failure heavy or are you talking about heavy?
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: But I can tell, like, hey, you haven't tried it yet.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: Like, let's just try it.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: And you tell me after what you think.
• 28:44
  Andy Baker: Yeah, because it's true with men and women.
• 28:46
  Andy Baker: I mean, the women that I train are the same way.
• 28:48
  Andy Baker: Over a long period of time, they're gonna get more comfortable with those heavy weights.
• 28:51
  Andy Baker: They may not be at first, but once they get over kind of that psychological hurdle of heavy's not gonna hurt me, it's not gonna make me a sore.
• 28:57
  Andy Baker: The set's over with in like 10 seconds instead of two minutes.
• 29:01
  Andy Baker: You know, it's they once they get over that, then then they're all gonna opt for the heavier weight, you know, than they are for the higher rep weights.
• 29:08
  Philip Pape: Let's move on to the second rep range.
• 29:10
  Philip Pape: Four to eight reps.
• 29:11
  Andy Baker: Yeah, and again, that's arbitrary.
• 29:13
  Andy Baker: There's some overlap.
• 29:14
  Andy Baker: Could you say it's three to eight, five to eight?
• 29:16
  Andy Baker: Yeah, I mean, whatever.
• 29:17
  Andy Baker: It's but look, I'm just kind of breaking it up in those little those little four kind of segments like that.
• 29:22
  Andy Baker: But that like four to eight, eight rep range, that medium rep range, I say it's meat and potatoes, is it's heavy enough to where there's still a strength adaptation going on.
• 29:32
  Andy Baker: And again, that's actually another problem with the higher rep ranges, is that while motor unit recruitment is high, tension is high, force production is actually low on there because you're moving a weight slow and it's light.
• 29:44
  Andy Baker: So lightweights move slowly are not good for strength.
• 29:47
  Andy Baker: Lightweights move fast or heavyweights move slowly are good, but lightweights move slow are not good a strength training stimulus.
• 29:54
  Andy Baker: And that's it can be good hypertrophy stimulus.
• 29:56
  Andy Baker: People have to kind of wrap their brain around what I just said, that's really important.
• 30:00
  Andy Baker: But that so what that does is it blunts long-term progression because you're not getting a stimulus in there that drives strength.
• 30:08
  Andy Baker: So that low rep, and this is really important for natural guys that don't have the chemical assistance of PEDs because those PEDs are actually gonna give you that capacity for increased force production without actually training heavy.
• 30:20
  Andy Baker: So natural guys actually have to have that heavier work in there to stimulate that ability to produce more force over time, which is not only gonna drive up your lower rep sets, but it's also gonna drive up your higher rep sets.
• 30:33
  Andy Baker: You know, if you want to squat 225 for 20, the best way to do that is to squat 405 for five.
• 30:39
  Andy Baker: That will that's going to rather than training sets of 20, because training in the sets of 20 aren't giving you the force production capacity that the sets of five are.
• 30:46
  Andy Baker: But that four to eight rep range gives you a good mix of both.
• 30:50
  Andy Baker: You get enough volume in there, you get enough reps to get enough of those effective reps accumulated over a workout or accumulated over a week or trading block, or however you want to think about accumulating volume.
• 31:01
  Andy Baker: You're getting enough repetitions done, but you're getting it done at a heavy enough load because sets of five, let's say, would fit in there.
• 31:08
  Andy Baker: It's but four, sixes, seven, eights, I think all probably kind of fit in there.
• 31:12
  Andy Baker: It's enough load to generate a strength stimulus.
• 31:15
  Andy Baker: And it's light enough, it can be applied to lots of different exercises.
• 31:20
  Andy Baker: So you could use four to eight.
• 31:22
  Andy Baker: Works really well, obviously, on multi-joint compound lifts, but you could use them on isolation lifts too.
• 31:27
  Andy Baker: I wouldn't exclusively go with that, but they they have a lot of flight, like four to eight rep range has a lot of flexibility.
• 31:33
  Andy Baker: You could train a deadlift that way, you can train a leg curl that way.
• 31:37
  Andy Baker: It's light enough to where it's safe to use, forgiving enough on like isolation movements.
• 31:42
  Andy Baker: It's not so many reps that you can't do it effectively with compound movements and barbell movements where you're gonna lose your form.
• 31:48
  Andy Baker: So that's why I say it's meat and potatoes, is it it works both as a it's a two for one, and that it's a it's a it's heavy enough that there's a strength stimulus, it's enough total reps where there's a hypertrophy stimulus, and it's somewhat broad, broadly applicable across a lot of different exercises.
• 32:07
  Andy Baker: There's a lot of good bodybuilding coaches better than me that will tell you if you wanted to sum up how do I get big, if you wanted to sum that up into one sentence, it's just to get incredibly strong across medium rep ranges.
• 32:20
  Andy Baker: You know, pick an exercise, pick a medium rep range, which I would consider four to eight.
• 32:25
  Andy Baker: Again, you could fudge that a little bit up or down.
• 32:27
  Andy Baker: But let's say in that four, if you just get pick an exercise and just get strong in that four to eight rep range on that, you're probably going to grow.
• 32:35
  Andy Baker: You know, it's probably the best, has the most predictability of anything.
• 32:39
  Andy Baker: If you wanted to just really, really sum it up, get really, really strong, take your, you know, take your bench, you know, from 225 to 315 in that four to eight rep range.
• 32:49
  Andy Baker: You're going to grow.
• 32:50
  Andy Baker: You're definitely going to grow.
• 32:52
  Philip Pape: Yeah, man.
• 32:52
  Philip Pape: I mean, and and eight is right on that upper limit of where we were talking about the where the mental stuff starts to come in too.
• 32:57
  Philip Pape: I mean, a couple of your programs I've run multiple times over the years, based on those, like 852.
• 33:03
  Philip Pape: Everybody loves that program because it rotates through the two ranges we just talked about, right?
• 33:08
  Philip Pape: Very low up to eight, but it's like hitting each of those and then allowing you to adapt and recover between them.
• 33:15
  Philip Pape: But then also your your bodybuilding program where it's like top set back off, a lot of the top sets are anywhere from like four to six or like five to eight.
• 33:23
  Philip Pape: Occasionally you'll do eight to ten for the big lifts.
• 33:26
  Andy Baker: Right.
• 33:26
  Philip Pape: Kind of plays on that.
• 33:27
  Andy Baker: So yeah, exactly.
• 33:28
  Andy Baker: And that's just that I feel like eight is kind of a again, it's arbitrary.
• 33:32
  Andy Baker: Is it seven?
• 33:32
  Andy Baker: Is it nine?
• 33:33
  Andy Baker: We don't know.
• 33:34
  Andy Baker: But eight is kind of the upper limit of kind of what I would consider like a strength training zone.
• 33:39
  Philip Pape: Like 80% one on roughly, would you say?
• 33:41
  Andy Baker: Yeah, I think you know, for most people, you know, it's probably roughly that.
• 33:45
  Andy Baker: It's gonna vary by the individual, you know, but they but it's it's roughly that.
• 33:50
  Andy Baker: So I feel like you're probably, you know, eight is about the top end of the strength training zone to where you're you're and it's it's clearly enough work to grow.
• 33:58
  Andy Baker: It's enough repetitions where you're accumulating enough reps.
• 34:01
  Andy Baker: And it's not so heavy like that.
• 34:03
  Andy Baker: I use them in that 852 program because it comes after the week of twos, which were, you know, those get those are really, really, really heavy.
• 34:10
  Andy Baker: So it's kind of a nice break on the system to back that weight way down.
• 34:14
  Andy Baker: It's you know, it's gonna be about a 20, 25% drop in load in most cases.
• 34:19
  Andy Baker: So it it feels kind of good, you know, on your joints and just your your system as a whole to not have such a bone crushing weight sitting on top of you, but you're still training strength at that rep range.
• 34:28
  Andy Baker: And clearly you're still training hypertrophy.
• 34:30
  Andy Baker: So it's like that five to eight, four to eight rep range is it is that's the sweet spot for both.
• 34:35
  Andy Baker: If you want to both get bigger and get stronger, training in that medium rep range, that's kind of again, that's the meat and potatoes.
• 34:41
  Andy Baker: That's kind of the sweet spot.
• 34:42
  Philip Pape: Well, it was the only bold italics in your email because you said get brutally strong in this rep range and you will grow.
• 34:48
  Philip Pape: And for the science nerds listening, you know, we covered a couple different podcasts in the past.
• 34:52
  Philip Pape: One on looking at how like 30% and 60% are like the minimum thresholds from research on hypertrophy and then strength.
• 35:01
  Philip Pape: So, you know, 60% is like the bare minimum, but you're still obviously 80% makes sense.
• 35:05
  Philip Pape: And then the big lift more trial that a lot of people are referencing about bone health for menopausal women, like over or over 60 women, they tested 85% and showed, you know, that had a very significant positive effect for bone density.
• 35:19
  Philip Pape: So there's another reason to train for strength.
• 35:22
  Andy Baker: Yeah.
• 35:22
  Andy Baker: And it and like I said, if you don't, like if we talk about the the kind of the next rep range I laid out, like the eight to 12 rep range, if you get brutally strong in the 8 to 12 rep range, are you going to get bigger?
• 35:34
  Andy Baker: I would say yes, you are, but it's hard to get brutally strong in that rep range without doing any lower rep work because it doesn't have that force production stimulus.
• 35:45
  Andy Baker: You've, if you all of all of your exercises in your week, all of the work that you do is say everything is eight to 12 reps or eight to 20 reps.
• 35:53
  Andy Baker: There's nothing lower than eight in there, you're taking out a stimulus in there that drives force production.
• 35:59
  Andy Baker: Those sets of 10 and 12, yeah, taken to failure, they're going to be stimulative for hypertrophy, but you're going to have a hard time progressing them over time because they don't really have that stimulus in there to really drive those strength gains.
• 36:14
  Andy Baker: So those lower rep, that lower rep work that's in your program, that whether it's one to four or four to eight, you know, that lower to medium rep work in there, it progresses itself.
• 36:24
  Andy Baker: In other words, the fives get strong, like fives get stronger by doing fives, but your five, your 12s, your 12 rep sets also get stronger by doing fives because the the fives and the threes and the fours, that's your force production work that's going to that's gonna allow it's gonna get you better at recruiting more motor units into all of the work that you do, not just those low rep sets.
• 36:46
  Andy Baker: You're gonna be recruiting those that lower, you're gonna be recruiting those big motor units and more of them into your higher rep work also by training the lower rep work.
• 36:56
  Andy Baker: Does that make sense?
• 36:57
  Philip Pape: It may yeah, so it goes one direction, not necessarily the other.
• 37:00
  Andy Baker: Right.
• 37:01
  Andy Baker: Yes.
• 37:01
  Philip Pape: So the where does eight to twelve fit in?
• 37:03
  Philip Pape: Because a lot of it, a lot of what I've learned over the history of this stuff is is that was just like 70s, 80s, bodybuilding culture, other some route to it that you probably know about that you're gonna tell us now.
• 37:15
  Andy Baker: I I I mean, I think a lot of it has to do unknowingly with the influence of PEDs, is that you know, in the you know, when when steroids really, really came into uh the bodybuilding culture, what people don't realize, what what steroids do is they are increasing your force production capacity.
• 37:34
  Andy Baker: They are increasing your ability to recruit more motor units just by taking that pill or or taking that injectable without having to do the heavy work.
• 37:43
  Andy Baker: And so you can train in strictly a higher rep range, and your body is getting better at recruiting motor units without doing the heavy work.
• 37:51
  Andy Baker: Now, do the do the PEDs make your lower rep work stronger too?
• 37:55
  Andy Baker: Yeah, they do.
• 37:55
  Andy Baker: They make you they make you bigger, stronger, and faster.
• 37:58
  Andy Baker: And so, but the why do steroids make you faster?
• 38:00
  Andy Baker: Well, you get better at training, you get better at recruiting more motor units into a movement by taking the performance-enhancing drugs.
• 38:07
  Andy Baker: And so you can kind of get away without having to do the really heavy work when you're taking PEDs.
• 38:13
  Andy Baker: A natural guy needs that heavy work, he needs that force production stimulus in his training program in order to drive long-term strength gains.
• 38:21
  Andy Baker: And those long-term strength gains are ultimately what's going to be responsible for getting you bigger over time, is moving from 135 to 225 to 315, you know, to 405 on different lifts.
• 38:32
  Andy Baker: You've got to have a stimulus for that.
• 38:33
  Andy Baker: You've got to have a stimulus that drives your ability to do that.
• 38:36
  Andy Baker: Heavy low rep training is a stimulus for that.
• 38:40
  Andy Baker: PEDs are a stimulus for that.
• 38:42
  Andy Baker: So if you've got the PEDs in there, you don't necessarily need the really heavy low rep training.
• 38:47
  Andy Baker: You can just do the high rep training and stay away from all the heavy weights, which puts you at less risk for injury if you're on, especially nowadays where guys are taking lots and lots and lots of gear.
• 38:57
  Andy Baker: It's a risk.
• 38:58
  Andy Baker: It's a risk for them to do a lot of very heavy low rep work because the force production capacity of the muscle is going to outpace the connective integrity of the tendon.
• 39:09
  Andy Baker: So guys that are on loads of gear that are getting strong really, really, really, really fast.
• 39:14
  Andy Baker: If they're going venturing down and doing a lot of work in the two, three, four, five rep range, you know, bodybuilders doing this type of stuff, they're putting their the integrity of their tendons, they're at a higher risk for tendon ruptures than is a than is a more natural guy.
• 39:29
  Andy Baker: So that's another reason why a lot of enhanced guides don't like to do anything less than like 10 reps.
• 39:34
  Andy Baker: It's it's a risk.
• 39:35
  Andy Baker: They're when you're training naturally, though, your rate of progression is so slow that your connective tissue is keeping pace with the strength of the muscle.
• 39:44
  Andy Baker: So as your muscle develops the ability can to contract harder, have more force output, their strength of the tendon is developing along with that at the same pace.
• 39:53
  Andy Baker: Whereas for an enhanced guy that's taken a lot, their strength goes up so fast.
• 39:58
  Andy Baker: The the ability of the muscle to produce force goes up so fast, the connective tissue of the tendons doesn't keep pace with that.
• 40:05
  Andy Baker: And so they're at less risk by doing higher ups.
• 40:08
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 40:09
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 40:09
  Andy Baker: And for a bodybuilder, you know, a bad tendon rupture is a career ender.
• 40:13
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 40:13
  Andy Baker: It can deform the muscle.
• 40:14
  Andy Baker: You know, it ended some say it ended Dorian's career when he he ruptured his tricep tendon that his arm was kind of deformed after that, never really looked the same.
• 40:22
  Andy Baker: So probably better now.
• 40:23
  Andy Baker: The surgeries are probably better now, but you know, certain it can be a career ender potentially.
• 40:27
  Andy Baker: You don't want a double quad tendon rupture.
• 40:29
  Andy Baker: You know, if you've ever seen Ed Cohn's video, you don't want that.
• 40:32
  Andy Baker: So, you know, you want to avoid that kind of as much as you can.
• 40:35
  Andy Baker: So if you don't have to go with the really heavy, then you don't necessarily need to.
• 40:38
  Andy Baker: But the reason eight to 12 is good, eight to twelve is good because again, it has a for that's where I you do a lot of the work for like single joint movement, isolation type of work, machine type work that doesn't require a lot of sips.
• 40:51
  Andy Baker: So maybe it's not a, you know, like a seated row or something like that is not an isolation lift, but it's stabilized by a seat or a chest pad or something like that.
• 40:59
  Andy Baker: It works, those types of movements, they just and this gets in, I think the higher the rep range goes, the more you get into individual preference.
• 41:06
  Andy Baker: You get into how does this particular movement feel for this particular person.
• 41:10
  Andy Baker: Sometimes it's just strictly of I like the way that this movement feels better in the eight to 12 rep range versus I like this particular exercise better in a 12 to 15 rep range.
• 41:22
  Andy Baker: It just I get a better connection with the muscle, feel like my form is better, I get a better pump in that muscle from this rep range versus that rep range.
• 41:29
  Philip Pape: You know, and I suppose the equipment could could come into it too, right?
• 41:32
  Andy Baker: Like it could vary by exercise, cable smoothness and like things like that.
• 41:36
  Andy Baker: Yeah, like this this particular machine just feels shitty at this at a if I go too heavy.
• 41:41
  Andy Baker: Like it just like I don't feel like my form is good or I can't get a good contraction, or or it just doesn't, it just feels awkward and and not smooth if I try to go too heavy.
• 41:49
  Andy Baker: You know, this one just feels better.
• 41:51
  Andy Baker: You know, maybe this cable exercise just feels better.
• 41:53
  Andy Baker: It could it very like for me, for instance, like when I train arms directly, I don't like to do bicep training at very high reps.
• 42:00
  Andy Baker: I like I personally like bicep training between like six and ten.
• 42:04
  Andy Baker: That's like where the sweet spot.
• 42:06
  Andy Baker: Like I don't want to go real heavy, like I don't want to go below like six reps on most stuff because I feel like that you're getting to the point of maybe rupturing a bicep tendon, which I've already done and I don't want to do again.
• 42:16
  Andy Baker: So like I try to keep things like above six, but I feel like when I start going above like 10, it doesn't mean I never do it, like I have some sort of strict cutoff, but I feel like if I program stuff for like above 10, like I start the limiting factor for me becomes I get like this searing pump in my forearms.
• 42:31
  Andy Baker: And I feel like forearm fatigue becomes the limiting factor for me.
• 42:34
  Andy Baker: So for like biceps, I just happen to like a six to 10 range.
• 42:38
  Andy Baker: That feels right for me.
• 42:39
  Andy Baker: It doesn't mean that 10 to 15 wouldn't work for somebody else.
• 42:43
  Andy Baker: Whereas like tricep training, I like like 10 to 20 reps.
• 42:47
  Andy Baker: Part of that is I'm old and my elbows are cranky, and I don't like to do really heavy like skull crushers anymore.
• 42:55
  Andy Baker: Like occasionally I'll do it, but most of the time when I go to do individual tricep work, my my elbows kind of don't feel so great.
• 43:01
  Andy Baker: They feel fine with higher rep training, they don't feel so good with heavy low rep training.
• 43:06
  Andy Baker: It doesn't mean you can't do heavy ass skull crushers.
• 43:09
  Andy Baker: I used to do them all the time, and I think a lot of my like tricep strength and size is from that really heavy tricep work.
• 43:15
  Andy Baker: I just can't do it anymore.
• 43:16
  Andy Baker: You know, so the calculation is different at 45 versus 25, you know, type thing.
• 43:21
  Andy Baker: So some a lot of I think once you get into the higher rep range, a lot of it is just individual preference on the exercise that you're doing on the individual muscle group that you're doing.
• 43:31
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about that, the the 12 to 20, because I I I can I'm like shaking my head with everything you're saying.
• 43:37
  Philip Pape: The more you do this and have experimented with the different rep ranges, which you should, not like program hopping in random, but you know, yeah, take take blocks of training and say, I'm gonna try this out.
• 43:46
  Philip Pape: You might find, oh, just doing a little higher rep range, it's just like smoother, a little bit more of a pump.
• 43:52
  Philip Pape: You know, maybe I because the load is lighter, the mechanics are a little bit smoother, those kinds of things.
• 43:57
  Andy Baker: You're feeling you're feeling all the you're feeling all of the Pain, the the pain, and I'm saying pain the good way.
• 44:03
  Andy Baker: The good the good pain is in the muscle, not in the joints.
• 44:07
  Andy Baker: You know, it's like I can do a set of 15 rep leg extensions and it's like, man, my quads feel like they're gonna split through my shorts.
• 44:13
  Andy Baker: I do a set of five rep leg extensions, and all I feel is that my fucking knees for right.
• 44:18
  Andy Baker: So it's like it's you have to just use your head up.
• 44:21
  Andy Baker: That's why I don't like that real rigid of like that four to six rep range.
• 44:24
  Andy Baker: I said in the email, like sure if you're if you want to do all your leg extensions and skull crushers for four to six reps, be my guest.
• 44:31
  Andy Baker: And if you're 25, maybe that's good.
• 44:34
  Andy Baker: When you're 45, you're gonna have a different calculation.
• 44:36
  Andy Baker: The other thing I would say about that is that you know, on certain types, like like we were talking about with squats, like the sets of 20, they're gonna be limited by things other than the muscle itself, right?
• 44:46
  Andy Baker: Like a 20 rep squat for a lot of people is probably gonna be limited by you know their cardiovascular conditioning per perhaps.
• 44:53
  Andy Baker: Whereas a cable tricep press down for 20 reps doesn't have that same effect.
• 44:58
  Andy Baker: You're not, you're not getting, you're not being, you're not gonna be limited.
• 45:00
  Andy Baker: You can take your triceps to failure on a 20 rep set pretty easily and ensure that it was your triceps that failed and not some other component, not some other muscle group, and your form's not necessarily going to degrade.
• 45:13
  Andy Baker: Whereas 20 rep deadlifts, almost assuredly, your form is gonna be kind of dog shit.
• 45:18
  Andy Baker: At least for a novice in an intermediate, it's almost guaranteed 20 rep deadlifts.
• 45:21
  Andy Baker: You're gonna be limited by your grip, you're gonna be limited by your cardio, you're gonna be limited by shitty form, everything other than the muscles that you're trying to train.
• 45:29
  Andy Baker: Whereas on an isolation movement, you have a lot more variability there.
• 45:32
  Andy Baker: You can do 10, 15, 20 reps, and you can much easy, more easily take that target muscle to failure and not be limited by something else.
• 45:42
  Andy Baker: I also think with isolation movements that if you say, okay, I'm gonna do side delt raises, dumbbell, you know, something that's real mechanically disadvantaged, and I'm gonna do nothing but four to six reps.
• 45:53
  Andy Baker: How are you gonna progress that over time?
• 45:54
  Andy Baker: Like, okay, I'm gonna do a set of six with the 30s, and then I'm gonna go to the 35s next week.
• 46:00
  Andy Baker: And what am I gonna do?
• 46:01
  Andy Baker: You're gonna do a shitty set of two.
• 46:03
  Andy Baker: You know, like you can't, whereas like on a squat or something like that, you can do five reps at 315.
• 46:10
  Andy Baker: The next week you can do five reps at 320.
• 46:12
  Andy Baker: The next week you can do five reps at 325.
• 46:14
  Andy Baker: Like you can you can stay in a very narrow rep range and add load for a long period of time.
• 46:19
  Andy Baker: You can't do that with an isolation movement.
• 46:21
  Andy Baker: You're not gonna go from you're not gonna go from the 20s to the 25s to the 30s to the 35s, adding load to that.
• 46:28
  Andy Baker: You know, you're gonna have to use reps in order to progress, meaning you're gonna have to expand the rep range that you allow yourself to train in with certain exercises, or there's no room for progression.
• 46:39
  Philip Pape: Exactly.
• 46:40
  Andy Baker: Same thing with like a skull crusher.
• 46:41
  Andy Baker: You're gonna do a six rep skull crusher, add five pounds, you're gonna be at four, add five pounds, you're gonna be at two.
• 46:48
  Andy Baker: Okay, where do you go from there?
• 46:49
  Andy Baker: Like you're gonna have to expand it in order to progress.
• 46:51
  Andy Baker: You're gonna have to use both a combination of repetition, of adding repetitions and adding load over time, which generally means you're gonna have to operate in a larger rep range.
• 47:01
  Andy Baker: You're gonna have to have some flexibility there.
• 47:03
  Philip Pape: Well, plus, there's a little trick that we alluded to earlier in the episode, and that is if you think of effective reps and you start doing some of the fun stuff, like the rest pause and the drop sets, yeah.
• 47:12
  Philip Pape: Now you get an extra dimension of it, yeah, even the reps don't even matter as much almost in that case, right?
• 47:18
  Andy Baker: And that's the the other thing, too, is everybody right now, and I don't know where this came from, like everybody's like just terrified of fatigue.
• 47:25
  Andy Baker: Like you hear that all the time.
• 47:26
  Andy Baker: Well, this is fatiguing.
• 47:27
  Andy Baker: This is fatiguing.
• 47:28
  Andy Baker: The guys I hear this from the most, it's like they're not separating out different exercises.
• 47:33
  Andy Baker: Like, not all exercises are created the same.
• 47:36
  Andy Baker: I would agree that there's protocols that you might do on a side delt raise that you're not gonna do on a deadlift or a squat because it's gonna drive fatigue too high, you know.
• 47:45
  Andy Baker: And so there's not a real worry about doing rest pause sets up to 20, 30 reps or something like that on a side delt raise.
• 47:52
  Andy Baker: Like that's not going to, you're not gonna get bitten by the fatigue monster doing that.
• 47:56
  Andy Baker: You're gonna have a lot of local fatigue, you know, in the in the delts, which I'd argue is a good thing.
• 48:00
  Andy Baker: It's a it's a sign that you accumulated enough effective reps, but you're not gonna have this systemic fatigue from doing a bunch of you know what junk volume on certain like not all exercises are created equal.
• 48:12
  Andy Baker: And so I think guys are a little too scared sometimes of fatigue, and they're they're applying, they're acting as if all exercises are created the same.
• 48:21
  Andy Baker: Yeah, like I don't ever ascribe rest pause sets or drop sets or things like that to squats or deadlifts or even machine stuff like hat squats, even that, like because those exercises are extremely stressful just by themselves with just plain old straight weight.
• 48:37
  Andy Baker: And even with those, I think it's probably better to do most of your work one or two reps away from failure rather than failure.
• 48:44
  Andy Baker: I mean, I don't I don't really ever want to see a guy in any context squatting to where he's ending his sets with the with the barbell down across the safety pens.
• 48:53
  Andy Baker: Yeah, like like I don't think that's a sign of hardcore training.
• 48:56
  Andy Baker: I think that's a sign of not knowing how to planning, yeah.
• 48:59
  Andy Baker: Right.
• 48:59
  Andy Baker: I mean, is it gonna happen from time to time, especially early in your training career?
• 49:03
  Andy Baker: Sure.
• 49:04
  Andy Baker: And I don't think it's the end of the world that it does.
• 49:06
  Andy Baker: And in some ways, it's almost necessary to have that happen on occasion so that you learn what does one rep away from failure mean?
• 49:12
  Andy Baker: What does two reps away from failure mean if you don't, you've never actually hit true muscular failure where you literally cannot do another rep, then it's very then you have no idea what one rep away from failure means.
• 49:23
  Andy Baker: And so, but once you get good at that, like, but I don't like certain exercises, I think, like like we're talking squats, deadlifts, I think most of those should be done probably one or two reps away from failure.
• 49:34
  Andy Baker: The bulk of your training, it doesn't mean that you never, you know, get zero RIR, but I think most of your sets across the week or whatever should be one or two reps.
• 49:43
  Andy Baker: But like on a curl, on a bicep curl, I tell guys all the time, why are you using RIR on a curl?
• 49:49
  Andy Baker: Just curl in strict form until you try to lift the weight out of the bottom and it doesn't go.
• 49:53
  Andy Baker: That's right.
• 49:54
  Andy Baker: And then you're and then you're done.
• 49:55
  Andy Baker: You know, don't lean back, don't don't lean back and get a bunch of cheat reps and start, you know, sacrificing form and range of motion.
• 50:03
  Andy Baker: But going until you until you can't curl another rep is not the same thing as laying your squats down on a safety pin.
• 50:10
  Andy Baker: Like that effect systemically on your body is not the same.
• 50:13
  Andy Baker: And you probably need to be training the failure on a lot of those smaller muscle groups.
• 50:17
  Andy Baker: Like you probably can't generate enough real stimulus because the loads are lighter and such.
• 50:23
  Andy Baker: You probably need to be training those, all of your sets on that, or the the vast majority of them to actual failure on those types of movements.
• 50:31
  Andy Baker: Whereas on, like I said, squats, deadlifts, bench presses, you probably need to be one or two reps away from failure.
• 50:36
  Andy Baker: I feel like this used to be just known, like kind of like just like an accepted, agreed-upon thing.
• 50:42
  Andy Baker: And then recently within the last couple of years, it's all just gotten so muddled, and now guys are just lost and they're just the science-based movement has gone to the extreme.
• 50:51
  Andy Baker: Yeah, and you know, there's some good things that have come come out of it, I feel like, but there's I I feel like it's for a lot of people, it's just it's just muddled their thinking so much where they just stuff that used to be just kind of I hate to say settled science.
• 51:04
  Andy Baker: I hate that word, but but it was more or less just kind of agreed upon, like that.
• 51:08
  Andy Baker: That's how you that's that's how you trained.
• 51:10
  Andy Baker: And I think it's people are starting to realize it again.
• 51:12
  Andy Baker: But it's, you know, I think with all of this stuff, like always keep in mind that it varies between the exercise that you're doing, and none of these rules that you're reading about are gonna apply to every exercise equally or the same.
• 51:25
  Andy Baker: So when you say stay one or two reps away from failure, yeah, for squats, deadlifts, bench presses, you know, other kind of big multi-joint compound movements that use a lot of load, you know, that sort of thing.
• 51:37
  Andy Baker: Yeah, probably one or two reps away from failure for the bulk of your work is right.
• 51:41
  Andy Baker: But not for curls, tricep extensions.
• 51:45
  Andy Baker: You know, those things need to be pushed hard and even beyond failure at times if you're a guy, if you're not getting good results, you know, things like rest pause or little drop sets and things like that are absolutely effective on that and are not going to generate some sort of you know massive systemic fatigue that impacts your recovery for the next, you know, the next workout.
• 52:02
  Philip Pape: You know, speaking of beyond failure, before we go to the 20 to 30 and the science-based lifting community, lengthened partials are all the rage, right?
• 52:09
  Philip Pape: And I know there's some guys, and and I've tried them myself, and they're interesting where you go to complete failure, and instead of doing cheater reps, you do some length and partial reps.
• 52:17
  Philip Pape: What are your thoughts on that?
• 52:18
  Andy Baker: I it John Meadows used to do it a lot.
• 52:20
  Andy Baker: He was the first guy ever seen, you know, and he was doing that 20 years ago.
• 52:23
  Andy Baker: So again, it's not really new.
• 52:25
  Andy Baker: I encourage anybody that's interested in the type of stuff I talk about, go watch all of John Meadows', you know, RIP.
• 52:31
  Andy Baker: Go watch all his old, every single one of his old YouTube videos.
• 52:34
  Andy Baker: There's more knowledge in there than just about anybody else on social media.
• 52:38
  Andy Baker: You know, he he died a few years ago, unfortunately, but his content was the best.
• 52:42
  Andy Baker: And he was so far ahead of stuff he was saying 20 years ago.
• 52:46
  Andy Baker: Now is the stuff that people are acting like it's new information.
• 52:48
  Andy Baker: And it's like John Meadows was doing LinkedIn partials 20 years ago on stuff.
• 52:52
  Andy Baker: I think on certain exercises, it probably has applicability.
• 52:56
  Andy Baker: It's not a technique that I use personally in my own training, and it's not something I use with my clients.
• 53:01
  Andy Baker: Again, that doesn't mean it doesn't work.
• 53:03
  Andy Baker: I just don't use it.
• 53:04
  Andy Baker: I think they're hard to quantify, you know, and that's I think on certain movements they could potentially put you at some risk.
• 53:10
  Andy Baker: I I used to watch the videos of John Meadows doing LinkedIn partials on leg curls, and I'm like, that looks like a torn hamstring to me because I've torn my hamstring before.
• 53:18
  Andy Baker: So, you know, it's just so somewhat again, it's a lot of this stuff's personal preference.
• 53:22
  Andy Baker: Does it does it have some validity?
• 53:24
  Andy Baker: Probably.
• 53:24
  Andy Baker: It's just not something that I really use.
• 53:26
  Philip Pape: Got it.
• 53:27
  Philip Pape: I mean, you're gonna hit the you're gonna hit the long, like, long part of the range with full range of motion.
• 53:31
  Andy Baker: That's what I've always said.
• 53:32
  Andy Baker: Is it just I've always advocated for full ranges of motion on everything, as full as effective range of motion as as you can on most stuff, you're going to get plenty of work in the in the length and state as well as the shortened state.
• 53:44
  Andy Baker: So I feel like, you know, if you're doing full range of motion, you're probably getting 90% of the of the value.
• 53:52
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 53:52
  Philip Pape: And I will say thinking about it from a mind muscle connection can be helpful in certain movements, like calf raises, for example, thinking of that bottom position is the length and position.
• 54:02
  Andy Baker: Like I've always advocated that the the way, like gut, because guys, I a lot of guys don't know what mind muscle connection is.
• 54:09
  Andy Baker: They they don't they don't understand it, what it is, they don't understand why it's important.
• 54:13
  Andy Baker: But when somebody doesn't have a good sense for it and they're trying to, they're trying to learn what you know, how do I develop that mind muscle connection on a given exercise?
• 54:22
  Andy Baker: The way that you begin that process, because I've taught this to a lot of clients in the gym, is feeling that muscle in the stretched position.
• 54:29
  Andy Baker: Where, and that's the best way to really, okay, I can feel it now in this stretch position.
• 54:34
  Andy Baker: And on a lot of the movements that I do, I do a brief pause in the stretch position.
• 54:40
  Andy Baker: I really like that on calf raises, where you know, at the bottom you go down and I don't like bouncy reps on calf raises, like going down, holding that stretch position as deep as you can.
• 54:51
  Andy Baker: One, two, three, explode up, lower down, slow, ease down into that deep stretch position, hold one, two, three, up.
• 54:58
  Andy Baker: I do that on pull-ups.
• 54:59
  Andy Baker: Like I like to have guys go down and hit a true dead hang on the pull-ups and feel their lats stretch.
• 55:05
  Andy Baker: And I feel like that's a really good thing, like feeling your lats stretch on a pull-up.
• 55:09
  Andy Baker: And I know there's people that advocate actually don't go all the way down, but in terms of developing that mind muscle connection, like or on a lap pull down, like feeling feeling that weight stretching, like that's where you feel, and like with back training, especially, guys have no concept of where their like their lats are.
• 55:24
  Andy Baker: They can do 20 sets of lap pull downs and never feel a pump in their lats.
• 55:27
  Andy Baker: It's all the arms, right?
• 55:29
  Andy Baker: Yeah, right.
• 55:29
  Andy Baker: They're they feel it in their forearms, they feel it in their biceps, everywhere but their lats.
• 55:33
  Andy Baker: And I would say that you know, that's part of the reason why people feel like they need to do so many sets is because they're not really effectively targeting the muscle.
• 55:41
  Andy Baker: They, if their if their movement execution was more efficient, they would need a lot less sets to achieve the same amount of stimulus.
• 55:47
  Andy Baker: And so, but feel like feeling your lats stretch is you know, or or any any muscle, you know, that's the that's step one to establishing that mind muscle connection is what does that muscle feel like in the stretch position, and then feeling that muscle contract and and then feel it fully contracted in the shortened position and feeling what that feels like and doing that over and over again with you know, like in your warm-up sets and things like that, is where you'll really learn to establish that.
• 56:11
  Andy Baker: But yeah, so I I always advocate full range of motion and even you know, like partial holds in the fully lengthened position, where I feel like you're probably getting a lot out of that, you know, that the the lengthened phase of the lift.
• 56:23
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 56:24
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 56:24
  Philip Pape: I mean, just being aware of those things, like you said, is it's a great, that's a great tip right there.
• 56:27
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 56:28
  Philip Pape: I was doing spider curls and then preacher curls, and and you realize that there's also even the shortened position has its own boogeyman for some, you know, for something like interesting.
• 56:38
  Philip Pape: I don't often feel that.
• 56:39
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 56:40
  Andy Baker: I could just do a full range of motion on everything, and you're probably gonna you're probably gonna get it.
• 56:44
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 56:45
  Philip Pape: So 20 to 30 reps.
• 56:46
  Philip Pape: Now we get into the rep range for maybe rehab, injury, the psychology of it.
• 56:51
  Philip Pape: Where do we go with this?
• 56:53
  Andy Baker: Yeah, that's I mean, so that's what I kind of alluded to that earlier, is that like it's just if you just like from a practical sense, with the exception of a handful of exercises potentially that you know, doing the bulk of your training in that 20 to 30 rep range, yes.
• 57:08
  Andy Baker: Can you generate a hypertrophy stimulus there?
• 57:10
  Andy Baker: Yeah, are you gonna are you gonna have prolonged runs of training, weeks, months, years of training exclusively in that 20 to 30 rep range and really achieve a lot of progressive overload?
• 57:22
  Andy Baker: I would argue on most exercises, probably not.
• 57:25
  Andy Baker: It is going to be much more efficient.
• 57:26
  Andy Baker: Just put a little bit more weight on there and bring your reps down.
• 57:29
  Andy Baker: Like you're you're you're probably gonna get it, you're definitely gonna get a better strength stimulus.
• 57:34
  Andy Baker: You're not getting much of a strength stimulus, 20 to 30 reps.
• 57:36
  Andy Baker: I'd argue almost, almost none unless you were a novice or training some muscle that you've never trained before.
• 57:42
  Andy Baker: You know, it's it's just, I think it's an extremely inefficient way to go there.
• 57:46
  Andy Baker: The exceptions that I gave for like 20 to 30 rep training are training around injury.
• 57:50
  Andy Baker: I think it can be highly useful for that, training around even not necessarily injury, but just like inflamed joints.
• 57:56
  Andy Baker: I will occasionally do sets like that on the cables for like, I'm just speaking about me personally, because I have a very cranky, two cranky elbows, but a very cranky left elbow that gives me some trouble sometimes.
• 58:08
  Andy Baker: And heavy tricep training bothers it.
• 58:10
  Andy Baker: I may be able to do some heavy tricep work for one or two weeks at a time, and then I've got to back off and I don't want to just not do it, but I can go do movements like cable press downs or even, you know, there are all types of different cable variations.
• 58:24
  Andy Baker: There's a million different tricep cable movements that you can do.
• 58:27
  Andy Baker: And I will do sets of like 20 to 30 on there because I feel like I can take the triceps to failure in that 20 to 30 rep range and get a good stimulus and not it doesn't aggravate my elbows.
• 58:38
  Andy Baker: Yeah, but I wouldn't do, you know, given if I had 100% healthy elbows all the time, I wouldn't do that.
• 58:44
  Andy Baker: I would train at a lower rep range.
• 58:46
  Andy Baker: I think it would be more effective.
• 58:47
  Andy Baker: If you've got a back injury or something like that and you're trying to do some leg work, you know, sometimes even things like leg presses can bother your back, you know, heavy.
• 58:56
  Andy Baker: I've had clients with back injuries before, and even trying to load up a heavy leg press doesn't feel great on that back injury.
• 59:02
  Andy Baker: So it can give you the opportunity to do some very low load work on the legs, you know, push hard and get a decent stimulus on the lower body without putting a lot of pressure on the back.
• 59:14
  Andy Baker: So there, you know, maybe it's a shoulders giving you trouble.
• 59:18
  Andy Baker: So you're gonna do, you know, you can't bench heavy, but maybe you can do some seated chest presses or things like that on a machine at a much higher rep range, and you can do you can get some chest work in without the load.
• 59:29
  Andy Baker: And that's one of those things you just have to take in an individual kind of situation.
• 59:33
  Andy Baker: You know, can sometimes heavy weight hurts, but lightweight doesn't.
• 59:37
  Andy Baker: So in that situation, that's where I think like that gives like that Schoenfeld study kind of gives you some confidence to not just skip your training or force a round peg into a square hole and try to force yourself to go heavy when maybe you shouldn't.
• 59:49
  Andy Baker: Is that like, okay, third maybe 25, 30 reps isn't ideal, but it could still work at least for a temporary amount of time while I'm working around this injury, and I can still get productive training in if I modify my protocol a little bit until I'm healed up and ready to go a little bit heavier.
• 1:00:05
  Andy Baker: So that's mainly how I would use like 20, 30 rep training is working around injury and inflammation.
• 1:00:10
  Andy Baker: The other way, and I this is almost kind of a joke, but and I would use this sparingly, is just those times where you just want to challenge yourself.
• 1:00:18
  Andy Baker: You just want to do something.
• 1:00:19
  Andy Baker: It's and it's kind of like a guy that's training strictly for bodybuilding.
• 1:00:22
  Andy Baker: He has really no business doing one rep maxes.
• 1:00:26
  Andy Baker: It's not, there's there's no the risk is outweighs the reward.
• 1:00:29
  Andy Baker: There's no real stimulus towards his ultimate goal, but but they do it anyway.
• 1:00:34
  Andy Baker: You know, so guys that are training strictly for hypertrophy are occasionally going to want to take a one rep max on a deadlift or a bench just to see, because people like being strong.
• 1:00:42
  Andy Baker: And on the flip side, another challenge people may want to do is grab a weight and see how many reps can I do with it.
• 1:00:48
  Andy Baker: You know, if you've never tried it, if you've never tried to take a medium to lightweight and do 20, 25, 30 rep squats, it's it's a challenge.
• 1:00:56
  Andy Baker: It's not necessary, but it's just one of those things I think as lifters, especially those of us that don't really have any like really specific goals.
• 1:01:05
  Andy Baker: We're not competing for championships or money or anything else.
• 1:01:09
  Andy Baker: It's like you can afford to have those little kind of deviations from the, you know, your ultimate goal is you're going here.
• 1:01:15
  Andy Baker: But hey, today I just feel like doing this too crazy thing, so I'm gonna do it.
• 1:01:19
  Andy Baker: You know, I think it's kind of the it's just kind of the fun part sometimes of being a lifter.
• 1:01:23
  Andy Baker: I wouldn't recommend doing it all the time, but sometimes people like to do that.
• 1:01:26
  Andy Baker: They they want to see, you know, after the NFL combine, they they want to go, oh, I saw so and so 40 reps at 225.
• 1:01:32
  Andy Baker: Let's see how many I can do at 225.
• 1:01:34
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:35
  Andy Baker: You know, so it's it's not, it's just one of those things where that's the only time I would ever really do it.
• 1:01:39
  Andy Baker: It's just those, you know, kind of one-off challenges of just seeing it if you can do it or working around injury, but I wouldn't make it a part of my structured day-to-day, week to week type of programming.
• 1:01:50
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and I doubt I doubt few people would and stick to it because man, when I did CrossFit, like they did the the squat wads and they do, you know, they'd have a five by five day, but then they'd have a 10 by 10, and man, 10 by 10 was just brutal, right?
• 1:02:03
  Andy Baker: Yeah, it's not, I mean, that's the old German volume thing.
• 1:02:06
  Andy Baker: That was the German volume training was 10 sets of 10.
• 1:02:08
  Andy Baker: And I I mean that was really popular for a while, but why did it, I mean, why did it fade?
• 1:02:13
  Andy Baker: Because it's not it's not really progressible over time.
• 1:02:15
  Andy Baker: I mean, it's not it's not a protocol you can do.
• 1:02:18
  Andy Baker: It's like the 20 rep squat program is kind of that way.
• 1:02:20
  Andy Baker: Like a lot of lifters have done the old 20 rep squat program before.
• 1:02:24
  Andy Baker: And what they find is that it worked, kind of, you know, I got maybe I got a little bigger.
• 1:02:27
  Andy Baker: I don't know, but it's not what they find is it's not a training protocol that you can really do day in and day out, week in and week out for months at a time.
• 1:02:35
  Andy Baker: And I always I always tell people, like, I tell my clients, like, if it's not really a sustainable solution, then it's not really a solution.
• 1:02:42
  Andy Baker: You know, it has to be like your training program has to be something that you can do sustainably over long periods of time, where you can measure the results of it, you know, week one versus week 10 versus week 20 versus week 30, like you have to be able to accumulate long periods of training doing more or less the same thing so that you can measure progression or not.
• 1:03:03
  Andy Baker: That's why you want to, that's why you want to keep your, you know, like I said, if you had to pick a rep range like that five to eight rep range, like you want to measure your strength kind of in that somewhat narrow rep range to make sure that you're progressing, or as if you're jumping around to different rep ranges all the time.
• 1:03:18
  Andy Baker: Uh it's kind of like what the problem that CrossFit has is it's so random that you can't ever really improve on anything or measure progress.
• 1:03:26
  Philip Pape: You know, so yeah, and I I think that's a great way to put a bow on it, honestly, because you you sent the email to try to clear up confusion, right?
• 1:03:32
  Philip Pape: And you said like avoid paralysis analysis.
• 1:03:34
  Philip Pape: And you know, people can go online, they can buy a program, they can follow a program from a coach, but until you've kind of stuck with something for eight, twelve, sixteen weeks and seen.
• 1:03:44
  Philip Pape: Because I I've done programs that I thought on day one this is gonna be fantastic, and I get two weeks in and I'm like, man, this is not right for me.
• 1:03:51
  Philip Pape: There's something about it.
• 1:03:52
  Philip Pape: It's either it could be as simple as like the days of the you know, number of days a week doesn't work, but it could also be the volume, it could be the the movements, and you're just like, no, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:02
  Philip Pape: Versus doing hard.
• 1:04:03
  Philip Pape: I mean, some in some cases you just got to do the hard thing and like push through, but yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Andy Baker: So I a good way to think about rep ranges is 80% of the time train at 80%.
• 1:04:12
  Andy Baker: And that has always stuck with me with programming design.
• 1:04:16
  Andy Baker: In other words, 80% of the time, you're you're it doesn't, and that's again, that's a heuristic.
• 1:04:21
  Andy Baker: It's not a that's not a don't get your calculator out and figure out what's going on.
• 1:04:25
  Andy Baker: Am I doing exactly 6.5 of my work at exactly 80%?
• 1:04:30
  Andy Baker: What he's saying is the bulk of your training, the vast work of your training, if you're trying to get stronger, get bigger even, should be in about that 80% rep range.
• 1:04:40
  Andy Baker: So what is that?
• 1:04:40
  Andy Baker: That's probably that's like that four to eight rep range for most people, you know, kind of depending on where your proximity to failure is.
• 1:04:46
  Andy Baker: But that's gonna be that meat and potatoes, that's gonna be the middle zone.
• 1:04:49
  Andy Baker: Let's say that's the 80% is gonna be that middle rep range.
• 1:04:52
  Andy Baker: So let's say it's let's just call it four to eight with some variability in there.
• 1:04:56
  Andy Baker: But 80% of your training should probably be in that rep range for you know most of your lifts.
• 1:05:02
  Andy Baker: And then, you know, there's gonna be a small percentage, you know, another 10, 15% might be in those lower rep ranges, that one to four percent.
• 1:05:10
  Andy Baker: So a very small portion of it's gonna be in there.
• 1:05:12
  Andy Baker: And then another small portion of it is gonna be in that above eight reps, those higher rep sets, let's say eight to 20, something like that.
• 1:05:19
  Andy Baker: So that's a good way to think about it.
• 1:05:21
  Andy Baker: Again, for the guys that take everything literally, you don't have to get out your calculator and ensure that you're doing exactly 80% here, exactly 10 here, and exactly 10 here.
• 1:05:30
  Andy Baker: It's just a rough way to think about it is the bulk of my work should probably be done with exercises that fit well into that four to eight rep range and you and applying that four to eight rep range to most of the things that I'm doing where applicable.
• 1:05:43
  Andy Baker: And then occasionally maybe venturing in a little heavier, doing a small volume of work, you know, in that absolute strength training zone of that one to four rep range.
• 1:05:52
  Andy Baker: And then on the exercise, the isolation work, the things that I'm doing outside of that, that eight to 20 rep range, you know, where it where it makes sense on exercises to do, you know, to go for higher reps or whatever, where it just you're based on preference or you know, exercise selection or whatever.
• 1:06:07
  Andy Baker: So that's a that's a good way to think about it as well.
• 1:06:09
  Philip Pape: That's really like I think we should end on that.
• 1:06:12
  Philip Pape: 80% of your work around 80% of your one rep max is really good.
• 1:06:16
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna be thinking about that when I look at programs too, because that that comports really well with like my experience of if it's too shifted toward one direction, away from that, yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Philip Pape: Something is off, you know, like it's too much of one thing.
• 1:06:28
  Andy Baker: Like you said, the old flex magazine programs where every single exercise was eight to 12 reps, or every single exercise was 10 to 15 reps.
• 1:06:35
  Andy Baker: That's not gonna work for most people, not for most natural guys, anyway.
• 1:06:39
  Andy Baker: You're gonna have to do some heavier work in there.
• 1:06:41
  Andy Baker: And I think you know, the bulk the bulk of it should be shifted down a little bit into those more medium rep ranges and then a smaller percentage up at the higher rep ranges.
• 1:06:48
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 1:06:49
  Andy Baker: Andy, where do we want to send folks?
• 1:06:51
  Andy Baker: Everything is at andybaker.com.
• 1:06:53
  Andy Baker: If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you can do that at andybaker.com.
• 1:06:57
  Andy Baker: If you want to purchase a program, Andybaker.
• 1:06:59
  Andy Baker: You know, sign up for coaching, online barbell club.
• 1:07:02
  Andy Baker: Everything is there.
• 1:07:02
  Andy Baker: So just anything if you want to get in contact with me through a contact form or whatever, everything's at andybaker.com.
• 1:07:08
  Philip Pape: Definitely.
• 1:07:08
  Philip Pape: Send him to andybaker.com.
• 1:07:10
  Philip Pape: If you didn't get that, guys, send him some love, reach out, check out his stuff.
• 1:07:13
  Philip Pape: He's the man.
• 1:07:14
  Philip Pape: And it's great knowing you, great talking to you.
• 1:07:16
  Philip Pape: And we'll have to do it again.
• 1:07:17
  Philip Pape: Always.
• 1:07:18
  Philip Pape: Cool, man.
• 1:07:19
  Philip Pape: Well, thanks so much for coming on, Andy.
• 1:07:20
  Andy Baker: All right, appreciate it.
• 1:07:21
  Andy Baker: Thanks.