I was wondering if https://musclewiki.com/ was going to pop up. My wife had just sent it to me earlier this week.
It lets you pick gender, muscle group, exercise type (stretch, bodyweight, barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells) and has detailed instructions and videos. (It does not have sets/reps like the shared site.) Perhaps they would be good to use in tandem.
Personally, I think for sets/reps, it follows most exercise advice. Choose what you'll actually do. If that's 3 sets of 5 reps, fine. Do that. If you can get yourself to consistently do more than that over time, you'll benefit from the increase in volume. (When I'm active, I follow Starting Strength style - increase warm-up weight while decreasing reps; then a bunch of working weight sets.)
I was just reading that the optimum reps count was somewhere between 8 and 12. I was doing something that suggested 16 reps and that felt a little more like cardio or something, and I dug into it and it is a whole debate, but what I got out of it was that for what I was doing eight or so is about right.
Just do whatever's difficult. Some days show up and do 10 sets of 3, some days show up and do 6 sets of 4. Total volume is the deciding factor (other than, of course, recovery).
Mike Isratel's work on Maximum Recoverable Volume is probably the best piece of work for deciding things like rep ranges.
There is no optimum number. There are optimum numbers for specific goals. List your goals, your hormonal and diet context, some genetic factors, and then people could propose optimal reps for you.
Unfortunately, a lot of exercise studies use untrained people. How that extends to even moderately trained people is usually pretty problematic. I'd say "forget it, just listen to people that have been doing it for a couple of decades" is probably better advice.
The primary mover of all set-and-rep ranges is going to be goals and hormonal context, so make sure that when taking advice from someone, know what they think those two things are.
I think 8-12 is optimum if you’re reaching failure by that point. If you can lift something more than 12 times you’re building endurance not muscle mass. Of course, it has to be said, all of this is not scientifically backed and is hotly debated between fitness experts (if you wanna start a fight between a room full of fitness experts ask how many reps is optimal.)
But in my experience lifting heavy for 8-12 reps one day and then lifting ~80% for reps (I go for 30) after a rest day has had good results.
It depends on what your goals are, lower reps with heavier weights will give you more strength. Higher reps with lighter weights will give you bigger muscles.
This isn't true. Lower rep ranges will better acclimate the CNS to higher bar-weight, but that's not really the same as "strength".
On the flipside, higher rep ranges don't give you bigger muscles - overall training volume (total weight moved per movement) is moreso the determining factor on "size"[0]. In general it's best to just do whatever you find difficult. Lots of "powerbuilders" use Undulating Periodization (sometimes Daily) to try and get the benefits of the CNS acclimation + the increased work capacity that higher rep ranges bring.
The OP might have meant sex, but actually now that I think about it gender is probably more important here since that will be more closely linked to your hormones (have natural or supplemented testosterone or not) as well as what exercises you want to do (more lower body or more upper body, higher reps or higher weight).
In reality their is no reason for any difference in training across sexes/genders. It’s about goals and performance not sex differences - my wife’s training has always looked very similar to mine (strength and hypertrophy phases) but we end up with different physiques.
Doesn’t your anecdotal evidence exactly contradict your claimed point? If there was no difference between gender/sexes then you and your wife would end up with the same physique doing the same exercise.
If you wanted to reach the same physique you would have to train differently, which is again, exactly what you are arguing against.
If we wanted to reach the same physique she would need to take a lot of PEDs. My point was poorly articulated - in reality if men and women train the same they will end up with different physiques based on the chemical make ups in the body. However if men and women want to “be strong” they should train the same, if they want to “run fast” train the same, “be lean and muscley” train the same. The idea that men and women should train differently (women do cardio and men do weights) is the biggest disservice that the fitness industry has done for the health of both groups. I guess that is what I think of when I hear “the sexes should train differently”
Ultimately the filter boils down to how much T you have, which (at least from the context of strength training) isn't necessarily linked to gender or sex. I'm not sure how you'd communicate that from the context of a web UI filter, though.
That would be an oversimplification. Physical development depends on other factors besides testosterone level. Men and women are different genetically, even if they have unusual hormone levels.
It lets you pick gender, muscle group, exercise type (stretch, bodyweight, barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells) and has detailed instructions and videos. (It does not have sets/reps like the shared site.) Perhaps they would be good to use in tandem.
Personally, I think for sets/reps, it follows most exercise advice. Choose what you'll actually do. If that's 3 sets of 5 reps, fine. Do that. If you can get yourself to consistently do more than that over time, you'll benefit from the increase in volume. (When I'm active, I follow Starting Strength style - increase warm-up weight while decreasing reps; then a bunch of working weight sets.)