Got a nice guest article here from German trainer Oliver Wolter
and it really speaks to an incredibly important yet totally under
utililized aspect of training for muscle growth...matching the rep
ranges you're using to your fiber type makeup.

This is good stuff and well worth reading and understanding as well
as taking the time to test yourself as he recommends! It'll tell you a
lot about what you're made of...literally :).

Nick

P.S. In this article, Oliver mentions his training software he calls X-Size.
I've checked it out and it's very well put together (Oliver is very
knowledgeable about bodybuilding himself). The software will help
walk you through the process of designing an effective results-oriented
training program for building muscle, customized to YOU.

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How a Small Change in Your Rep Scheme Can Boost Your Muscle Gains
by Oliver Wolter

If you are working out like most people, you are using a rep scheme
of 6-12 repetitions for muscle mass.

You could read it anywhere and this seems to be one of the iron rules
 in bodybuilding yet following this rule will hold you back from serious gains!

Almost nobody can tell you why you should perform this rep scheme
for muscle mass.

Some people will tell you that 6 reps is 80% of your one rep
maximum - the range where most muscle fibers get involved.

But can you really perform 6 reps with 80% of your one rep max?

I can't tell you, but what I can tell you is that you are probably wasting
a lot of your gains by blindly following this rule.

Don't get me wrong, I believed that performing 6-12 reps was an iron
rule for achieving maximum muscle gains, too. This all changed when
I started to test the one rep maximum on all my training clients. What
came out is that a few of my clients could do more than 20 reps with
80% of their one rep maximum, while others could only do 3 reps
with 80% of their one rep maximum.

After using the individual scheme of between 3 and more than 20 reps
for muscle gains, almost all of my clients made better gains.

Some even doubled their progress rate instantly after changing
the rep scheme for muscle gains.

So please test your one rep maximum and load 80% on your one rep
maximum on the bar and test how many reps you could do.

To get a little bit more advanced I would advise you to track the time
while performing your reps.

I use this technique with good success in my personal training software X-Size
for one good reason: Nobody uses the same speed for their repetitions any time.

There is also another trick hidden in it and by this you can determine if
Creatine is going to be useful for you (I'll tell you that below).

Now I want to leave the theoretical part behind and give you a practical example.

Test your one rep maximum on two different body parts.

First test your one rep maximum for barbell bicep curls and write it
down. If you didn't choose the right weight at the first time (almost
nobody could do this) take 3 minutes off - before you try it a second
or third time. (for example your TESTED one rep maximum for barbell
curls is 100lbs)

Second, test your one rep maximum for leg extensions. (for example
your TESTED one rep maximum for barbell curls is 200lbs)

After you do this - rest for 10 minutes. In this time calculate 80% of your
one rep maximum for barbell curls (100 * 0,8 = 80 lbs) and the leg
extensions (200 * 0,8 = 160)

Now that you know your real one rep maximum for both exercises, after
the 10 minutes rest, load 80lbs on the barbell for testing your repetitions
on the curl.

For example, let's say you are able to perform 9 repetitions for barbell curls
with 80 lbs. So 9 repetitions is your optimum rep scheme for barbell curls.

After another 10 minutes of rest you could make the same test with the leg extensions.

For example you could do 15 leg extensions with 160 lbs. So this means
you should always aim for 15 repetitions for leg extensions because this
gives you the best muscle gains.

Did you take your time for the reps?

If so I can tell you the following:

If your time for each of both exercises was below 60 seconds
Creatine could be quite useful for you.

If your time was below 40 seconds for both exercises and you haven't Creatine -
what are you waiting for? It will definitely give you a good boost in muscle mass.

One final advice I would like to give you. You should do this test for any
exercise you are performing. Probably you have seen that you get different
results for different body parts...you will also get different results for different
exercises for the same body part.

This is because every exercise involves slightly different muscle fibers. So
probably your optimum rep scheme for barbell curls is 9 reps, but for
preacher bench curls it could be 6 reps.

This may sound over the edge for you, but think twice! I involved this technique
in my X-Size software along with other techniques to boost muscle gains
for good reason.

This technique alone could give you "only" 20% more muscle gains and
it could also double your progress rate. This adds up over the time to big
gains. And if you add some more of these tricks in your training schedule
you could double or even triple your progress rate instantly.

Click here to learn more about X-Size now...

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