How Many Reps and How Much Weight to Build Strength?

I’ve been discussing strength development over the past few weeks’ tips.

For a quick review:

I started off by suggesting that cardio training is generally over-emphasized in modern fitness and offering three reasons for prioritizing strength training: better endurance, improved body composition, and greater confidence and life satisfaction.

Then I covered three high-level concepts (plus a bonus one) for developing strength: doing fewer things, working at a natural pace, obsessing over quality, and, as the bonus, remembering that quantity is also important as long as the other concepts are followed.

And last week I reviewed some science behind these high-level strength-building concepts by explaining why strength is a skill, giving a ridiculously brief lesson on myelination, and emphasizing that micro-progress is still being made when we’re in the middle of a plateau.

This week I have two final considerations to remember when pursuing strength plus some relative and absolute numbers which can be used to design your own routine or to gain a better understanding of why TNT programs are designed as they are.

Reminders when pursuing strength

First, time under tension is the condition that promotes strength gains. This effectively means that muscles grow stronger when they’re contracted to a sufficiently high degree of their current capabilities (i.e. tension) for a length of time that is just beyond their comfort zone.

Stated even more simply: Spend enough time lifting an appropriately heavy (for you) weight, and increased strength is the natural end result.

Second, while time under tension promotes strength gains, those gains actually occur when resting/recovering. And our ability to recover, while replenishable, is finite.

The harder we work during training, the more our recovery “pool” is drained and the longer we need between training sessions to “refill” it. The inverse is also true. When our training is easier, our recovery “pool” is drained slower and “refilled” quicker. Meaning that we can (and should) train again sooner because there’s less strain to recover from.

The primary trick to making progress is finding the Goldilocks balance between “how much” (i.e. weight and total reps, equating to time under tension) and “how frequent” (i.e. time between sessions, equating to recovery). Too little or too much of both means stalled progress, while “just right” means lots of long-term progress.

The general numbers

Of course, “how much” and “how frequent” are themselves affected by numerous factors (e.g. nutrition, sleep, stress management, chronological age, training age, genetics), but that’s a subject for another time.

For now, here are five general guidelines that will get you going on the right foot:

How frequent?

Strength training can be done 4-7 days/week. However, most people’s availability (and preference) typically allows for 1-3 days/week. Some variation from week to week is OK (and potentially beneficial), but, generally, being consistent is the better choice. All of the following guidelines depend upon this choice, so pick something that you’re truly willing to commit to doing regularly.

How much weight?

When training 1-3 days/week, optimal weights are typically between 70-90% of your “1-rep max” (1RM^†) for any given lift. When training 4-7 days/week, a roughly equal balance between two ranges—40-70% of 1RM and 70-90% of 1RM—is optimal.

For even better results, choose different weights within the specified ranges for each lift. For example, lift 70%, 77%, and 85% weights for any given exercise within each training session instead of a bunch of reps at only 70%.

How many reps?

Repetitions performed in any given set are optimal in the following ranges: 4-10 reps (40-70% 1RM), 3-8 reps (70-80% 1RM), 2-5 reps (80-90% 1RM).

How much total volume?

Total volume (i.e. repetitions * sets) over the course of a month for each exercise differs between upper and lower body lifts. Optimal ranges are below. Err on the lower end if you’re just starting out or returning from a long break. Err even lower if you’re training only once per week.

(When you begin to calculate how many reps of each exercise you’ll be performing in any individual training session in order to achieve the following numbers, you’ll develop a greater understanding of why the “doing fewer things” suggestion from two weeks ago is important. That is, unless you enjoy spending 3 hours at the gym…)

Lifting 1-3 days/week, in the 70-90% 1RM range:

• Upper body: 200-300 reps/month
• Lower body: 150-250 reps/month

Lifting 4-7 days/week, split roughly equally between 40-70% and 70-90% 1RM:

• Upper body: 300-500 reps/month
• Lower body: 200-400 reps/month​

How much rest?

Rest long enough between each set so that your technique looks the same on your very last repetition of the day as it did on your first repetition of the day. This might be as low as 30 seconds with lighter weights (40-60%) and/or lower reps with moderate weights (60-75%). And it’ll probably be in the 1-3 minute range for heavier weights (greater than 75-80%) and/or higher reps with moderate weights.

Putting it into practice

If you train on your own, look at some of your recent strength-based programs and determine if the details fall into the ranges from the guidelines above. If they do, nice work! You almost certainly saw strength improvements and can carry on as-is. If not, consider how you might make a few tweaks to nudge your sessions in such a direction.

If you train at TNT, hopefully you have a better idea of why programs as designed as they are. Also, let a coach know if you feel you’ve been struggling with a given exercise and weight. A variety of legitimate reasons exist why these percentages, reps, etc. might be a little “off” for you. We’ll make adjustments as needed!

And, of course, if you don’t (yet) train at TNT and either want help designing a program or would rather just trust us with the details of designing an effective program for you, find out how to get started—and we’ll go from there.