If you’re trying to maximize muscle growth, high-rep sets might be quietly reducing your rate of hypertrophy.
In a single sentence: High-rep sets of bodybuilding exercises are more difficult to judge effort on than low-rep sets. This finding was offered by a 2022 paper in the scientific journal Sports Medicine.
Here’s what you need to know about rep ranges and the subtle ways they influence how much muscle you can build during your workouts.
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[Related: The Best Back Exercises for Building Muscle]
What the Study Says
The paper in question is titled “Accuracy in Predicting Repetitions to Task Failure in Resistance Exercise: A Scoping Review and Exploratory Meta-analysis,” published in Feb. 2022 by authors Halperin & colleagues. (1)
The authors set out to examine how perception of “task failure” is influenced by the number of repetitions performed during a set of resistance training.
Methods
The authors collected 12 studies, totaling 414 participants, which met their inclusion criteria.
Findings from the studies were compiled and analyzed for effect size, or magnitude.
Findings
Strength training experience did not eliminate inaccuracy in predicting proximity to failure. Experienced lifters misjudged themselves, though not as often as newbies.
On average, people low-balled their proximity to failure by about 1 rep.
Lower-rep sets (fewer than 12) are easier to gauge for effort than high-rep sets (more than 12).
Participants were equally inaccurate on both upper and lower-body exercises for hypertrophy.
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High-Rep Training & Hypertrophy: The Danger
So, what’s the dangerous part? Studies on hypertrophy and failure paint a pretty clear picture:
Training to “task failure” as Halperin & Co. call it, is not necessary for stimulating muscle growth. (2)
In contrast, a 2022 meta analysis on failure and hypertrophy offered that training to failure may offer a “trivial advantage” for muscle growth.
However, PhD researcher and BarBend Expert Dr. Eric Helms argued that your propensity for hypertrophy increases as you approach failure, though you don’t necessarily need to hit the point of not being able to push the weight any further. (3)
Putting it all together, you can build muscle with both sets of 6 and 16, as long as you get pretty close to failure on both. The 16-rep set would be more difficult to assess proximity to failure, potentially causing you to leave hypertrophy gains on the table.
As rep count goes up, so does time under tension, and so does the amount of work your cardiovascular system needs to do. Thumping heartbeats and oxygen debts can distract you from how close you are to muscular failure.
Based on the findings of the paper in question, you might want to perform the majority of your bodybuilding workouts in the classic 6-to-12 rep range and work within 1 to 2 reps of failure.
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References
Halperin I, Malleron T, Har-Nir I, Androulakis-Korakakis P, Wolf M, Fisher J, Steele J. Accuracy in Predicting Repetitions to Task Failure in Resistance Exercise: A Scoping Review and Exploratory Meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2022 Feb;52(2):377-390. doi: 10.1007/s40279-021-01559-x. Epub 2021 Sep 20. PMID: 34542869.
Nóbrega SR, Libardi CA. Is Resistance Training to Muscular Failure Necessary? Front Physiol. 2016 Jan 29;7:10. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2016.00010. PMID: 26858654; PMCID: PMC4731492.
Helms ER, Cronin J, Storey A, Zourdos MC. Application of the Repetitions in Reserve-Based Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale for Resistance Training. Strength Cond J. 2016 Aug;38(4):42-49. doi: 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000218. Epub 2016 Aug 3. PMID: 27531969; PMCID: PMC4961270.
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