Has anyone had success with high reps?

[nemo]

I've been training for years, mixing things up here and there. Mostly traditional workouts, such as M,W,F or a 4 or 6 day split. Mostly my rep ranges were 6-15, 20 on some leg exercises. Well, my point is, lately I've been doing 15 and up for everything,.. and I gotta tell ya, it's put me in another growth phase that I am more impressed with than anything I've ever tried before. I'm not saying that I will stick to it exclusively, but I will until I hit a plateau.
So, has anyone else tried high reps for any considerable amount of time,.. and was it effective for you?

[MakaveliThaDon]

only as flush sets or drop sets/burn out sets AFTER going heavy first.

[seccsi]

High reps can definitely lead to hypertrophy, especially if you have been using lower reps for a while. It's just not something I'd use for an extended period of time for various reasons. You're forcing your body to adapt by doing something it isn't used to (high reps). Adaptation=gaining. It's really not that surprising you're seeing good results. When they start to cease you know it's time to get back to the heavier weights and lower-medium reps.

[bla55]

As everyone has mentioned, I enjoy tossing in one set of widowmaker after my heavy set is done.

I do DC training (well, not really considering I have changed a thing or two but it's my base) with the rest pauses and all. But for the muscles I'm lagging I toss in a widowmaker at the end. I.e. after doing my preacher curls with rest pause I will toss in an 18 rep widowmaker with significant smaller weight. Mind you, I am dying by the time I get to 15.

It has worked pretty well for me. Don't know how I feel about all out high reps on everything. I feel like to get to the high rep I would end up not putting enough weight for it to really be reaching my capacity.

[MidwestBeast]

Back in college, I started off with a lot of 3 and 4x12's. A couple years in, I switched to pyramid sets of x25/x20/x15/x25 on my lifts and I didn't grow; I got cut up. But, that's due to burning more calories and also eating less as I was going for that look.

There's definitely benefit to using multiple rep ranges. I'm a big fan of going low rep, very heavy weight to moderate weight and high reps/intensity the following week.

[AC18]

no ive tried it in the past but much prefer 3-5 reps. better strength gains and i get bored of repping after 10 so theres no way i would want to go to 25 each time lol. I would like to try it as an experiment for maybe 4 weeks though.

[appleyard777]

After being on a low rep scheme for a long time when i switched it up and went to high reps (15-20) i deffinately saw some good gains. I think its good to try for a few weeks or months and see what it does.

[ZiR RED]

Its sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The muscle cells are adapapting to the increased metabolic stress by recruiting satellite cell merging, increasing sarcoplasm, and intracellular organelles that operate the energy and protein producing machinery. You also get a different acute hormonal response from high rep training.

Br

[bomcgraw]

Every time I have trained with very high reps for an extended period I lost overall muscle size, but my muscles became a lot harder. My 1rm wasn't quite as high as when doing 3-5 reps with heavier weight, but I could stay at maximum output for a long long time, which was very helpful for sports and at work. I didn't look near as big as I wanted but I felt great.

[BigKoolWhip]

high reps for over an extended period of time? no. mixing it up and doing them for a week? yes

[David Dunn]

Periodization!

If nothing changes nothing changes.

[ZiR RED]

^^ Agreed.

Non-linear periodization, in my opinion and based on a limited amount of research comparing NLP to linear, seems to be the better option for hypertrophy and overall strength.

Br

[thetinyguy]

Reminds me of this article on Critical Bench

http://www.criticalbench.com/high_reps_build_muscle.htm

I started doing just 1 set of very high reps (up to 100) for body parts that do not pump up very well and I've noticed a difference in how they pump up now. With the partials/high reps i even noticed strength gains and are continuing to. The whole determining factor into how much you will progress will be how much more you try or push yourself to achieve so. My rep range is now 4-100 Not on every single set though, I swear by it now!