People talk a lot about Number of reps and sets etc for building muscle and there is always a lot of debate and different thinking on the issue.
So I have a scenario I've been thinking about and it would be interesting to read everyone’s thoughts. Here it is below :

Imagine if trainer A did 6 reps with 10 sets in 20 Minutes. Then Imagine Trainer B did 10 reps with 3 sets in 3 minutes (say the weight lifted by both being 10Kg barbell). From a total weight lifted Trainer A has lifted the most with 600Kg compared to just 300Kg for B. So would this mean Trainer A will grow more than Trainer B? Would they also grow twice as much as they lifted twice as much weight?

But is this the full story?

If you look closer at Trainer B, they trained to total failure on the 9th rep and did a forced rep on the 10th. Trainer B did not train to failure and stayed at 6 reps so that they were able to complete 10 sets. They also rested longer between sets than B.

If you take time into account and not just total weight, you now see that Trainer A had a power output of 30Kg per minute ( 600/20min). Where Trainer B had a power output 100Kg per minute (300Kg/3min). That’s a massive difference in stress and power output compared to A.

So who had the better workout? Trainer A or Trainer B? Who would induce the most muscle growth?

What is it u want to acheive? As I alwasy state DIET is absolutely crucial when it comes to muscle building.

To Build Muscle Size/Mass for Body shaping/building
Then Use moderate to heavy weight; complete three to six sets of eight to 12 repetitions; rest 60 to 90 seconds between sets; train four to six times a week, resting one to two days before you train the same body part.

For Muscule strength (The maximal force a muscle or muscle group can generate in one maximal effort)
Then I would use heavy weights; complete three to five sets or more of one to six repetitions or more; rest more than two minutes between sets; train four to six times a week, resting as above.

I agree with Axa, it depends on what you want to achieve.

For me - neither would work well as I'm an ectomorph looking for mass building and so perform 4 sets of 6-8 reps at the heaviest weight i can push to get the most muscle fibres used.

For strength training, the longer rest time would help Trainer A, while for mass gaining, the forced rep and lesser rest time used by trainer B would fatigue the muscles more and recruit more muscle fibre growth (all in my opinion of course!).

If you are mainly asking who would gain the most mass from this program, providing that Trainer A & B were identical genetically and on an identical diet, I would say Trainer B. :-)

Perhaps I didnt make it so clear what I would like to know is which trainer would gain the most muscle growth, for the aim of buidling muscle (assume A and B are equal in every other way). After all thats what most people in a gym want to achieve.

It's intresting what you say Slinky because Trainner A took 20 minutes yet B only 3 minutes, yet you think that B would have gained more muscle than A?

Well, I am only speaking from personal experience in which more reps has not helped me with muscle growth. In terms of strength training i've found that a longer rest period is better between the sets, while when I've been going for muscle growth I use only 30-60sec between sets.

From my research into various training regimes etc I would postulate that with Trainer A taking 20min for the sets, their muscles are not going to be fatigued as highly in each set and so they are more likely to recruit fewer type IIb muscle fibres (which cause the most muscle size growth) than Trainer B who is training to fatigue each set and with fewer time between sets.

What is your opinion behind all of this SixBells? Is this all hypothetical?

Firstly, it must be recognized that NEITHER is doing any muscle building work.

But if pressed for an answer, Trainer B will gain a few micrograms more muscle :D:D. This is because the 10 reps is more nearly to muscle fatigue then the 6 reps.

(Neither of these Trainers will be able to attract any "trainees.") :jester:

Hi Lenin,
Could you be a more detailed in your answer. Just saying that neither would build muscle doesn't do much for the dicussion I would be intrested in why neithe workout is productive.

Sixbells,

If you want muscle growth look to increasing WEIGHT. Your scenario held that variable steady and varied only rest period and training time. My answer was apropriate and correct to the variables as posed.

For muscle growth, posit a middle weight scenario where the weight lifted is 450 Kg...like 50 kilogram barbell 3 sets of 3.

THough this is less total poundage than one and more than the other of the two hypotheticals, it will build more muscle than either because the stress on the muscle is 50 kilograms...the most important variable.

Hi Lenin,

Now that you’ve given your reasons I can now respond. The weight of 10Kg was simply a nice round number to explain the calculations; the actual weight was not the issue. I stated that Trainer B made failure on the 9th rep so that means that trainer B had succeeded the maximum overload capacity of his muscles. It doesn’t matter if it 500Kg barbell or 5Kg. If you are lifting a weight where positive muscular failure occurs you are overloading the muscles and setting the ground work for muscle growth.

I believe Trainer B stimulated the potential for far higher muscle growth than Trainer A. I say potential because if trainer A and B both trained 4 times a week. Trainer A would induce the most muscle growth not trainer B, even though Trainers B workout constituted a higher stress on the muscles..

Now I work in the engine and Transmission world and I think you can make direct comparisons between engines and the human muscle. For example in the engineering design world the size and shape and performance of an engine is based on it’s desired usage. However with Human muscle it’s totally the other way round, usage determines how the human body designs and builds the motor, the muscles. You create the environment and then the body designs the muscle to cope. With car engines you first need to predict the environment. But with bodybuilding your regimen is really your method of communicating to your body what type of body you want it to be.

The point can be further explained with this example. In a car if you want it to go 0 . 60 in 4 seconds you would require a huge gas guzzling monster of an engine. It would drink gasoline faster than an elephant at watering hole and the heat and power it would generate would require a massive engine block. If however you want a car that could travel 100’s of miles on the smallest amount of fuel, your approach to design would be to produce, a tiny little engine with the most efficient use of fuel and resources. Anything in-between would be a compromise between the two.

Now if you want the body to produce large powerful muscles then you have to create the environment that tells your body it needs to build them. The environment for a mechanical engine and human muscle are the same as they both apply the rules of physics. An engine that produces vast amount of torque in a very short period of time needs to be very large.

Now Trainer B produces a large amount of energy per minute. Much Higher than B (you can switch 10Kg to 50Kg the math is the same it doesn’t matter). The resources and stress on the body are of a much higher magnitude for B than for A and therefore will create a different reaction on the body. Since Trainer B used more resources and stressed the body harder just like a gas guzzling V8 needs more fuel than a Fiat Panda, trainer B will require a lot more rest than Trainer A, If they do not then they will over train very easily and as a result Trainer A will see much better results because their body will have recovered quicker from the less intensive regime. As growth never occurs before recovery, if you don’t allow enough time to recover before you exercise again you will short circuit the growth development and your muscles will hardly grow at all from the workout, not matter how good the workout. My point I’m trying to make is that many sets of frequent training 2 to 4 times a week is not required to build muscles. Of course you can build muscles that way, however you don’t need to. You can produce growth with very short very intensive workouts with long rest periods sometimes upwards of 2 weeks between workouts. Another factor to bare in mind is that the it is not only your muscles that are stressed during a workout, it’s the liver the heart the kidneys and many other organs. However these organs ability to cope with the stress do not grow at the same rate as your muscle growth. In 6 months you maybe able to lift twice the weight but you will not be able to recover twice as fast. In fact if you can lift twice the weight you’d probably need to rest twice as long to ensure maximum muscle growth. Many people don’t realize this and hit a plateau in their training. Their response is to train even harder which makes matters worse and probably leads to injury. In fact it’s very common for people after a 1 yr of training to have an injury. Not series but enough to give them a forced layoff and in fact it’s probably this layoff that gets them over the Plateau.

Now another area that people will challenge is this idea of training for strength and training for mass and definition. I think the terms mass and definition and strength often get confused. I mean I’ve never seen a non muscular weak looking Olympic power lifter. Neither have I seen a weakling 20 inch body builder. I’ve also seen great definition on marathon runners who have great six packs. I think mass is the most confusing of all as you can gain massive mass on a diet of a 100 chocolate bars a day. To me there is only lean muscle and the thickness of the layer of fat between the muscle and the skin. You need large muscles to lift Large weight, period.

Now again you could argue that 1 rep is the maximum intensity so why wouldn’t that produce the biggest muscle. Like everything it’s about balance and hitting the sweet spot. 1 rep is to little to induce growth and 500 to many. Its all about the power index to create that magic number of weight lifted per minute, which is normally no more than a few minutes per muscle.

I think High intensity and powerfactor training are very exciting alternatives for building muscles. I rarely seem them talked about on these boards and I thought it would be good to have positive discussion about them. But one thing I will say is I will not trash volume training or say that HIT methods are the best. I just look at them as an alternative for those who want to train in the shortest time with the best results. But volume training works and it works well.