The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Notes -
I have two fitness goals at the moment, in priority order:
For the recent past, I've been focusing on this by adopting a more "bulking" strategy, wherein, I'd use larger weight for my exercises, and try to push my muscles to hit higher and higher weight limits. I'd usually do this by doing 2 to 3 of sets of 12 to 15 reps for each muscle, trying to push myself to muscle failure. So basically, more weight, less reps.
However, for achieving my stated goals, how does the above bulking strategy compare to a "toning" strategy, where I'd essentially be doing less weight, for more reps, and more time. With this sort of strategy, I may be doing up to 5 minutes of reps at a time, but with 1/2 to 1/3 of the weight as I'd be doing for bulking.
Which strategy is better to help me achieve my goal? Or should I do a mix, in which case, what percentage of time should be spent on each?
There is not really any such thing as a 'toning' strategy. Though many people appreciate the toned look, which is to say, lithe and lean with only a bit of muscle, the fact is that a build like that is pretty easy to get without weights. To that end, doing easy sets where you come nowhere near failure would be quite effective because you wouldn't be stimulating any muscle growth.
There is an argument for doing sets with more reps. Anything from 5-30 reps is effective for stimulating muscle growth, and there is some evidence that on the higher end of that range, it's better for hypertrophy, while on the lower end of that range, it's better for strength, but the difference seems pretty small. However, this is assuming the same intensity - in other words, going to or close to failure. Though the exact mechanisms for muscle gain are not totally understood, one thing is clear - mechanical tension on the muscle itself is very important. If normally, you lifted 80kg on a particular lift for a set of ten, it's likely going to be very hard to stimulate growth going down to 40kg or 30kg. To take a real world example, it's not people who do a lot of steps that end up with big calves, it's people who have high bodyweight.
At the same time, a lot of people who are naturally muscular from heavy manual labor aren’t lifting ‘to failure’ when they’re stacking crates or moving machinery, they’re just doing a ‘lot of reps’.
manual labor does not make you much stronger, more like stronger people attracted to manual labor
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