Once folks have built up some basic endurance and stability, the next step depends on what their goals are. One possible goal is hypertrophy. That’s a five-dollar word for building big muscles.
People working toward hypertrophy still need to work all their muscle groups, but the way we want to do it changes. We choose weights that are heavier and we do fewer reps. We want weights that allow us to complete only 6 to 12 reps at a time. Our tempo also changes a little, in that we lift the weight fairly quickly and lower it more slowly. We want to do two to three sets of each exercise with at least a 30 second rest between sets.
(This is why circuit training is so useful! We do one set of all our exercises and by the time we get back to the beginning, the first muscle group has had plenty of time to recover. We get out of the gym sooner!)
Next week, we’ll talk about two other possible goals.
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