I
imported_deolmstead
Guest
When I first joined my gym (the local Y) a little over a year ago, the trainer who showed me around and set me up with my first program gave me the following dichotomy:
If you train at high weight / low reps, you will increase your strength. This will bulk your muscles faster, but the muscles will lack definition.
If you train at low weight / high reps, you will increase your endurance. This won't bulk your muscles, but will tone your muscles and help you look "cut."
At the time, this reflected the conventional wisdom I'd long accepted as true. Since then, however, I've done a lot of research on my own via sites like this one, and I'm not at all sure this is true anymore.
While I don't doubt that you can specifically train for strength or endurance, it seems to me that "tone" has a lot more to do with genetics and bodyfat than your program.
Since I lift for both vanity and to improve my rockclimbing, I want both strength and endurance. So I've been running 20-week cycles where I do a 10-week bulk concentrating on strength and a 10-week cut concentrating on endurance/maintenance.
But I was wondering if this school of thought is now outdated, or if it's still accepted as truth?
If you train at high weight / low reps, you will increase your strength. This will bulk your muscles faster, but the muscles will lack definition.
If you train at low weight / high reps, you will increase your endurance. This won't bulk your muscles, but will tone your muscles and help you look "cut."
At the time, this reflected the conventional wisdom I'd long accepted as true. Since then, however, I've done a lot of research on my own via sites like this one, and I'm not at all sure this is true anymore.
While I don't doubt that you can specifically train for strength or endurance, it seems to me that "tone" has a lot more to do with genetics and bodyfat than your program.
Since I lift for both vanity and to improve my rockclimbing, I want both strength and endurance. So I've been running 20-week cycles where I do a 10-week bulk concentrating on strength and a 10-week cut concentrating on endurance/maintenance.
But I was wondering if this school of thought is now outdated, or if it's still accepted as truth?