Originally Posted by
HammyHead
With all of these I try and do 35 to 40 reps each set, really trying to move past the burn, increase my pain tolerance and build muscle. Well, yesterday at the gym I asked a trainer about this method. He said that at such high repetition levels I was only building lactic acid and that I really should be building muscle mass and therefore only lifting weights were I can do only 10 – 12 repetitions.
HammyHead
Check out the transformation guides at BodyBuilding.com. There's a lot of good overview information about weight lifting and you can get some sample plans based on age and body type.
The trainer is correct. The best ranges for building mass are generally in the 10-12 range with several different exercised per body part. This is the type of routing you'll see in body building magazines. If you're looking for pure strength, trainers usually reccomend in the 4-8 rep range with many sets of the same exercise. That's more what you'll see in powerlifting magazines.
Joe Friel's book has some of this information.
If you're looking for something a bit more scholarly, I reccomend:
Physiology of Sport and Exercise, Fourth Edition
Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers; 4 edition (November 9, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736055835
ISBN-13: 978-0736055833