I know this sounds like a dumb question but I was thinking if i’m only increasing the reps that’s just muscular endurance? or am I wrong?
Yeah Wrong. If you take 400lbs on the Deadlift for 5 and next month you can pull it for 10 I promise your max strength went up pretty substantially. Now mind you if your talking 30 rep DB Laterals and next week you can do 33 your 1 rep strength probably didn’t go up much if at all. Nothing at all wrong with doing reps. Hell look at George Leemon. He swears by high rep like 15+ reps on alot of lifts espeacily the Deadlift… And he is only 900lbs puller… Just saying
Depends on the load that you train with, specifically the percentage of your 1RM. The further away the load from your 1RM the more you begin training muscular endurance instead of muscular strength.
There was a famous dual between Tom Platz (Bodybuilder) and Fred Hatfield (Powerlifter) to see who was the king of the squat. They did a 1RM as well as a sub-max for reps resulting in Platz: 640x1; 500x23 and Hatfield: 825x1; 525x11. The observation was that because bodybuilders train higher reps than powerlifters, Platz was more suited to win the high rep range. On the other end, powerlifters being concerned with maximum load and training close to their 1RM, which Hatfield was, made him suited to win in the 1RM.
My point in the above example is that the relationship between repetitions and strength is certainly not linear or Platz would have easily beat Hatfield in the 1RM. You being right or wrong in your thinking depends on the load that you train with.
For almost all normal people there is a strong correlation between how much weight you can lift for a certain number of reps and what your 1RM max and when you can do more reps you are getting stronger.
One of the simplest forms of progression is called Rep Range Progression, it works great on lifts where it is hard to just add 5 lbs a week to. For example DB Flys, you pick a range of reps (maybe 8-12) and you do a certain weight, work up to 12 reps, once you hit that you go up 5 lbs, back to 8 reps and then you work your way back up. Do that for a few cycles, if you started with 40x8 and now can do 60x12 you are much stronger.
A simpler way to look at it is if a stronger person came and did your exact workout, don’t you think he would get more reps at your weight if he wanted to? Or if you went and completed a weaker person’s workout, don’t you think you could do more reps with their weight if you wanted to?
Short answer - as long as the sets are less than 20 and your form is good, when your rep ability goes up your 1RM almost always go up.
[quote]Justliftbrah wrote:
I know this sounds like a dumb question but I was thinking if i’m only increasing the reps that’s just muscular endurance? or am I wrong? [/quote]
Going along too with what everyone else has said is that of the argument of specificity. Does hitting a new 10 rep max equate to a new or single for you? I know in my case the answer is no. As a powerlifter, however, that makes no difference to me.
I believe so, I am working with George actually and my reps are getting stronger and stronger each week as well as adding weight to the bar each week, It’s just a matter of peaking that strength over time after you build it up.