{"id":404887,"date":"2026-01-10T21:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/404887\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T21:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:22:07","slug":"whats-better-heavy-weights-or-high-reps-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/404887\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Better: Heavy Weights or High Reps?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is from Manual, GQ\u2019s flagship newsletter offering useful advice on style, health, and more, four days a week. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ever since man first picked up heavy things and put them down again, the debate has endured: Is lifting lighter weights for high reps or heavier weights for low reps better for your gains?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that heavy weights produced better hypertrophy results,\u201d the powerlifter and PhD Layne Norton<\/a> tells GQ, \u201cbecause then I could sit here and feel self-righteous about it.\u201d But he says that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case.<\/p>\n

Norton cites Stuart Phillips, a professor in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University, who he also considers one of the best protein researchers in the world. Phillips was one of the first to find that, when it comes to enhancing hypertrophy (muscle growth) and muscle protein synthesis, low-load training, when taken close to failure<\/a>, shows similar results as heavy weights taken to failure.<\/p>\n

In plain English: you can make gains without picking up heavy weights. But you\u2019ll need to lock in on the functional trainer<\/a> until it feels heavy, and you\u2019re just a couple reps shy of not being able to lift any more.<\/p>\n

The data around this debate<\/a> has been trending in this direction for around 15 years. The original literature on strength and resistance training \u201cwas just not really great,\u201d Norton says, because they weren\u2019t sure what to standardize for. So early studies on resistance training that compared high and low load aren\u2019t entirely useful, since both groups weren\u2019t often training close to failure. One group was just lifting less weight.<\/p>\n

Reps are just one variable<\/p>\n

Today, from Norton\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s clear from the research that there\u2019s no statistical difference in low reps and high weight compared to its inverse, when controlling for \u201cproximity to failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not always the understanding. A couple decades ago, the common line was to focus on lower rep ranges for strength, middle reps (6-15) for building muscle, and higher reps for muscular endurance. You’ll still see that advice, and Norton himself used to tell people just that.<\/p>\n

In fact, he still thinks focusing on middle reps for building muscle is a good general principle, even if the scientific reasoning was wrong. \u201cIt’s actually practically good advice because it’s low enough load that it doesn’t make you as scared as handling really heavy weights, but it’s heavy enough that you reach close to failure. It doesn’t take you more than a minute to do the set,\u201d he says. Lifting lighter weights to failure will simply take much more time.<\/p>\n

Progressive overload doesn\u2019t always mean adding weight<\/p>\n

A relevant concept for making gains on the power rack<\/a> is \u201cprogressive overload,\u201d the idea that increasing the difficulty of your workouts is necessary to continue building strength. One way\u2014but not the only way\u2014to \u201cprogress\u201d is to bump up the weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople get focused on the weight on the bar because of the term \u2018load\u2019 in progressive overload,\u201d says Norton, but more reps is also a form of progressive overload. Adding more \u201chard sets,\u201d or those in which you approach failure, is another form of progressive overload.<\/p>\n

A caveat: it\u2019s difficult to up your numbers on the three main lifts (bench, deadlift, squad) all at once. For advanced lifters looking to continue progress, they might consider \u201cvolume cycling,\u201d a term coined by scientist and exercise expert James Krieger<\/a>. For a three-to-four month period, you\u2019d hit a specific muscle group with progressive overload, while pulling back on all your other lifts to \u201cmaintenance mode,\u201d switching the targeted muscle group after that period of time.<\/p>\n

Avoid junk volume<\/p>\n

\u201cJunk volume\u201d refers to lifting sets that are too easy to cause any adaptations. \u201cHonestly, most people who go to gym probably do junk volume, because they’re not getting close enough to failure,\u201d Norton says. Beginner and intermediate lifters tend to want 50 different exercises, he says, but they end up not pushing themselves enough.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if you want to lay on a weight bench<\/a> and press 10 pounds until you physically cannot lift the five-pound dumbbells<\/a>, you will make gains. It\u2019ll just take way more time to finish your set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is from Manual, GQ\u2019s flagship newsletter offering useful advice on style, health, and more, four days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,538,105,1671,1672,537,13221],"class_list":{"0":"post-404887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","13":"tag-web","14":"tag-wellness","15":"tag-working-out"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}