Bodybuilding.net - Bodybuilding Forum

i use to lift and quit a couple years ago, and joined a gym and started back this week. Sitting here bored i thought i would do some research on lifting and now i'm confused. Back then everything i read said that the 1-5 reps for strength, 6-12 for muscle, 13+ for endurance was not true and you had to lift heavy to get big. So i always lifted in the 3-7 rep range and usally increased weight after getting to 7 reps and it usually put me down to 1-3 reps. Now everything i read is saying that the rep ranges are correct and lift 6-12 reps for muscle mass. Is this true or am i being mislead? Now i know people will say whatever works for you do it and if what i used to do worked then stick with it, but the thing is back then i never kept up with the calorie intake so i never grew cuz i wasn't getting enough calories, but now i'm starting back with keeping track of how many calories i eat a day. Just wondering what rep range i should aim for. Also say i need the 6-12 rep range to build muscle is this using a weight that all i can do is rep out 6-12 reps or a weight that i can prob get 15 reps but i stop at 12 reps instead?

another quick question, i started back on the program i use to use, found my old lifting records, and just now noticed i don't have any exercises for shoulders, and pondered as to why i didn't do shoulders before and i remembered that i took shoulders out of my routine cuz like forearms they basically are working in all the upper body exercises, like bench works front delts, rows back delts etc. should i add some shoulder exercises? what are good shoulder exercises?

There is no cut off point between strength and size. It is true there is a correlation between rep ranges and muscle growth vs. strength gains but it definately not as cut and dry as you put it.

Lower reps has more strength benefits
Higher reps has more hypertrophy benefits

BUT... you'll never get one entirely without the other.

IW

I agree with iron_worker, you can't have one w/o the other. I'm a proponent of building up strength and keeping the reps in the 10-16 range. And making sure you go to failure for most (if not all) exercises.