hi everbody so the question that I've got I wanted to address today is if some some folks have asked me how do I train when it comes to a contest like how many reps do I use am I am i increasing my reps you know the old school thought has been more raps equals more definition so I'm going to address that today so stay tuned alright hi everbody thanks for joining and thanks again for helping us hit 100,000 subscribers thank you very much for all your support and the question today was you know I've got this a few times last week and the question was how do you how do you handle your repetition ranges close to a contest the old school thought has been that when you increase your repetitions like you start doing 15 sets of 20 reps 25 reps that you create a little bit more muscular definition separation things like that this is one of the ones I feel very strongly about the in and I feel that that is a very wrong way to think I am 100% against that a lot of things in our industry or they're not so black and white you got to look at the context and the situation is someone's in but this is one of the few things that is pretty black and white to me I believe that when you lighten the weight up you're you're asking for your muscles to essentially shrink a muscle fiber doesn't have to produce the same amount of force it doesn't have the same tension applied to it and you had to build your weight up your your tension all those things had to happen for you to get to the size that you've got to so you had to train a little heavier in some cases or train with some more tension you had to load the muscle fibers a little differently you had to exhaust them a little differently but all those things kind of helped you get to where you're at and then it's like you put everything in Reverse and you say okay now I'm gonna lighten up and not use heavy weights anymore and I think that's a very risky way of thinking because the muscle fiber again it has no reason for any positive adaptation it's gonna if it doesn't mean to beat to be a strong it doesn't need to produce as much force it doesn't need to produce as much tension I think you have a real risk of the muscle getting smaller and that's just what I've seen over the years now I will say this if you're if you're an astute student of the game you could say well John what about taking the test of failure that a little bit lighter maybe 60% you're one rep max as opposed to like the normal eighty percent of your one rep max is that you use and I get that I get that I get the the everybody now calls it metabolic training we're looking for growth via metabolites and things like that all that sciency stuff I do get that but I would still ways tell you make sure you don't abandon the sets of six the sets of eight the sets of 10 don't abandon those I really really think that those are very valuable and particularly the sets of six to eight and fast twitch muscle fibers those are the muscle fibers that have the most capacity to grow I do realize and I've shared this with you before that the slower twitch muscle fibers a lot of people don't think they can grow but they actually can grow too but you're probably looking at twice the growth at least from the research I've seen from Chris Beardsley and Brad Schoenfeld two guys who I have a tremendous respect for you're looking at the fast twitch muscle fibers having more capacity to grow so you can't just abandon those guys and again if you're using a little bit a little bit lighter way to failure you're probably covering a lot of that but keep your rep range open keep doing the sixes the eights the tens and by all means throw in some 15s and 20s but don't think of it is magically cutting they're not going to magically cut they'll actually stimulate or help maintain growth in your slow twitch muscle fibers so think of it that way think of your training as a - you know you'll probably want to have a hard time building muscle when you're dieting right but at least try to maintain it at least try to maintain it and you know I've talked a little bit about nutritionally how you should really not sacrifice any nutrition around the training window that also applies your training so don't lighten up under this false belief that lightening up the weight and do more reps is going to magically make you more define that's gonna come from your diet okay that's going to come primarily from your diet and then if you guys are into the chemical part of it there's chemicals to do that but just don't back off your weight and abandon your heavier sets short and sweet message for the day but I just wanted to address that and I appreciate the questions and if you have any more questions about this topic just listed below and we'll get it answered for you and as always thanks for your support [Music]