To Cathe or anyone: doing 50 reps of a single exercise ??

[rgs424]

I have a friend who told me that at the gym, he will do 50 reps of the same exercise. Like 50 reps of a bicep curl, or 50 reps of a leg press. Is there ANY advantage to doing that ? I would imagine that it would actually work against you to some degree. He said he was 'strength training'. I have just never heard of that, but then again I am no expert is weight lifting.

Any thoughts would be appreciated !!

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SNM Videos]

I'm assuming you mean 50 reps per set? If so... If he really means the actual definition of “strength training” the answer is basically no. With strength training you need to use a weight in the 80% to 90% of your 1RM range. This means you should be using a weight that you can only lift with good form about 6 reps or less. His workout is actually mainly a muscle endurance workout, but 50 reps is lot more reps than is necessary. Usually for a muscle endurance workout we want reps in the range of 15-20 reps. Light weights simply will not cause enough or the right type of muscle fibers to be activated to help improve one’s strength to any great degree. One of our goals of STS is to educate people on what a proper weight is for the goal they’re trying to achieve. I’ve posted below some information from our STS-FAQ that is closely related to your question:

When we weight lift our goal is to apply a load to a muscle that is beyond normal causing as many “muscle motor units” as possible to be activated causing their associated muscle fibers to contract. A muscle motor is either turned 100% on or it is 100% off. Through time and practice from birth your brain learns how many muscle motor units it needs to turn on to lift a small glass of water or something much heavier like a 100lb weight barbell. In the case of the small glass of water your brain will only turn on a few muscle motor units, otherwise you would throw the glass of water through the ceiling. With the 100 lb weight bar many more motor units must be turned on in order to lift the bar. Since a muscle motor is either turned on or it stays at rest the weight you lift determines how many muscle fibers are worked. If you only workout with light weights you will only stimulate and work a small percentage of your muscle fibers and thus most of the muscle fibers in your muscle will not experience the wonderful benefits of weightlifting and your results will suffer.