Optimize Rep Ranges and RIR

A lot of people walk into the gym, sit down on a machine, pick a weight, and proceed to hit three sets of 10 reps and repeat on the next machine. While this isn’t going to negatively impact your health, it's also not going to optimize your gains. Today I am going to look at two different aspects of resistance training, rep range and RIR (reps in reserve or reps from failure) and see how they can be optimized to give you the results you want to see in the gym.

So what is a normal rep range for an exercise in the gym? Well, that depends on your goals in the gym. For hypertrophy, that is the building of muscle, the optimal rep range falls between 6-12 reps performed at 75-85% of the maximum weight you can perform for 1 rep. So, if you can dumbbell bench 100 lbs for one rep, you would be best suited to do 75-85 lbs for 6-12 reps in order to maximize muscle growth. If your goal is getting stronger, it is recommended that you do 1-5 reps at around 85-95% of your max. This would look like a set of 3 reps at 90 lbs using the previous dumbbell bench press example. If you want to lift for power (think power clean, clean and jerk, etc.) it is recommended that you train at an even lower rep range of 1-3 reps while focusing on moving in a more explosive manner. What about if you want to train for fat loss? Well, there are a lot of opinions on this so I’ll just state how I view the topic of fat loss. Exercising in the gym and burning calories can help you lose weight and in turn fat. Lifting in a hypertrophy range may leave you feeling that “burn” and can definitely help you burn fat, but you also will see less weight loss as a result of increased muscle growth. Lifting at a lower rep range may feel less taxing on the muscle and more so on the central nervous system, but it will allow you to build strength while not gaining as much weight through muscle growth. In either scenario, high-rep vs. low-rep, you will be burning calories and gaining some level of strength/muscle. I honestly just think it comes down to the individual and what his/her goal in the gym is at that moment in time. Now that rep ranges are covered, what the heck is “RIR”?

Reps in Reserve or “RIR” is a way to gauge your intensity level while working out. It indicates how many reps you are from true muscular failure. I am sure that many of you reading this have heard “go to failure on everything”, “you don’t need to go to failure if you have high volume”, and many more similar sayings that offer differing opinions just how hard to push in the gym. The fact of the matter is that there is no clear cut intensity level you should reach in the gym. If you push until true muscular failure for an extended period of time, you will plateau and could very possibly become injured due to the fatigue you are putting on your body. On the other hand, leaving 5, 6, or 7 reps in the tank all the time won’t allow you to maximize strength or muscular gains. We at Maxed Wellness have found that increasing intensity ranges over exercise programs offers the best results for increasing both strength and hypertrophy. This may look like going from 3 RIR to 2 RIR one week and from 2 RIR to 1 RIR the following or some similar variation. This allows you to push hard and close to failure while allowing room for improvement week to week. We also tend to include deload/reload weeks in our programs as it is very hard to train at such an exhaustive level for 8-12 weeks. These deload/reload weeks lower the RIR to roughly 4-6, and allow the muscles to stay primed to perform while also giving them a much needed break to recover before making another strong push in the program. As with almost anything involving exercise, it is vital to vary what you do in order to keep your body guessing while also allowing for recovery. If you haven't thought much about RIR before, I advise you to factor planning RIR into your exercise program as it can provide a huge benefit.

To recap, there is no perfect rep range or RIR, but educating yourself on how they can be adjusted to fit into your exercise goals can be a huge benefit to your performance.