When you first start working out with weights, the whole thing can seem a little confusing. There is so much information out there about bodybuilding that it would take you several lifetimes to read it all.

If you did in fact spend several lifetimes reading everything you could find on the subject of bodybuilding, you would also find that much of it contradicts itself. There's volume training, HIT, Super Slow, Heavy Duty, Cyclical, Power, Circuit, and the list goes on and on. You could just as easily end up more confused after the experience, and no better off in terms of understanding the right way to train to build muscle.

I strive to keep things as simple as possible. Mainly because I'm busy, and like to pursue interests other than lifting weights. But that's just me. Many guys I know are so jam packed full of different ways to go about building muscle, that they haven't even started lifting weights. They are instead, waiting for that "perfect" routine to come along.

I tell them straight out that there is no perfect routine that'll make then into a Mr Olympia overnight. I tell them that lifting is pretty straight forward, and that the basic principles haven't changed in over fifty years. Some listen, others go off searching for some magic bullet. It's true that many people start out with a question, and then precede to search for an answer that they agree with, rather that the right or true answer.

That may be why so few people actually achieve their goals. But I'm getting a little off topic here, so let me try and clarify one of the key principles that many trainees seem to agonize over, time and time again. What I want to talk about here is repetitions. Or more to the point, your "range" of repetitions.

Many trainees mistakenly believe that you should train with high reps for definition, and low reps to build muscle. Now that's a generalization I know, but close to the truth none the less. Unfortunately, it just isn't so. Relatively high reps will do umpteen times more for your general health, and your muscular growth than low reps ever will.

You see, by training with higher repetitions, you will stimulate more growth, and therefore build more muscle than you ever thought possible. High reps also encourages good form while working up into heavy weights in all the basic compound movements. If you are trying to build muscle fast, high reps are where it's really at.

When I say high reps, I mean that term relatively. By high reps I mean between twelve to fifteen for your upper body, and fifteen to twenty for your lower body. By keeping your repetitions high, you will increase to intensity of your workouts, while at the same time decrease the amount of force placed on your skeletal structure, tendons, and joints.

I can't tell you how much of a difference this can make to your muscle gains, overall health and well-being. It'll also keep you from hurting yourself while training, thereby preventing valuable time from slipping away because you're unable to workout due to injury.

So give high-rep training a shot for a few weeks or so, and say goodbye to slow muscle gains, sore joints, and dangerous workouts.