Number of Reps for Building Muscle Mass - Repetitions and Sets for Hypertrophy

Optimizing your workout so that you can gain the most muscle can be difficult for a lot of people.  The first step that you'll want to take is figuring out how many reps you should do for each bodypart.  I mention bodypart because all of the muscles in your body are different and will require varying degrees of stimulation.  Before I start describing the best way to break up your workout, I just want to go over the definitions of sets, reps, and total volume.

Sets are groupings of lifts where you do a certain amount of reps without rest.  You are allowed to rest between sets - most people usually take 30-90 seconds before they start their next set.  Total volume describes the total number of repetitions done - that is, how many reps you do regardless of sets.

Building muscle will require that you do sets in the 6-12 rep range.  This means that you should be doing somewhere between 6 and 12 lifts per set without rest.  When you're finishing up a set, you should be near failure every time.  I don't recommend going to failure on each set, but you should be very close each time.  Because of this, you'll need to adjust the weight to compensate for fewer (or additional) reps.  If, for example, you can do 150 on the bench at 6 reps, you'll probably only be able to do 130 for 12 reps.  

The lower your reps are, the more neurological conditioning you will receive and the less hypertrophy you'll get.  The higher reps will increase the mass of your muscle more but will give you less strength gain.  It's important that you do a combination of high and low reps if you want to maximize your workout and get the best gains possible.

Certain bodyparts, as I mentioned above, will require different amounts of sets and reps to build up strength and promote hypertrophy.  Muscles that constantly have stress on them will require additional reps.  The calves are a great example of an often stressed muscle that require a large total volume to be worked completely.  I often hit my calves with 15 reps a set.  Another variable you'll want to take into account is muscle size.  While the quads are always in use, they require a lower number of reps per a set.  With that in mind, they do require a high total volume throughout the week.  I recommend that you work your quads two times a week to get maximum results.

Remember to experiment with your body and find out what works best for you.  Every person is different and will have different abilities, limits, and needs.  Because of this, the only way to figure out what you truly need to do to build muscle is to actually go out there and do it.  Once you start seeing results, you'll know you're doing something right.