Alternative Repetition Ranges For Female Fat Loss

Pick up the latest women’s fitness magazine, and turn to the workout section, and you’ll likely see the same thing over and over again every month. The exercises might change slightly here and there, but one thing is constant – the rep ranges.

You might not think rep ranges matter that much, as it would appear that the exercises you do, how often you train, how much cardio you perform and what your diet is like matter far more than whether you do nine or ten reps per set.

In a way you’re right, because all of these other factors are indeed massively important, but rep ranges are one variable that is so easy to change, yet illicit a huge boost in performance and results.

The main issue is though, that the industry as a whole tends to be stuck in its ways. We seem unable to break away from the notion that you have to do a certain number of sets and reps to achieve your goal. Typically, we’re advised to do four sets of eight to 12 reps for muscle growth, and three sets of 15 to 20 reps for weight loss.

This however, is one of the biggest fallacies in the training world – the notion that one rep range is any more beneficial for burning fat than another.

Take a look at the following table showing the rep range and weights needed to achieve certain goals

Goal                             Reps              Weight (Percentage of 1-Rep Maximum)
Maximum Strength      1-3                 85-100
Strength                      4-6                 75-85
Muscle Growth             8-12              60-75
Muscular Endurance    15+               <60

Not once do the guidelines mention anything about rep ranges for fat loss, because a fat loss rep range simply doesn’t exist.

There is the old myth that light weights performed for a higher number of repetitions are more effective for burning fat and toning, but this is false, has long been proven to be false, and fortunately is gradually being disregarded more and more. If anything, this type of training is worse for fat loss. By training heavy, you preserve muscle mass, which boosts your metabolism, leading to greater fat loss (though not necessarily also weight loss, as such, because muscle weights way more than fat does — so keep an eye on your waistline, not the scale). Light training may cause excess fatigue while not fully stimulating all your muscle fibers, causing muscle loss and potentially impeding your fat loss progress.

Burning fat is far more about the intensity you train at, rather than how many reps you do, or even to an extent, how much weight you use.

To beat boredom, avoid gym drudgery and escape the dreaded weight loss plateau, you need a female-specific routine with several different rep ranges to increase training intensity, get you working even harder, burning more calories and waging a war on body fat.

Fat Blasting Rep Ranges

One of the keys to losing fat quickly is your metabolism. You might have heard of metabolism in the sense that it relates to food and digestion – when you eat something, your metabolism (or metabolic rate) rises to help with digestion of the food. This rise in metabolism also brings about an extra calorie burn though. Therefore, the bigger metabolic lift you can get, the more calories you’ll burn and the faster you’ll lose fat.

Fortunately, high intensity exercise is one of, if not the best way to boost your metabolic rate, provided you organize your rep ranges properly. With high intensity exercise, you get faster results through harder work, while spending less time in the gym.

Drop Sets

Drop sets involve performing a super-heavy maximum set, then immediately dropping the weight by 20 to 30 percent, going to failure again, then dropping the weight the same amount again, and performing one final all out, gut buster of a set. A good example would be with lat pulldowns –

- One medium and one semi-heavy warm up set.
- One all out set of 10 reps on 125 lbs.
- Drop to 100 lbs and bust out another five reps.
- Drop to 75 lbs and do another three.

As you can see, you won’t get many extra reps on your drop set, but the key is to go to absolute muscle failure. Drop sets work better on machines, as you can change the weights more quickly too, but if you’d rather stick with free weights, have a partner on hand to help you change them and increase safety.

Ladders

Ladders are ascending or descending sets. There are two ways to perform them – on your own or with a partner.

For partner ladders, you’d pick an exercise such as pushups. You do one rep, then your partner does one. You do two, and so does your partner, you both do three, and so on, until you reach your desired number of reps (usually 10, when starting at one.) You can also do descending ladders by starting high and dropping a rep per set.

To do ladders on your own you need two exercises. Pullups and burpees are killer, but work amazingly well.

Perform one burpee, one pullup, two burpees, two pullups, three each, and so on, following a similar scheme to the above partner example.

Pyramids

Pyramids are simply two ladders joined together – you go up, then come back down. Pyramids work well skipping reps too, so instead of doing one to 10 in ones, try 5-10-15-20-15-10-5, or the Crossfit training favorite – 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3.

100 Total Reps

Just as it sounds – pick an exercise and aim to get to 100 total reps, no matter how long it takes you. This is awesome with body weight squats, or with dumbbell clean and presses.

50 Total Reps

A slightly simpler version of the above, perfect for those who have just recently began working out. If you can't make it to 100, you can make it to 50. Right? Just commit and do whatever it takes.

A Song

Yep – lift for an entire song. You can rest when you need to, but aim to do as many reps as possible. A two to three minute song is perfect, and it works well as you get motivation from the music, and it’s easy to go back and re-test this to see if you’ve improved.

Try leg presses with this one. Pick a favorite song and go to town. Just don’t try to get through the complete works of Mozart – you wouldn’t be too pretty by the end of it. Upbeat and high energy songs are the best bet.

Cluster Sets

More of a strength-training technique, but still a fantastic way to burst through plateaus and increase fat loss. Pick a multi-joint exercise such as barbell back squats, deadlifts, bench presses or overhead presses and load the bar with 75 to 90 percent of your one rep max. Perform a rep, then rest for 10 to 20 seconds and do another. Complete between three and six reps this way, rest for four minutes then repeat three more times.

This allows you to do more total reps with a heavy weight than you could if you performed them back to back.

Fat-burning doesn’t have to be all about treadmills, ellipticals, and the dreaded “3 sets of 15” you can shred fat, build muscle, get stronger and have fun simply by using alternative rep ranges.