I know all the literature out there as well as "locker room gospel" preaches that to build mass you need lots and lots of sets and to build strength, you need to use a really heavy weight for few reps.
I've done explosive power clean and weight sled drills when I played football in high school, I've done only calisthenics in martial arts, I've trained heavy with 5x5 programs, and even messed around with fancy muscle confusion stuff.
However, if I want to consistently add plates to my lifts, I always have to go back to the 3x10 method. I'll change up my rest periods a bit. If I'm using 55-60% of my max, I may only rest 20 seconds. However, if I'm using upwards of 85%, I'll rest close to 4 or 5 minutes.
This is what works for me. I know it's not what's popular, or gimmicky, or Muscle & Fictiony, but the old time 3 x 10 two or three days a week still works for me. Is there anything wrong with old school?
Best answer:
Ultimately, as experienced lifters, we end up using our instincts to figure out what sort of workout and diet works best.
I'll point out one fallacy however, lifting heavy weight with low reps my be primarily for power, but stronger muscles are also bigger muscles and vice versa. There are two very good articles on my Nutribody site:
http://nutribody.com/blog/post/Size-versus-Strength-Does-Getting-Bigger-3d-Getting-Stronger.aspx
http://nutribody.com/blog/post/How-to-get-Big-and-Strong.aspx
I found the 5x5 to work pretty well for me, although now, at 44, I often get injured as I try to keep up the progressive resistance aspect of it by increasing weight every workout. I've ended up with a modified 5x5, where I go lighter, focus more on the rep, and try not to get stupid.
If the 3x10 works for you, then that's what you should stick with. But that doesn't mean there's not something out there that might work even better!
Add your own answer in the comments!
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Best Butt Exercises For Shapely Glutes
Article by Jared DiCarmine
When you look around at the gym, you can find countless women doing tons of different exercises for the sole purpose of toning up and firming their butt. You'll never find any men wanting to do this, well maybe some but they definitely won't admit it to you. Now as I stated before there are a number of exercises that you can do but is there such thing as the best butt exercise? That's what we're going to get into today. Truthfully, there is no such thing as the best butt exercise. It just doesn't exist. It really all depends on your characteristics, your biomechanics, your goals and your diet. Remember you can't spot reduce a certain area and make it magically disappear just from doing certain exercises. For example you'll see a lot of people doing crunches and sit ups thinking that just by doing hundreds of reps per day, they can magically lose belly fat. That just won't happen and it's physiologically impossible for it to happen. So if you want a nice and firm butt, you're going to have to make sure that your diet is definitely in order. If your diet is not in order then no matter what exercise you do, you'll just never see any progress because there will be a huge layer of flab covering everything. So if your diet is screwed up, I would tell you to start tightening things up. Definitely start throwing out all of the garbage in your house right now. I know it might be painful at first but you're on a mission and you must do what's necessary to get proper results. The next thing I want you to do is start eating more protein and cutting back on your carbohydrates. By eating more protein, this creates a sense of fullness and it's also 30% more thermogenic than carbs or fats. What this means is that it's much harder for your body to break down protein as compared to carbs or fats so it burns up more calories just to digest whatever protein you ingested. I also want you to cut down on your carbohydrate intake, specifically any form of bread, pastas, crackers, cakes, cookies, pretzels, etc…This stuff is almost toxic for your body because they are full of gluten which is very inflammatory to your body and can cause a host of health problems that you're not even aware of. Now once your diet is in order, you can start focusing on the best butt exercise, or should I say the best butt exercises because there is no one greater exercise compared to others. Therefore, I'm going to give you a bunch of exercises that you can do that will give you tremendous results.Best Butt Exercise #1: Sled DragsDragging a weighted sled might sound barbaric and crazy but it is truly one of the best butt exercises that you can do, this I promise you. Now you can go and purchase your own sled for a few hundred dollars online or you can make one yourself. For my first sled I made it out of a big tire, a piece of recycled wood that I cut into an octagon, and boat rope. I used bolts and screws to tie the tire down into the wood and electrical tape around the rope to prevent fraying. So if you really want to target your butt with this exercise, all you need to do is grab the rope, load up some weight and pull the sled forward; that's it. You can go fast, slow or medium pace, I don't care. Make sure to take big steps and really get low into the movement. The lower you get the more your glutes will come into play.Best Butt Exercise #2: High Step UpsSteps ups are a very basic exercise that you see a lot of people doing in the gym, but they are extremely effective for working the entire lower body. If you really want to hit your glutes hard, then try to find a step that is high up at your waistline or higher. The shorter the step will activate more your quads while lessening the recruitment of your hamstrings and glutes. So the higher the step the better. Make sure to not use your body leg to push up off the floor. If you do this exercise correctly then you won't need any extra resistance and your body weight should suffice. Best Butt Exercise #3: Wide Stance Back SquatsI'm sure you have seen plenty of men and women at the gym doing regular old back squats. They are a great exercise that hits all of the major muscle groups in your lower body. Now you can play with the stance for back squats to target effectively different muscle groups. For example, if you use a narrow stance you will generally place the emphasis of the weight on your quadriceps. If you take a wider stance, most of the emphasis will be placed on your hamstrings, inner thighs and glutes, which are perfect for what you're trying to accomplish. So simple take a wider than normal width stance with the bar on your back, and from there push your butt back while keeping your chest up and out and squat down to parallel then come back up. If you don't have access to a regular barbell, you can use a dumbbell or kettle bell and hold it in the middle with your arms straightened right in front of you.All in all, there is no definitive best butt exercise that you can do at the gym or in your home. However, there are definitely some better ones out there compared to what you normally see at the gym. These 3 are my personal favorite to use with female clients who really want to target their lower body and firm up and tone their glutes. Try them out for yourself, but promise not to get mad at me if you're sore the next morning.
Orignal From: Weightlifting Mesocycles for General Athleticism: Is the 3 set x 10 reps still viable?
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