“How many reps should I do?” a faithful client asked me.
“Three,” I replied, waiting for his protests.
“Just three! Shouldn’t I be doing 10?”
Looking back, it’s easy to see where mistakes were made. When I was doing upwards of 30 reps per exercise, I can tell you confidently, I was making a mistake.
A deeply rooted American belief is that if a little is good, more must be better. That’s the same mentality that caused ephedrin to be banned.
Bruce Lee said, “It’s not about daily increase, but decrease—hack away the inessentials.”
If a little is good, maybe even less is better!
I just 5 total reps in the military press, an exercise that moves the weight from shoulder level to above your head with the arm straight. Some people will do 3 sets of 10 reps for a total of 30 reps. And I’ll be getting better results!
Why? Because I am training to improve the nervous system’s control of the body. Those other people are training to strengthen and tone their muscles. The muscles are not the foundation—the nervous system/your mind is.
Would you put a brand new roof on your house when your basement is caving in? I hope not. Yet, you do the same thing with your body when do some inane rep count that causes you to lose focus, exercise with poor form, and sacrifice your results.
If you don’t work out yet, then think about this: training your nervous system gives you better results with less work. The work part of the equation is that you actually have to focus your mind on the task at hand, something that is hard to comprehend for a generation stuck on treadmills with an iPod blaring and a TV flashing shiny, placating images.
Do a few reps of big exercises like military presses, deadlifts, squats, and occasionally do a few more reps than you normally do, say once every three or four weeks. This method will give you better control over your muscles which will make you feel better, move better, and it will give you more tone.
It’s a better technique for training to get strength, which is what you want in the first place if you’re after a lean and toned body–strength, without size.
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