A fitness expert has settled the controversy over how to build muscle mass.

Do you need to do more repetitions of exercise or lift increasingly heavier weights to tone up? A fitness expert settles the dispute. High repetition exercises help build endurance, but lifting heavy weights builds strength and tone.

This is an age-old debate between fitness enthusiasts. What is better for building muscle mass – lifting weights or exercising more often?

According to the Daily Mail, fitness professionals have now tried to finally resolve the issue of the relationship between the number of repetitions of exercises and the weight of the weights lifted.

According to Amanda Place, personal trainer and founder of British coaching firm Sculptr, if you want to increase the size and strength of your muscles, a relatively short workout will do the trick. But it won’t be easy.

She explains: “If you’re looking to increase muscle size and strength, lifting heavier weights with fewer repetitions is the preferred approach, as this promotes hypertrophy and significant muscle growth.”

And personal trainer Ali Malik explains that it’s a “fundamental principle in strength training and exercise science”: “It involves gradually increasing the load on your muscles, usually by lifting heavier weights or increasing resistance over time.” This results in muscle hypertrophy, or growth.

According to the University of New Mexico, the strain of lifting weights causes tiny tears in muscle cells, which the body quickly repairs.

As your body repairs these tears, it adds new tissue on top of the old, gradually increasing the amount of muscle you have and making the entire system stronger.

Malik adds: “Progressive overload [все более тяжелые веса] also requires increased joint stability and muscle activation, which can help protect joints from injury and improve overall joint health.”

You should increase your weight to a level you can handle without compromising your form, Malik explains. Discomfort is normal, but if you feel severe, sharp pain, it could be a sign that you’re seriously harming your body by exercising in poor form.

“Increasing weight without proper form can lead to serious injury, especially when performing strength exercises that can put stress on the spine,” Malik emphasizes.

But increasing the number of repetitions has other benefits and is also an important part of resistance training, experts say.

“Working with higher reps helps improve your muscles’ ability to work for long periods,” explains Ali Malik. “Doing more reps with shorter rest intervals can also raise your heart rate and improve cardiovascular fitness.”

The real benefit is a combination of both, because this way you can get the cardiovascular benefits of high-repetition training while increasing muscle mass.

Known in the research community as periodization, this concept has been around since at least the 1950s and can help you achieve weight loss and muscle growth without hitting a progress plateau, according to George Mason University.

To find a balance between lifting weights and doing more reps, Malik notes, you should pay attention to when your workouts start to feel too easy.

If you’re handling the load, “reaching your maximum rep range during sets with proper form could be a sign of increasing weight,” he said.