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I'll answer this question in the context of a popular strength program (Starting Strength) that I happen to be doing. Why only a few exercises? Because as a novice, you don't need complicated training to make general strength gains. A well chosen, small set of full-body barbell movements trains you in almost every way you need to be strong as a human ...

Based on this position statement from the American College of Sports Medicine, the answer to both questions is yes. According to the ACSM, sets of 15-25 reps (using light loads) are most effective for increasing muscular endurance, and have also been shown to increase strength in moderately trained people. High rep sets may also supplement a conventional ...

How you organize your sets determines what you get out of them. Each exercise on its own: 5x5 curl, 5x5 press, 5x5 squat. Wait between sets. This is the most strength-oriented of the options. It will involve some hypertrophy and some token conditioning. Note, however, that squatting the same weight that you press and curl will not challenge your legs ...

I found this article in Men's Health very interesting and have shaped my workouts on it over the last month or so. The page I linked to breaks down the reps/sets combinations for your different goals. I'm a flabby weakling, and am working on building strength just to get started. I'm doing 6 sets of 4 reps of a very few basic exercises at about 80%-90% max ...

Number of Reps for a Novice As noted in my answer to your original question, I think sets of 5 or so are fine for a novice such as yourself. That is close enough to the strength end of the rep range spectrum, but is high enough to trigger some muscle growth (hypertrophy) in addition to the neurological improvements. Later, you can decide whether to switch ...

Short answer: 8-12 reps, whichever your goal may be (strength, mass, speed, etc). Long answer: This has actually been rather well studied in science. 8-12 reps is the ideal range for a beginner, no matter what your goal is. You can see a (rather lengthy) post I wrote about this here, or just go to my source, the 2009 position stand by the American College ...

If your main focus to primarily to gain strength, I would highly recommend you to consider a starting strength 5x5 program. There are different variations of 5x5 programs, but they basically focus on compound exercises through squatting, benching, and barbell row/cleans. There's some extensive wikis on Mark Ripptoe, Bill Starr, and Madcow programs; however, ...

I presume all of your exercises working out the same body part? If so, you are essentially using the technique called "pyramiding down". This means you start with a heavy weight and back off from there. It's a perfectly legitimate way of working out, though you will of course find its proponents and opponents. With your priority being mass, going as ...

Generally the point of an exercise is to push your body to adapt to stress placed on it. You want each workout to push your body a little bit more than last time so your body gradually adapts towards where you want it to go. How you push it is down to your goals. If you want to be able to do lots of push ups, you will want to always try to do more push ups ...