Open in app Sign up Sign In

The Case for High Reps

If you’re serious about your strength, you should get serious about high
rep training.

Aleks Salkin · Follow

Published in In Fitness And In Health
7 min read · Sep 14, 2021

Listen Share

If you’ve been involved in strength training for any length of time — either
for yourself or as a trainer — you’ve no doubt heard (and maybe even
repeated) the assertion that

“More than 5 reps is just frickin’ cardio!”

There is this instant need for certain people to denigrate moderate- and
high-rep training as worthless for strength, a vain pursuit, and other
assorted histrionics.

If only they knew how wrong they were!

Here’s a little personal anecdote:

Back in 2016 when I was still living in Israel, my family came out to visit
me and my dad got a wild and crazy idea: to rent a car and drive all over
Israel seeing the sights that you can’t see solely by taking a bus or train.

My dad — who is so good at driving he can even hold his own against the
unskilled and inattentive drivers of Iowa — was definitely up for the task.

Well, one thing we didn’t do is get a car with much cargo space — so I was
left without my trusty kettlebells for days or more at a time.

And this was no good, as I was training to recertify my StrongFirst level 2

kettlebell skills at the time, and my recertification date was coming up in
just a few short months.

My solution?

I put something to the test that I had heard wild and wondrous tales of;
something that didn’t seem like it should work at all, but was intriguing all
the same:

High rep bodyweight exercises.

I started doing loads of face pulls, hip thrusts, hamstring curls, handstand
pushup variations — you name it.

And by the time I got back to my apartment and could lovingly shake
hands with my kettlebells once more, I was pleasantly surprised:

Even my heaviest kettlebells dang-near floated!

 It felt a little something like this

Whether it be a snatch, a press, front squats, you name it — they had not
felt that easy even before I left.

My experience is far from out of the ordinary, too.

Both time and experience has shown a great many people that low-rep
heavy training alone is only a small part of the equation for getting
stronger. If you really want to make an impact with your strength and
power, you need to be good at moderate and higher reps, too.

For example:
The Great Gama — arguably the greatest wrestler of all time, with a 50-
year career and zero losses — used to do 3,000 Hindu pushups and 5,000
Hindu squats per day in addition to wrestling for hours on end. Lest you
assume he was only good at feats of endurance, he is also renowned for
having once picked up a 2,000 lb rock and taken it for a short stroll just for
the hell of it.
Herschel Walker — widely considered to be one of the greatest football
players in American history — at his peak would do 3,500 pushups and
5,000 situps PER DAY. He still does 1,500 pushups and 3000+ sit ups daily.
He has also built up impressive gymnastic-type strength with ring work
and the pommel horse, and at the tender age of 49, he took up competitive
MMA as a hobby. Now aged 59, he looks every bit as muscular and
powerful as ever, and still doesn’t lift weights

(Side note: despite his not lifting weights regularly, the first time he ever
attempted to bench press when he was recruited to play football for the Georgia
Bulldogs, Walker benched 375 lbs at a bodyweight of 222 lbs! He then benched
his bodyweight for 24 reps straight. Guess high rep pushups paid off…)

The list could go on and on, but you get the picture.

So why do high reps pay such ample dividends for feats of brute
strength?
There are many reasons, but a few of the most salient ones include:

Tendon and ligament strength

Tendons and ligaments are the connective tissues that connect muscles to
bones and bones to bones respectively. They are easily the most
overlooked part of the strength equation, yet arguably the most important.
And while muscles can be strengthened relatively quickly (due in no small
part to the amount of blood flow they get, allowing waste products to be
swept away and repairs to take place after a hard workout. Tendons and
ligaments, on the other hand, require a lot of movement to adapt, i.e. get
stronger. In addition to heavy support holds and static bodyweight
exercises, high reps are one of the best ways to develop these overlooked
tissues.

Greater muscle recruitment

While fast-twitch muscle fibers — which allow for hard, fast bursts of
movement — are crucial for low reps, slow-twitch muscle fibers need love
too! Higher rep movements will help recruit them better, as they are
critical for endurance. The better developed these muscles are, the better
they’ll support all of your efforts — both low AND high rep.

Improved mastery of essential strength movement patterns

Strength coach extraordinaire Dan John has noted that wrestlers who take
on powerlifting later in life typically reach 400 lb bench presses far faster
than others. He credits this to the sheer number of pushups they do in
wrestling practice.

While the improved strength of their connective tissues no doubt plays a

large role in their success, John points out something else: the fact that
they have become super good at the horizontal pressing pattern (found in
pushups and bench presses). This hyper-familiarity with this and other
movement patterns makes your body superefficient and thus better able
to handle greater weight later on down the line.

This is only scratching the surface, of course, as this list could go on for
quite some time, but the message is clear: high rep training is nothing to
sneeze at — especially if you’re serious about building real-world, no BS
strength.

And because the principle of mastering the absolute foundations of your

movement plays such a big role in your success in strength training —
both high rep AND low rep — it stands to reason that if your aim is to make
yourself brute strong and unyieldingly powerful while also building some
serious resilience and stamina, you want to make sure you leave no stone
unturned in your training.

To that end, the #1 secret weapon in your training ought to be fortifying

your gait pattern — the most foundational of ALL your movements.

Crawling and other gait pattern movements work like gangbusters to radically boost your
strength, stamina, coordination, and more

Not only can this lead to new and eye-popping heights of strength,
stamina, resilience, and athletic coordination, but it can be effectively
trained in just a few short minutes a day — 9, to be precise.

If you’ve got at least a kettlebell or two and 9 minutes to spare, my 9

Minute Kettlebell & Bodyweight Challenge will show you how to take loaded
carries and some of my other favorite full-body, no BS “non-exercises”,
like crawling, and ratchet up your strength, boost your physical vitality,
ramp up your resilience, and unlock your natural human movability —
quickly, easily, and effectively.

Best of all: you don’t have to put your current workouts to the side; you just
tack the 9 Minute Challenge on to the beginning or end of your training
and BAM — you’ll be unlocking new and exciting levels of strength you
never even knew you had in you in no time flat.
Check it out here => www.alekssalkin.com

Have fun and happy training!

Aleks Salkin

Aleks “The Hebrew Hammer” Salkin is a level 2 StrongFirst certified kettlebell

instructor (SFG II) and an Original Strength Instructor.

He grew up scrawny, unathletic, weak, and goofy until he was exposed to

kettlebells and the teaching and methodology of Pavel in his early 20s, and took
his training and movement skills to the next level upon discovering Original
Strength in his mid-20s.

He is currently based out of Omaha, Nebraska where he spends his time teaching
students online and in person, as well as spreading the word of strength,
movement, and healthy living.

He is the author of the popular free ebook The 9-Minute Kettlebell and
Bodyweight Challenge as well as numerous articles scattered around the
farthest-flung reaches of the web.

Find him online at www.alekssalkin.com

Fitness Calisthenics Strength Strength Training Muscle Building

 Follow

Written by Aleks Salkin

1.3K Followers · Writer for In Fitness And In Health

International kettlebell & bodyweight trainer, foreign language enthusiast, soon-to-be-badazz

bass guitarist. https://www.alekssalkin.com/

More from Aleks Salkin and In Fitness And In Health

 Aleks Salkin in In Fitness And In Health

Wanna Do More Pullups (Or Your Very 1st One)? Do this first.
It’s easier than you might think

4 min read · Mar 21

272 4

Alexa V.S. in In Fitness And In Health

The 10 Lifestyle Habits That Have Kept My Body Fat Low for 4
Years
How I maintain a low body-fat percentage while still enjoying life

· 13 min read · May 9

5.3K 86

Chris Davidson in In Fitness And In Health

Looking Better Than 99% of People Over 40 is About One Thing

Not workouts, diet, supplements or any ‘hack’. Once you nail this there’s no stopping
you.

· 5 min read · Apr 17

10.6K 131
 Aleks Salkin in In Fitness And In Health

#1 Drill for Stronger Squats, Bulletproof Knees, and Resilient

Legs
One of my favorite drills for happier knees and heavier squats is what I like to call the
heels-elevated hip thrust (or hip bridge…

4 min read · Jan 30

163

See all from Aleks Salkin

See all from In Fitness And In Health

Recommended from Medium

 JP Brown

What Really Happens to a Human Body at Titanic Depths

A Millisecond-by-Millisecond Explanation

· 4 min read · Jun 22

25K 302

Neeramitra Reddy in In Fitness And In Health

7 Common Daily Items That Could be Killing Your Testosterone
Levels
And 25+ tips to save your T-levels in today’s toxin-filled world

· 6 min read · Apr 28

2.1K 37

Lists

A Guide to Choosing, Planning, and Achieving Personal Goals

13 stories · 192 saves

Self-Improvement 101
20 stories · 209 saves

Work 101
26 stories · 19 saves

Medium Publications Accepting Story Submissions

145 stories · 178 saves

Denny Pencheva, MD in Wise & Well

Your Diet Probably Lacks Magnesium. Let’s Fix That.

What it is, what it does, and why most people don’t get enough of this important
nutrient
 · 10 min read · Jun 12

1.96K 39

Paul Mason

Staged chaos: Russia’s real deterrent

Prigozhin mutiny creates political fragmentation bomb

· 6 min read · 4 days ago

1.8K 39
 Shin Jie Yong in Microbial Instincts

An Unexpected Ally In Dementia Prevention: Shingles

Vaccination
The strongest causal evidence yet from a ‘natural experiment’ study.

· 7 min read · 6 days ago

2.7K 18

About Life
How To Eat More Protein? It’s Easier Than You Think!
From healthy to healthier, the magic of proteins!

· 6 min read · Feb 26

41

See more recommendations