Geschatte leestijd: 4 minutenIt is a widespread myth that you train with light weights and many repetitions for muscle definition. It remains such a persistent story that is told daily in thousands of gyms worldwide by people who have heard the protein shake rattling, but cannot find the jar. An adjustment to training to prevent injuries is suddenly sold as a training method for muscle definition.
Muscle definition?
Muscle definition is nothing more than the visibility of muscle groups and their parts. If you know this, you can realize that muscle definition is mainly determined by two variables:
- Muscle mass: To see muscles, they must be there. The larger the muscle, the better the visibility.
- Body fat percentage: If that muscle mass is hidden under a thick layer of fat, there is no muscle definition. So, you need to have a low body fat percentage.
It’s that simple. There must be muscle mass, and it must not be covered by a layer of fat. Muscle mass is always there, of course, but it must win the battle against your body fat percentage. It’s no coincidence that many young boys who have never trained have a six-pack simply because their body fat percentage is so low.
You can also consider being able to clearly see the different heads of the triceps as part of the definition, although it actually falls more under proportionality, the ratio between the mass of different muscle (groups).
Muscle Definition: Many Repetitions with Light Weights
“You train with light weights and many repetitions for muscle definition.” Or something similar about “light weights and many repetitions for tight muscles,” or for “dry muscles” or for “an athletic look.” All terms to say the same thing and all incorrect.
Naturally, you can train in different ways. For example, we know that by using different lengths of a set, you can prioritize different things. For example, very few repetitions for maximum strength, 6-8 to 12 repetitions for muscle mass, and 15 repetitions or more for muscle endurance. However, you don’t see muscle definition anywhere in that list. We can perform movements quickly to become more explosive or focus on the eccentric part to become stronger and bigger, but again, this does not affect definition. Yet many think they can train this and think they know how: With light weights and many repetitions. Why do they think this? After all, from the above, it appears that you are mainly training for muscle endurance in this way.
Many Crossfitters and practitioners of Calisthenics also believe that they are training for “tight muscles” because body weight is often used, resulting in more repetitions.
This is also incorrect.
Injury Prevention in Competition Preparation
The cause, as far as I’m concerned, lies partly with professional bodybuilders and the wrong way their training method is interpreted.
Bodybuilders who are training a few weeks before a competition have to take several things into account:
- They have less energy because the amounts of carbohydrates in their diet are drastically reduced to burn fat,
- Due to this shortage of fuel, the emphasis shifts from “muscle growth” to “muscle preservation” (in other words: “limiting muscle breakdown”),
- Within a short period, they have to stand on stage in a form for which they have trained for months.
Because you get less than you actually need, during competition preparation, you are simply no longer able to train as heavy as you did. This does not mean that you will start doing light weights and many repetitions because you will lose mass faster under the motto:
“Use it or lose it.”
If you don’t keep all that built-up extra muscle mass working, it loses its function and will be broken down.
Realizing this, you want to keep training as heavy as possible, which in practice will mean that the weights become slightly lighter because you simply cannot go heavier.
However, there is a third and very important variable at play: Injuries
If you start training for a competition in a year and get injured in the first week, you still have a year to recover and resume your training. If it happens a few weeks or even shorter before that important competition for which you have been training for a year, that is obviously a big problem. Because you are already getting less fuel, the risk of injuries is greater in the last weeks of preparation, and that is the only reason professional bodybuilders train differently than usual.
“Injury Prevention” is not synonymous with “lighter”
I intentionally wrote “differently” instead of “lighter” just now. If the goal is to prevent injuries and maintain muscle mass, it is important to keep the load as high as possible and risk-free.
For example, it is indeed advisable not to do fewer than 6 repetitions per set, which would require a relatively heavy weight. In any case, we are already moving more towards the way powerlifters train (focused on strength), but this also places proportionately much more stress on joints and attachments.
With the usual 8 to 12 repetitions that you usually use for muscle mass, there is nothing wrong in your “contest prep.” At least, as long as you recognize the usual risks.
This mainly concerns issues that have always had a higher risk profile, such as exercises above shoulder level (which have a higher risk of rotator cuff injuries). Or, for example, suddenly switching to an entirely new exercise to which you are not accustomed.
Now more than ever, it is important not to cheat but to use the correct technique as much as possible. This is to make the muscle as heavy as possible while minimizing the risk of injuries.
“Cutting”
You have probably heard the saying “you build a six-pack in the kitchen” before. I repeat it regularly anyway to show that I consider diet much more important for getting lean than training. And if we are talking about training to get lean, then we are really only talking about cardio.
Don’t get me wrong; Training for muscle mass also offers benefits for your fat mass because having more muscle mass also burns more calories. However, you often don’t see this effect because you also had to eat more to gain that extra muscle mass.
“Cutting” through strength training, for example, by doing lighter and more repetitions, is a myth that you will unfortunately continue to hear for years to come. That’s why I find the term “cutting” misleading and confusing as long as it is not made clear that it is just cardio. Why is this article in the “cutting” category then? Because there is a good chance you found this article under that term in Google.
