I went to the gym earlier today after I got home from the mall. Today was chest day at the gym and since I read some stuff about hypertrophy lifting, I decided to experiment with it a little today. So as soon as I entered the gym, I went to the dumbbell rack… trying to decide an amount of weight that would be the heaviest for me. So I decided to try 60 lbs. dumbbells for chest press on the floor. Welp, looks like I couldn’t lift 60 lbs. dumbbells at all even if I tried so I immediately stopped… put the 60 lbs. dumbbells back on the shelf and went 5 lbs. lower. So I tried 55 lbs. dumbbells and that was it for me; however, I only could lift 8 reps each which is perfect for hypertrophy. Remember, hypertrophy lifting needs to be around 8 – 12 reps when you can’t do the last rep… meaning “lifting to failure”. I could only do 8 reps so I lifted 8 reps for 4 sets each with a minute resting in between so that was perfect.

I did hypertrophy lifting for dumbbell flies and dumbbell incline press too. For dumbbell flies, it was 30 lbs. for me and I could only do 10 reps for each set with that one. For dumbbell incline presses, it was 40 lbs. dumbbells and I only do 12 reps. for that one which is good. So next time I do chest day next week, I’m going to do a little heavier on dumbbell flies and incline presses.

Most bodybuilders recommend hypertrophy lifting as it is the best mass building. However, you don’t want to do hypertrophy lifting all the time as it is good to mix it up. I think I’m going to do hypertrophy lifting for a pretty long while.

From what I read about sets and reps…

Light weights and high reps is for endurance

Heavier weights ’til failure between the 8 – 12 rep range is for hypertrophy

Lifting super heavy and low rep range between 1 – 5 is for strength.

That’s what I read about through various bodybuilding articles I’ve read online.

Hypertrophy lifting is the most popular though and I see a lot of guys at my local gym workout that way. Lift the last rep when they can’t do that anymore, I guess that’s why they do a lot of weight dropping.

I really would like to improve my chest greatly and I think I just found a way. I am feeling results in the chest finally ’cause I’m feeling the pecs getting bigger.

A lot of people think muscle building is a slow process which is kind of true. You can build BIG muscle quickly, as long as you work out hard, lift heavy, eat a lot. It doesn’t really take 10 or 20 years to get ripped. You can get ripped in a year or two if you do it right.

Kev