Blogging About The Truth To Gain Weight & Build Muscle Mass!

I’ve been seeing lately in the magazines and websites dedicated to information for building muscle mass fast and gaining weight naturally a lot of talk about performing your reps at a faster speed. A lot of the reasoning is to implement speed in your repetition cadence in order build more muscle, increase strength and power, and burn fat. So, with so many articles jumping on the bandwagon, the question presented here now is if it will actually work?

For the longest time you’ve read that you should perform your reps at a slower speed in order “to keep the tension” on the muscle your trying to stimulate growth in. Fast reps were pretty much frowned upon in the magazine and website community. Then once one or two very respectable and intelligent began to write about the advantages of faster reps, many jumped on the bandwagon, as is the case with many other training techniques.

One of the reasons to do fast reps, without using momentum, according to some sources, is that faster reps cause you to burn more calories. I agree and disagree. I disagree in the sense that yes, the faster you do a rep the more calories it burns while doing the rep. But, over the course of a workout, the total amount of more calories burned because of performing faster reps is barely noticeable. A study that was used in one of the articles I’m referring to revealed that faster reps burned only an additional 50 calories over the course of the entire work out. Granted, how many sets, reps, exercises, etc., also affect exactly how many overall calories get burned off while training, but we’re talking about a typical weight training session.

However, faster reps do enhance your metabolism more than slower reps. And over the course of several weeks and months of consistently training intensely and with fast reps you’ll get a metabolism-raising effect…which, in turn, results in more calories being burned over time. That’s where I agree.

Another reason for performing your reps faster, many say, is because you can lift more weight. That’s true, and kind of obvious. The faster you do a rep the either weight or amount of reps you’ll be able to complete. However, always, always, always keep in mind what your main goal for working out is. Is it to get stronger / lift more weight? Or is it to build muscle and gain weight? Those are two completely different goals that require two completely different methods to reach.

So, are faster reps good? Depends!