Often times, you see many people in the gym doing reps of 8-12 thinking that those reps are enough to stress the muscles to grow. While this may be true for some hard workers, you most likely will not see the results you want if you continually do this. Think of your body as an active organism that has a tolerance level for anything you do including lifting weights. Your body will get used to doing the same amount of reps each time and it won’t stimulate the muscles to grow properly. While switching around your workout routine may help shock the muscles to new growth, it is often the mundane rep range that will prevent true progress. When doing the “Power of 50”, you will inevitably get stronger and develop more lean muscle mass. Once you try it, you’ll never go back. That’s if you have the guts to try it…

In the “Power of 50”, you want to cut your max weight (in which you can only do 1 rep on your heaviest weight) down by 60%. So if you max out at 315 pounds on the bench, you want to do around 125 pounds for a set of 50 continuous reps. Make sure you do nice, slow reps with a spotter behind you. Make sure the weight is appropriate so that by the time you hit 30 reps you should be struggling.

If you find the weight too heavy or light when doing 50 reps, adjust the weight accordingly. A 60% decrease from your 1 rep max is a good indication of a starting point, but by no means is it the same for everybody. You will know you chose the correct weight if at 30 reps you are struggling to get through and feel the ammonia building up, but where you are at a point in which you can force yourself to push out another 10 reps on your own and another 10 beyond that with a spotter for a total of 50 reps. Let the spotter help you on the final reps if need be but try to get it on your own. Nevertheless, make sure he or she is giving you the least amount of assistance as possible so you are getting up as much of the weight up by yourself! Always make sure to never break out of form either!

 
You will notice that by the end of the 50 reps, you will be absolutely exhausted and will feel your chest burning and boiling with blood. It will almost be painful but you will definitely feel a good tightening of the muscle. Since the weight is at a much lighter amount, you will feel more of a pump and less of the burden of heavy weight on your joints. It is also much easier for a spotter to spot you. Most importantly, you will never feel the blood flow and a worked muscle like you do with a set of 50. Most people fail to realize that a large part of muscle growth stems from blood flow. Your muscles need blood because it supplies nutrients to the muscles. In addition, blood is literally being pumped into your muscles. The more blood you have, the more muscle mass. A bigger pump can mean more blood flow and 50 reps will certainly guarantee this!

Now, you may think 50 reps is a tough feat. Here is a great rule of advice to help you get through the large sum of 50: Envision yourself doing 5 sets of 10 reps when doing 50 reps but that you are doing 5 continuous sets. After each 10 reps, pause for a second and breathe and start another 10 reps thinking to yourself that you are starting anew. In your mind it seems much easier to break it up into individual sets than doing one giant set of 50. The mind is a wonderful tool and it can be used to manipulate your body into thinking it’s still raring to go.

You have two options in the “Power of 50”. You could either increase the reps by 5 with each successive week using the same weight as the previous week. You will find that in a month or two that you are almost doubling the amount of reps in which you started with. The second option is raising the weight each week by 5 pounds and still trying to bang out 50 reps with the newly higher weight. Try to choose between either of these paths. In a couple months you can switch it around and do the other path in which the variation will actually stimulate even more muscle growth.

In the “Power of 50” your goal is to do one set per exercise of a weight in which you will push out to do a minimum of 50 reps. Perform this giant set after your warmup sets but count it as your first working set at the start of each exercise and then continue to do your normal routine after. The blood flow and pump you get from the initial 50 will make the other sets in the exercise to work to fatigue your muscles that much more. Try to do 50 reps for 3-4 exercises at most during the session. You don’t want to do 50 reps for every set you do on the day because you risk overtraining. For example, if you do flat bench, incline bench, chest press, cable crossovers and peck deck in your chest routine, you want to do 50 reps for flat, incline and chest press at the start of each of those aforementioned workouts only once before your other normal (4-20 rep range or whatever you do) routine. It is also a good idea to perform these giant sets of 50 on your mass building exercises such as bench press and then do the normal routine for your concentration isolation exercises such as cable crossovers and pec deck. Next week, you can switch it up and do the opposite but doing both in one workout will prove to be too much for your muscles to handle in one workout.

Example of a workout:

Flat Bench- 20, 50, 12, 12, 8, 4, 2

Incline Bench- 50, 20, 15, 10, 4, 2

Chest Press- 50, 20, 10, 6, 6

Cable Crossovers- 3 x 15

Pec Deck- 3 x 20

Choose the workouts you want to improve most on, but try to target primarily compound exercises (bench press, squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, etc). In the other sets, do your normal routine after your set of 50 but don’t change the weight you normally do. In other words, if you do 225 pounds for a set of 8 on bench, try to keep that weight after your set of 50. If you can do 225 pounds after a set of 50, just imagine what you can do if you are fresh. You will obviously be more tired, but if your workout is performed on true fatigue, then you will get some serious muscle growth and strength development and learn to mentally fight through the fatigue! Make sure you know the difference between fatigue and overtraining though. If you feel that this workout is too much for you and you are extremely exhausted and have a headache or don’t feel well, you may want to go easier or stop for the day.

Most importantly, think of it like this: Your mind can do so much more than you think. You would normally do 20 reps instead of 50 reps for that same weight of 50 reps because your mind wants you to stay in a comfortable position in which you don’t continue to go further. You need to push yourself and you need to realize that if you want to grow you need to stress the muscles like never before. Be creative with your sets of 50. You should target compound exercises but if you want to do it on a machine then try it. Each body is different so there is no wrong answer but just make sure you get those 50 reps.

Doing 50 or more reps will guide you in your cardio training as well. This workout is especially good for sports dealing with anaerobic activity that stresses explosive movements and sprints. For example, in a sport like wrestling, you are giving it your all for 7 minutes. A set of 50 or more reps could take a couple of minutes to do but over time you will train both your body and mind to adapt to this extreme training.

Hell, if some guy at the gym laughs at you for doing such “high reps at light weight,” beg him to try the “Power of 50”. He won’t be laughing much longer.