Sets vs Reps
Living a healthy lifestyle is one of the best practices in life. Stressors are inevitable in our environment making us sick and inefficient as time goes by. We, in turn, should act to counteract these harmful and bad stressors in our lives.
Common, healthy, lifestyle practices we know are eating a healthy and balanced diet, avoiding too many things such as; fats, salt, sugar, and carbohydrates. These mentioned items are many of the contributing factors to fat deposits causing an increase in cholesterol. This will, in turn, cause heart disease in the near future. Besides having a healthy diet, exercise should also accompany this diet regimen. And people exercise by going to the gym or by self-exercising.
In gym programs, when our fitness trainers make us the exercise plans, we always see the words “sets” and “reps.” We wonder what the difference between these two words are. According to fitness gurus, a set is a group of repetitions. For example, in our exercise plan, our gym instructor wrote “Five sets with five repetitions per set of bicep curls.” That means that for each set there will be five repetitions of bicep curls.
“Reps” or “repetitions,” on the other hand, are when you are able to successfully carry out an exercise. For example, performing one bicep curl is one repetition. If in the plan, if it’s five reps of biceps curls, it means that an individual will perform five repetitions or five times the said exercise. Repetitions can go from five to ten reps per set.
There are different kinds of sets, but reps are distinct to themselves. One example of a set is a giant set. In giant sets, three to four sets of the same exercise are done in a muscle group. An example of a giant set for the legs can be a set of lunges, squatting, and leg extensions. Another kind of set is a super set. In a super set, there are no rests in-between the sets of exercises. This can be done to a specific part of a muscle or to a group of muscles. Lastly, there is the drop set. In drop sets you will start with heavier dumbbells or weights. If you cannot already lift the said weights, you can switch to a lighter weight at the end of your exercise.
These terms are very important to those who are very serious about muscle building and losing weight and to people who just want to have a toned body.
Summary:
1.A rep is an execution of an exercise while a set is a group of reps.
2.A set has varying techniques such as; giant set, super set, and drop set unlike the rep which is only distinct on its own.