Anonymous wrote:If you're trying to build muscle, no exercise that causes you to sweat is optimal. You need to be lifting heavy enough weights in a controlled motion that you should not be free enough to move around quickly and break a sweat. That's called doing cardio. If you tire yourself out from cardio, you won't have enough energy to put up the weight volume you need to build muscle.
There has been a long run debate (like decades) and research studies going back and forth on whether total weight volume or the percent of maximum weight lifted is more important in building muscle. Most recently the debate seems to temporarily be saying that 9 sets of 8 reps each in one day per week should be roughly equivalent to 3 sets of 8 reps in three days per week. In other words, it's all about total volume lifted. WIth that said, weights that are too light (like say, you're doing 30 reps) will not be as effective at building muscle. Most advice is to aim for 6-12 reps. You should be unable to perform a 13th rep, in other words, without resting for a couple of minutes and/or moving down to a lower weight. You should rest for at least a minute between sets. If you don't need to rest for a minute then you are not lifting heavy enough.
Sorry, just to clarify 6-12 reps PER SET. Then you'd do 3-4 sets. This is for each muscle group.