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A repetition or rep indentifies how the exercise is being perform. Such as doing barbell curls for your biceps or bench pressing for your chest. With the reps or exercise in particular you can do only two things: Pulling or Pushing.

A rep consists of 4 movements and it goes in this order:

1. The Relax Position, not a true relax per say but when the weight is in its down position and your muscle is not contracting.  Your muscles are still tense and ready to execute. 

2. The Positive or Concentric is when you are lifting the weight.  This is when the muscles are contracting against the resistance.

3. Peak Contraction is when the weight is at its top position and the muscle is fully contracted.

4. The Negative or Eccentric is when you are lowering your weight from a fully contracted position back down to a relaxed position.

Cardinal Rule-when it comes to performing your reps never use Momentum. Such as bouncing the bar off your chest when doing bench presses, swinging your body forward and backwards when doing barbell curls and or doing your reps fast. In other words, never sacrifice Good Form in order to lift more weights. *Lift weights properly in order to work the muscles to its fullest and to avoid potential injuries.

Example of a rep routine: Perform the positive movement with no momentum what so ever. Do it in a slow pace.  If you're guessing as to what a slow pace try lifting the weights at a 4-5 sec. to complete a positive rep.  Then hold at peak contraction position for 2 seconds and then lower it by doing negative. The negative part should take twice as long than when you did the positive. Hold at a relaxed position for 1 or 2 seconds.  You should be at a fully stretched position at this point.  Doing the relax position helps eliminate momentum from coming into play and it also stretches out the muscle to a full range.  Repeat the process. 

Note- The more you advance on your repetition during an exercise, the more difficult the rep becomes.  This is mostly true for Positive Movement.  This is where you struggle to muster more repetition and keeping your Proper Form.  DO NOT let momentum (cheating reps) come into play just so you could do another rep.  It may lead to an injury. 

Lifting the whole stack and doing it in proper rep scheme and form is paramount.

A set consist of repetitions or reps that you completed in an exercise. In other words, the number of reps that you complete represents a set. How many reps you should perform is entirely up to you. I personally like doing 6 to 8 reps per set. Some of my past clients liked 8 to 10 reps, and even some 12 to 14 reps. Through my experience I have notice that the number of reps you perform very much determines how dense your muscles will look. Sort of like why a sprinter's body looks very different from a marathon runner.

There are two Cardinal Rules when it comes to a set: One, you perform your reps to  Positive Failure, meaning when positive lifting is no longer possible for that set. Two, you only do one set per exercise at a late Intermediate Level and Advance Level.

Refering to the Advance and Intermediate Trainers: As Mike Mentzer would say, "A set is not just a set, it is THE SET" and you must give it 100% maximum effort (this is achieved when you've done your reps to positive failure). There is no need to do add another set to that exercise when you have given it your 100% maximum effort. Adding another set and doing another 100% maximum effort will only lead to taxing your body's limited recovery ability. To paraphrase Mike Mentzer again, you can hit a stick of dynamite lightly 100 times with a hammer and it will never explode, but hit it once with your utmost maximum effort and it will blow up.  Beginners and early Intermediates can get away doing an extra set because they haven't made an inroad to their recovery ability.  Late Intermediate and Advance trainers will.

A Target Rep is a specific number that you are trying to achieve in your set. Once you have reached your Target Rep, increase the weight by 5 or 10%. For example, if your doing Leg Presses and you choose your Target Rep to be at 10. You put out your maximum effort and trained to a Positive Failure with your set and it landed on the 10th or more rep.  Then on your next Leg Press workout you should increase the weight. This will of course bring the rep down to maybe 6 or 8 reps and you continue to strive for your target rep again, which is 10.

Cardinal Rule-have a target rep that you want to achieve in your exercise set.  That number is really up to you.

Training to Positive Failure is when doing a positive rep movement till it is no longer possible to do it.  This means you can't move the weight anymore, not even by an inch.  It assures that you have giving your set 100% maximum effort. This causes the muscles to respond to the stimulus by getting stronger and growing.

Is Training to Positive Failure dangerous.  The answer to that is Yes and No.  Yes, if you allow momentum to come into play just so you can do another rep or try to complete a rep.  No, if you keep your form perfect throughout and allow the muscles to naturally fatique.  Remember to always be in control of the weight you use and not the opposite.

Superset is moving from one exercise to another with no or minimum rest in between. This is very important when you are doing a compound or functional movement (Bench Press, Squats, Pull Down and so on) that involves more than one muscle. For example, after you have done Bench Pressing immediately jump into an isolation movement like Dumbell Flys so that the chest muscle is fully exhausted. Why you ask? Because benching pressing not only involves the chest muscles, it also involves the smaller muscles like deltiods and triceps. These smaller muscles will tire first before the chest does. Therefore, doing dumbell flys right after bench press with none or little rest will ensure that the chest muscle has been stimulated to the fullness.

Superset is done at the Intermediate level.  Once you've developed strength and muscularity from it, you'll find that Superset can actually cause you to overtrain.  That is why I don't recommend it anymore at the advance level.   Please note that a Superset does have a way of using up all your cardio.  You may fail in the cardio part before your muscles does.  This is why you need to take your time in developing your fitness level before getting into doing Superset.  You'll discover though that it's not only great for your muscles, but also great for cardio and burning lots of Kcal. 

Cardinal Rule-none or little rest in between exercises.

This is something that I like to do from time to time. Instead of doing compound movement and then jumping into isolation, you reverse it by doing isolation movement first and then compound movement.  The Principle is in line with Superset.  For example, you do Dumbell Flys first until you reach positive failure and then immediately jump to Bench Pressing. Be sure to have no or little rest in between exercises. The goal with isolation movement first is to tire out the large muscle, like the chest muscle. Then following it with a compound movement where smaller muscles will now come into play like deltiods and triceps.

You will need to decrease the weights you use on the compound exercise in order to do this properly.  I only recommend you use this once in a while.  It's great for breaking away from the standard routine.

Cardinal Rule-isolation first then follow it immediately with compound.

Tom Platz once indicated that muscles that stretches are the muscles that develops. If you ever see Tom Platz legs, you'll know what I mean.  When performing any type of exercises it is important that they are perform to the Fullest Range of Motion in order to achieve full muscular stimulation. Lift your weights all the way to the top and lower it all the way to the bottom.

I remember in the past one trainer asked me why his legs were not developing as well as his upper body. I watched him do his leg routines and I saw that he was doing squats and leg presses only one quarter of the way down. The next session we trained together on legs. What he saw was that I was going all the down on my squats and leg presses, meaning my hamstrings were touching my calves. He did the same thing with a lot less weight and sure enough he felt his legs being worked out. It wasn't long until his legs had caught up with his upper body.

Cardinal Rule-always perform your execises in a Full Range of Motion.

This is something that I can never emphasize enough. Notice that I've mentioned it quite a bit.  Doing Proper Form is very crucial when it comes to stimulating the muscles to the fullness and avoiding injuries. Never sacrifice form just so you can lift more weights. Cheating your reps or using a bad form does not fully stimulate the target muscle. You only waste a certain amount of energy when doing so. Proper form means three things:

1. Not letting momentum come into play (follow the rep schematics mentioned above).

2. Performing the exercise in its proper manner.

3. You must be in control of the weights from start to finish, even when fatique is setting in.

Cardinal Rule-always use proper form and never cheat your reps.

Doing your Reps properly, holding the weight at Peak Contraction, and lowering it slowly is very intense