Imagine you are doing an abs workout.  If you do 10 sit-ups in a row, each sit-up equals one rep.  Lets say you rested for 45 seconds and then did 10 more sit-ups.  You now have completed 2 sets of 10 reps each (20 reps total).  This is how you should record your sets and reps after performing your fitness video clips.

The number of sets and reps you do during a workout is called volume.  If your training volume is too low, you will not see a lot of results from your workouts.  If your volume is too high, you risk overtraining and burnout.

Muscle Gain-  Typically, a moderate number of sets and reps during an exercise leads to quick muscle gains.  Using lower reps builds strength and increases the size of the proteins in the muscle fibers.  Higher reps will increase the fluids inside the muscle.  For maximum muscle growth, you want to do both.  3-6 sets of 6-10 reps per exercise is ideal.

Fat Loss-  There are a lot of ways to design a fat-loss program.  The volume can be made high to burn lots of calories or low to maintain muscle mass while cutting calories from your diet.  You should keep your sets at four or under per exercise.  If you need to mix it up, you can perform a circuit of many exercises at only two sets each.  This will allow you to exercise more body parts and in a short amount of time.

Strength Gain-  Heavy weights equals low rep counts.  Keeping your reps low will allow you to perform more sets (which helps increase size.)  If you can’t recover from your heavy lifting, that’s ok.  Just try to get between three and five sets of 5 or fewer reps per set.