The general consensus is 1-5 for strength, 8-12 for hypertrophy, and anything above for indurance. But why?
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Building strength is primarily neural recruitment. Yes there is some muscle building that will happen but the focus is on recruiting more muscle fibers to do the job vs building more muscle. That’s why you can see “skinny” people deadlifting 300+ lbs. They have become very good at recruiting more existing muscle to move the load. Versus hypertrophy, which is about moving less weight but for more reps. This does more damage to the muscles causing more to be built upon repair. Your muscles only have so much endurance so in order to accommodate the higher volume you need more muscle. This is why you see “swole” guys who cannot deadlift 300+ lbs. Your body is an adaptation and efficiency machine, it meets the needs you demand of it. It will only build the minimum amount of muscle necessary to do the job. If the job is lifting heavy only a few times you’ll build a little muscle to meet the goal and then become very efficient in recruiting that muscle. High reps for endurance is similar in that you don’t need a lot of muscle to move light weights you just need to build the energy reserves. Hypertrophy is the middle ground, you need to be strong enough to move the mediumheavy weight but still need the energy reserves, more muscle is the answer to that problem
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