: Are the idea of 3x10 reps just internet talk? Everywhere on the internet if you look for gym programs to promote hypertrophy you will see 3 sets of 7-10 reps etc. A personal trainer in the gym i go at has warned me not to

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XY-problem

First off, I want to address the XY-problem. You're looking for information on how to attain hypertrophy, but I percieve the problem as being that you don't know where to go to get the best advice. I feel this warrants some explaining, as it will help you in this question, and any other you may have in the future.

In any setting where you experience disagreeing inputs, you have to be critical of where you get your inputs from, if you're going to make up your mind. "The internet" largely agrees on certain rep ranges for hypertrophy, but at the same time, "the internet" acts like a hivemind that never changes its opinions on anything, even when presented with new facts.

So what did your trainer tell you? Did he offer some other advice? Because he should. If someone wants to say "no, those people are wrong", they should be competent enough to not just say "this is the right way", but also "this is why you should trust me". In the end, trust the one who can actually argue their point, and not just throw out the bottom line without any explanation.

Of course, here you are, asking the Internet again, so instead of being another one of the people spouting my own opinion, I'll refer you to where we actually get our facts from; peer-reviewed scientific studies.

You need to learn how to seek out factual content, and be able to separate it clearly from the articles written by another clueless soul.

The inside scoop

Append "study" to all your google searches. For instance, simply searching "hypertrophy" will yield the Wikipedia pages, and then a bunch of articles in Men's Fitness and other magazines. However, if you google "hypertrophy study", you'll get straight to the good stuff. Research notes.

Sadly, you'll also find more articles that simply mention "this study" and "that study". But the site we like to hump for information, is the one that contains the dry info. No lame picture with six-packs to trick you into clicking this and that. No articles with ads and clickbait titles. Just the info, thanks.

You'll see the site *ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" a lot, and that's a goldmine. People post their research notes there.

So you can further improve your googling skills by searching hypertrophy study site:nih.gov. You'll find that a lot of people have studied this exact question.

So, which rep range?

There are two studies in particular (this and this) that suggest that high-rep/low-weight and low-rep/high-weight schemes for well-trained men seem to be about equal when it comes to building size, but that the latter seems to be better at developing strength.

You'll find many more studies with the google search I gave you, and don't worry about reading ALL of it. Most of them have a "results" or "conclusion" section that states what you need to know in understandable terms.

Just to give you a push in the right direction; instead of just looking at set/rep ranges, make sure you familiarize yourself with the concentric, the eccentric, and the static portions of each lift. They also contribute in their own way to hypertrophy, and muscle fibre breakdown (and subsequent repair).