NY Pro winner Cathy LeFrancois shares her rep strategy for back and traps

A native of Canada and resident of Southern California, Cathy LeFrancois has been competing in the IFBB Pro League for 15 years, 13 as a bodybuilder and two as a figure competitor, but she only won an overall title two years ago. Now she’s won that same title, the New York Pro women’s bodybuilding, three consecutive years. The 39-year-old Queen of New York outlines her philosophy of varying her reps from as few as six to as many as 30 in the same workout, and she shares with us a back and traps routine that goes both high and low.

CATHY ON HIGH AND LOW REPS

“I pyramid some of my sets, going heavier each set until I can only do six reps. But other sets I like to keep in the 20-30 range. I like to switch it up. A lot of people do rack deadlifts [working only the top half of the lift] really heavy for low reps, but I’ll do 30. And then those same people might never do less than 10 reps on the pulldown, but I’ll go heavy for six. I like to do both styles of training in the same workout to get the strength and the pump.”