Weights: Strength & Hypertrophy

[Gammmmo]

Plateauing a bit here with some of my weight training, and am thinking of becoming more strict with the approach. Until now, I've never mentally divided up strength (1-5 reps, 3mins + rest between sets) and hypertrophy (6-12 reps, maybe 1-2 mins rest) training. My question is, do you consciously divide the two up and how have they differed for you e.g. did you phase the two, get different results, use the above rep range and rest periods??

[Dangerscouse]

I have never been a fan of strength training. Due to impatience with the rest (I'm itching to go again after 1 min) and my form gets sloppy with too much ego weight training.

I have found good results from just hypertrophy training and also doing just bodyweight exercises, which helps to break the monotony.

In what way are you plateauing? Is it just about maintaining interest?

[Gammmmo]

Stu, on certain exercises such as barbell overhead press I got a visible increase in muscle initially and made gains but have been unable for 2-3 months to break 5 reps with 42.5kg. Generally with anything I regularly go to failure on I eventually plateau. This has forced me to think about it all in a little more detail. I will add I don't really utilise forced reps, negatives, rest-pause etc in earnest yet either.

[JerekKruger]

What does your current programme look like Paul?

I don't think it can hurt to experiment with rep ranges. For example, if your press is plateauing then by all means try doing higher rep sets for a while and then, in a few months, come back to lower reps and see if it has helped. You might also want to start cycling the way you train your press (something like 5/3/1 might be a good place to start).

As a side note, the press is notoriously slow to improve (for most people at least). Part of this can be technical mistakes, for example if your bar path goes even slightly too far forward it can increase the difficulty of the lift a lot (and thanks to the stupid position of out head, this is easily done ). Here's a video by a guy I rate highly with some tips on the press: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc-WTp5Jcqs (his stuff in general is good I think).

Beyond that I think the press benefits a lot from auxiliary exercises. Apparently back when the clean and press was still an Olympic event one of the main ways weightlifters would work on improving their press was with weighted dips. Seems odd given the two movements are quite different, but a lot of people seem to have had success improving their press this way. Assuming you can't already do a fair number of unweighted dips (at least 10, probably more) you might want to start there before adding weight.

All that said you'll probably have to accept that your press is going to grow slowly because that's the nature of the beast.

For other exercises, as long as you're still making linear gains on sets of 5 reps I wouldn't bother changing things up (unless you want to for some variety).

[Dangerscouse]

Negatives and drop sets are a great idea. I forgot about them. They might be a big help. I love drop sets. Instead of overhead press try landmine presses and leg elevated or pike press ups, so there's a far bigger emphasis on your shoulders.

Like rowing sometimes you have to go lower to go higher, or slower to go faster in rowing parlance

[JMac]

For strength training 5 x 5 is recommended for beginners and 5/3/1 for intermediate or advanced lifters.

Personally pyramid training worked for me when I was trying to increase strength and improve my 1RM.

Maybe changing up your nutrition a bit might also help.

[Ombrax]

For strength training 5 x 5 is recommended for beginners and 5/3/1 for intermediate or advanced lifters.

Personally pyramid training worked for me when I was trying to increase strength and improve my 1RM.

This was an interesting article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5131226/

"Differential Effects of Heavy Versus Moderate Loads on Measures of Strength and Hypertrophy in Resistance-Trained Men"

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate muscular adaptations between heavy- and moderate-load resistance training (RT) with all other variables controlled between conditions. Nineteen resistance-trained men were randomly assigned to either a strength-type RT routine (HEAVY) that trained in a loading range of 2-4 repetitions per set (n = 10) or a hypertrophy-type RT routine (MODERATE) that trained in a loading range of 8-12 repetitions per set (n = 9). Training was carried out 3 days a week for 8 weeks. Both groups performed 3 sets of 7 exercises for the major muscle groups of the upper and lower body. Subjects were tested pre- and post-study for: 1 repetition maximum (RM) strength in the bench press and squat, upper body muscle endurance, and muscle thickness of the elbow flexors, elbow extensors, and lateral thigh. Results showed statistically greater increases in 1RM squat strength favoring HEAVY compared to MODERATE. Alternatively, statistically greater increases in lateral thigh muscle thickness were noted for MODERATE versus HEAVY. These findings indicate that heavy load training is superior for maximal strength goals while moderate load training is more suited to hypertrophy-related goals when an equal number of sets are performed between conditions.

[KeithT]

So, I have asked many questions on here as I switched my focus to Rowing (ERG) but I still lift weights and do CF and have been lifting weights for well over 30 years. In all my experience (and studies seem to back this up), low reps and heavy weights lead to greater strength increases and size gains while higher reps and less weight train your capacity, with mid reps and weights (what you are calling hypertrophy) being a good in between. That said I find low reps very hard on a "masters" athletes and prefer to do them infrequently. When training in the mid range (6-12) reps you can still get good strength gains and size gains without killing your joints. You can always alternate a heavy, mid, light week of lifting but to me the best overall lifting strategy is the hypertrophy training. Have a set goal you want to hit for like 8 reps and once you get that you go up in weight - as your 8 rep max increases you overall max increases as well. Finally, with the extra rowing I am doing now I do find my strength is actually off a bit too but it hasn't slowed my rowing down at all - if fact it has gotten better. I think being strong is a benefit in rowing but not crucial - I have guys at my gym that lift crazy weights and I while I am strong I am way off their weights (and they are young) but I smoke them in rowing, even at shorter sprint distances.

[Gammmmo]

@Jerek - excellent OHP link. I will return to this thread once I have time to answer all questions.

[Gammmmo]

I have never been a fan of strength training. Due to impatience with the rest (I'm itching to go again after 1 min) and my form gets sloppy with too much ego weight training.

I have found good results from just hypertrophy training and also doing just bodyweight exercises, which helps to break the monotony.

In what way are you plateauing? Is it just about maintaining interest?

Hi Stu. I did my first dedicated hypertrophy session last week. Lighter weights and higher reps, not always to failure, shorter rest periods of 100s. Got more of a pump, stung alot more and less soreness. Definitely not from not maintaining interest e.g. OHP press hasn't improved for 3 months (reps/weight combo). I will add I am a creature of habit and tend to not change things quickly enough...evidently! Until now I've always relied on the fact that if reps and going up (and then just move towards a higher weight) then I must also be progressing and building muscle. Only now am I having to separate strength/hypertrophy, and think of strategies to break plateaus i.e. the hard work is starting now for some exercises such as OHP.

What does your current programme look like Paul?

I don't think it can hurt to experiment with rep ranges. For example, if your press is plateauing then by all means try doing higher rep sets for a while and then, in a few months, come back to lower reps and see if it has helped. You might also want to start cycling the way you train your press (something like 5/3/1 might be a good place to start).

OK. Just looking at my training log. I started with weights on 17 Oct 2017 (prior to that I was doing some bodyweight stuff). I've done 62 weights sessions as of 27 July 2018. So, I've done a session once every ~4.5 days. Probably not the ideal frequency but then I've been erging the whole time too. Last 10 weeks I've stopped dedadlifting and generally done in order: overhead press, incline db press (2 levels), skullcrushers, various curling variants, side lateral raises. I've also done with less consistency bent over rows, closegrip bench press, widegrip chins, pullups. I've tended to rest 2.5mins for the overheadpress and 2 mins for the rest. I tend to use heavy weight for ohp and pressing and rep range max 6-8. I think there's my first problem as I didn't understand the difference between strength/hypertrohpy training, and rest intervals. Most stuff I go to failure - again not great for frequency and am only recently becoming more aware of the mind/muscle connection. These are all relatively new concepts to me as before I've just gone to failure and then upped the weight once I can do say 6-8 reps. I got the newbie gains. Not surprising I've plateaued I guess.

As a sidenote I've noticed I get elbow pain from alot of straight bar work and especially with chinups/pullups and skullcrushers. I do have an EZ bar to offset this somewhat. This has hindered progress, as has mild thoracic injury from deadlifts hence why I stopped those. TBF with the deads I do want to start again given some advice from "hjs" (Henry) who ironically to me said to increase weight and reduce reps (I was doing up to 10 with 100kg and that was nowhere near failure as was being cautious) so as to concentrate on good form EVERY TIME by putting the bar down each time and resetting. I have yet to get into squats either as I think this will just leave me too smashed to erg. I am aware of how important squatting is really but think unless I become habituated to it it would only be viable to include it in my programme in a periodised way i.e. do 3 months of squatting THEN phase out for a bit and do more erging, and in the interim accept the erging will be compromised.

As a side note, the press is notoriously slow to improve (for most people at least). Part of this can be technical mistakes, for example if your bar path goes even slightly too far forward it can increase the difficulty of the lift a lot (and thanks to the stupid position of out head, this is easily done ). Here's a video by a guy I rate highly with some tips on the press: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc-WTp5Jcqs (his stuff in general is good I think).

Beyond that I think the press benefits a lot from auxiliary exercises. Apparently back when the clean and press was still an Olympic event one of the main ways weightlifters would work on improving their press was with weighted dips. Seems odd given the two movements are quite different, but a lot of people seem to have had success improving their press this way. Assuming you can't already do a fair number of unweighted dips (at least 10, probably more) you might want to start there before adding weight.

Worth knowing. Good link (not sure if you want some links in return but you know I rate "Mindpump" and "AthleanX") and thanks for the info re: auxillary.

So, I have asked many questions on here as I switched my focus to Rowing (ERG) but I still lift weights and do CF and have been lifting weights for well over 30 years. In all my experience (and studies seem to back this up), low reps and heavy weights lead to greater strength increases and size gains while higher reps and less weight train your capacity, with mid reps and weights (what you are calling hypertrophy) being a good in between. That said I find low reps very hard on a "masters" athletes and prefer to do them infrequently. When training in the mid range (6-12) reps you can still get good strength gains and size gains without killing your joints. You can always alternate a heavy, mid, light week of lifting but to me the best overall lifting strategy is the hypertrophy training. Have a set goal you want to hit for like 8 reps and once you get that you go up in weight - as your 8 rep max increases you overall max increases as well. Finally, with the extra rowing I am doing now I do find my strength is actually off a bit too but it hasn't slowed my rowing down at all - if fact it has gotten better. I think being strong is a benefit in rowing but not crucial - I have guys at my gym that lift crazy weights and I while I am strong I am way off their weights (and they are young) but I smoke them in rowing, even at shorter sprint distances.

That is what I'm finding re: strength training hard on joints - slightly muddied by the fact that I get elbow pain from some straight bar work so am trying to figure out WHICH exercises with a straight bar I CAN do. Take your point about doing BOTH hypertrophy and strength...that appeals to me but first would just like to concentrate on feeling the difference hypertrophy sessions alone would give as believe I've tended towards lower reps for most stuff in the past.

...Apols for the ramble/essay everyone!!

[Dangerscouse]

Hahaha, it's all good Paul.

I didn't squat or deadlift either; too many lower back issues which have subsequently been down to a chronically tight hip flexor. I have now started to do split squats, to maintain open hips and I find they work well if you can have a day off afterwards.

I also really recommend halo's with a heavy barbell plate, alternating directions on each rep.

Bench pullovers, either perpendicular or straight, really good upper body exercise that not enough people do and it works most of the upper body especially if done quite slowly

Finally I don't know what they are called but I also do shoulder rotations, like the waving cat in a Chinese restaurant/ takeaway and also then with the elbow tucked in to your side and a dumbbell held out straight and then moving the dumbbell out away from the body so it's always on right angle...does this make any sense??!

[JerekKruger]

OK. Just looking at my training log. I started with weights on 17 Oct 2017 (prior to that I was doing some bodyweight stuff). I've done 62 weights sessions as of 27 July 2018. So, I've done a session once every ~4.5 days. Probably not the ideal frequency but then I've been erging the whole time too. Last 10 weeks I've stopped dedadlifting and generally done in order: overhead press, incline db press (2 levels), skullcrushers, various curling variants, side lateral raises. I've also done with less consistency bent over rows, closegrip bench press, widegrip chins, pullups. I've tended to rest 2.5mins for the overheadpress and 2 mins for the rest. I tend to use heavy weight for ohp and pressing and rep range max 6-8. I think there's my first problem as I didn't understand the difference between strength/hypertrohpy training, and rest intervals. Most stuff I go to failure - again not great for frequency and am only recently becoming more aware of the mind/muscle connection. These are all relatively new concepts to me as before I've just gone to failure and then upped the weight once I can do say 6-8 reps. I got the newbie gains. Not surprising I've plateaued I guess.

That looks like a good approach with the exception of going to failure. I don't know the reason, but pretty much all strength coaches I respect seem to advise not going to failure.

Usually I'd also say you're too press orientated, but given you row I doubt this is a problem. Might be worth adding some assistance exercises for the upper back e.g. this series https://youtu.be/lgXhefhVqkQ?list=PLeHe ... lCBaP1-Q9a as (somewhat surprisingly) these muscles get neglected when rowing (a lot of my current shoulder problems are a result of this).

As a sidenote I've noticed I get elbow pain from alot of straight bar work and especially with chinups/pullups and skullcrushers. I do have an EZ bar to offset this somewhat.

I think that's quite common. I know a lot of people prefer to do all their pull-ups with a neutral grip when they can for this very reason. Personally I've never gotten on with skullcrushers (partly for this reason). If I need to do direct tricep work I prefer cable push downs (added benefit of somewhat targeting the triceps secondary role of shoulder extension, hitting the muscle from both ends a bit like glute-ham raises do with the hamstring) but mostly I don't do direct tricep work.

This has hindered progress, as has mild thoracic injury from deadlifts hence why I stopped those. TBF with the deads I do want to start again given some advice from "hjs" (Henry) who ironically to me said to increase weight and reduce reps (I was doing up to 10 with 100kg and that was nowhere near failure as was being cautious) so as to concentrate on good form EVERY TIME by putting the bar down each time and resetting.

This is the way I do deadlifts (I mean putting the bar down fully and resetting after each rep). Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with higher rep sets on occasion, but I would focus on lower reps mostly. If you want to up the volume you could always simply do more sets e.g. 10x3.

I have yet to get into squats either as I think this will just leave me too smashed to erg. I am aware of how important squatting is really but think unless I become habituated to it it would only be viable to include it in my programme in a periodised way i.e. do 3 months of squatting THEN phase out for a bit and do more erging, and in the interim accept the erging will be compromised.

Squats are great and I hate them . I am terribly built for them (long femurs) and my squat has always lagged behind my deadlift. I would say however that there's no real reason to expect squats to leave your more smashed than deadlifts. They've always taken a similar toll on my body with, if anything, deadlifts being worse (though I enjoy them more).

Worth knowing. Good link (not sure if you want some links in return but you know I rate "Mindpump" and "AthleanX") and thanks for the info re: auxillary.

I'm a big fan of AthleanX, particularly for advice on exercises to help with injuries (unsurprisingly given Jeff's the physio for, iirc, the New York Mets). I'll look into Mindpump.

...Apols for the ramble/essay everyone!!

No worries. I like talking/reading about this stuff.

[Gammmmo]

Quick update:

1. OHP still stubbornly refuses to move on. I've been hypertrophy training ever since starting the thread. The strategy I used (which didn't work!) was to reduce the weight and do more reps so any new strength increase would be more likely to see e.g. much harder going from 5 to 6 reps for say 40kg, than 12 to 13 reps for 30kg. Every time I've gone back to 42.5kg I max out at 5 reps. Tried using rest-pause with the OHP but it felt awkward. Will try drop sets next I think, maybe negatives if viable/safe movement, then maybe singles...

2. Am squatting now even though the amount of weight I use is very low - I'm hoping this means there are alot of easy gains to be had. Recovery not too much of an issue either.

3. Deadlift - took advice from here and am doing fewer reps and putting the bar down and re-setting each time. The sharp little back pains and niggles I was getting have not returned, just "normal" muscle fatigue. Really pleased with this.

[ukaserex]

You've gotten some fair advice so far, but wanted to add some data to it.

I should mention - I'm not entirely new to rowing or weights - just new to the forum - although I'm sure I could learn a lot more about both.

That said, when looking for answers, I generally know how to find them.

There is a gentleman by the name of Brad J Schoenfeld that is considered the world's leading authority on Hypertrophy. He literally wrote the book on it. Well, a couple of them, actually. "Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy" (Human Kinetics, 2016), the first text devoted to an evidence-based elucidation of the mechanisms and strategies for optimizing muscle growth is the one I'm most familiar with.

I follow him on Twitter, and typically, once a week, he'll tweet out some study that demonstrates certain elements of hypertrophy. I always thought that to get stronger, you had to get bigger. Apparently, this is not the case. They did a study where some did one set, some did three sets, and some did five sets - and while the 3x and 5x did get stronger and bigger - the 1x got just as strong as 3x and 5x but without the size. For hypertrophy, there is an optimal number of sets - but the number of factors that contribute to that optimum result were to much for me to remember. You can read about the meta-analysis at this site: http://www.lookgreatnaked.com/blog/how- ... ld-muscle/

Odds are, C2 may not appreciate the listing of a site, but we'll see.

I say - no sense in me figuratively feeding you a fish - I'll just show you where they are and let you catch 'em.

[Gammmmo]

@uk - welcome to the forum and thankyou for the link. FWIW another thing I want to try is emphasising the negative part of the lift by really slowing that down and "feeling" the weight much more. I think I'm letting it drop too much.