Transcription
Training for strength and training for hypertrophy are two very different goals that require a specific style of training to maximize results. Strength training is centered around maximizing full recruitment and high firing rates of high threshold motor units, and the benefits are only fully realized from lift-specific practice. Side note, if you've never done shrugs like this, you're missing out. That means the more frequently you handle loads that are 85 to 100% your one-rep max on a given exercise, the faster you will increase your one-rep max for that exact lift. The caveat being you can't just max out all the time. There needs to be sufficient volume to make sure your muscles and tendons are still adapting because it's not all just neural adaptive changes. So, we need to make sure we're adding contractile proteins to be able to continue increasing our strength over time.
How do I explain this in a way that makes sense? Here's a good example. For the next month, start tugging it with your bad hand. The first changes you're going to see are neural adaptations. You'll probably have no rhythm. Coordination's going to be all wrong. You might delve yourself on accident, but fairly quickly, you'll get the rhythm down, and then eventually you'll see that forearm increase in size. You see, we need we need both. So, that that's probably not even helpful.
While on the other hand, the goal of building muscle is really a balancing act between muscle protein synthesis and breakdown, of which mechanical tension is the primary driver. It activates anabolic pathways like mTor, which increases muscle protein synthesis, but also releases local messengers like myokines and growth factors. You don't need to know any of this [ __ ]. How do I reach these kids?
So obviously, there's not a way to train for both. At least that's what I thought because there have been those that have come along. Whether it's Kevin's ability to Smith shoulder press behind the neck, four plates, pretty much anything Ronnie has done, or my personal favorite, waking up on Saturday morning, turning on ESPN, and seeing this absolute unit, Mario. And yes, those are the most genetically gifted, juiced-up examples you can give. But it still led me down a rabbit hole looking into the research to see if there's a way to program for both. And actually, we should have been doing this a long time ago.
I'm sure you're familiar with the repetition continuum. It was first proposed in the 1930s, formalized in the '90s. The idea behind it is that it categorizes the primary adaptation for a given rep range. And while there is some truth to it, it's not that cut and dry. So, yeah, here's what we know. Heavier loads are in fact better at increasing strength. They consistently outperform moderate and lightweight sets at improving 1RM, even when those sets are taken to failure. But it's not as significant as I previously thought.
Here's a study that compared a light group that trained at 30 to 50% their one-rep max and compared it to a heavier group that trained at 75 to 90% their one-rep max and looked at increases in bench press, shoulder press, leg press, and knee extension. And they were all fairly similar. A slight edge went to the heavier group. And I'm talking it was by a dickhair. The only significant difference was in the bench press, where the heavier group increased by 14 kg and the lighter group only increased by nine. And here's your America numbers. It's also important to note that these weren't inexperienced dorks. These were seasoned lifters.
Now, don't get me wrong, we're definitely going to be programming some heavy-ass sets. I just thought it was important to understand that both heavy and lighter sets, when taken to failure, can fully recruit and fire those high-threshold motor units. The difference in lifting heavy-ass weight is you're actually practicing the movement closer to your one-rep max, so you reap all the neurological benefits like increased coordination and decreasing antagonist muscle activation. [ __ ] like that. I'm sure your first question is then, how often should I be lifting heavier loads? Because too frequent, you run the risk of injury. Just hold on to that one because I'll go into it when I go over how to structure a hybrid butt-baby of a program like this.
One thing you can't do for sure is a mistake that every new ego lifter makes, myself included in high school. I would max out every single week just in case whatever muscle tech supplement I was taking at the time started to kick in. They never did. It's true what they say, a bigger muscle isn't necessarily a stronger one. But what hypertrophy does is raises your capacity for strength by adding contractile proteins, myofibrillar. So if you're hitting a few sets of one every week, that isn't enough volume to induce hypertrophy. So don't do that.
Speaking of which, I've had a lot of people reach out and ask, "Where's that supplement testing app that you were talking about?" Here's what happened. This is the thing that I'm most passionate about. So, I got more involved. And I'm full of big dumb ideas. My favorite of those, which we've been working on, is having the ability to pick a category every single week. Whether that's Ashwagandha, pre-workouts, magnesium, research-grade peptides, and you guys vote for which company's products you want us to test that fit that week's category. We take the top 10, and we test everything from potency to heavy metals to micro. So, yeah, I assume every company out there that's screwing people over is going to sue us. But it's going to be awesome.
I digress because if we come back to the rep continuum and start talking about hypertrophy, this is where this [ __ ] falls apart because they've consistently seen muscle growth when training anywhere from 30% all the way to 90-ish% 1RM. In spite of that, I've seen a recent trend on social media of bros saying that they only train anywhere from four to six reps because anything over that is a waste of time, which is dumb for several reasons. For the average person with regular genetics, the biggest predictor of muscle growth is volume. And yes, there's been people like Yates and Mener, but they're not average. And they've looked at this several times.
Here's a study. It's a study that compared non-responders to responders. 2 to 8 sets per week. And wouldn't you guessed it, eight sets per week was better, especially for non-responders. And what's fascinating about that, other than the dick-batman drawing behind it, is that's a within-subject design study, which proves that some people just need more volume. And when you're programming with volume in mind, there's a time efficiency balancing act that you have to do.
Here's a good example. Volume-equated trained individuals. One group did three sets of 10 while the other group did seven sets of three. Muscle thickness was virtually identical between the two, but the hypertrophy group took 17 minutes to complete the workouts, while the strength group took 70 [ __ ] minutes. It takes a while to chub up for a set of three. Interesting note on that. The strength group had a frequency of three times a week, while the hypertrophy group trained every body part one time a week. What that means to you is that frequency is just a way to manage volume. It's not magic. It's not Miss Frizzle.
Another thing we got to factor into the hypertrophy side of programming that you only realize after you've worked with way too many people is that everybody responds differently to a given rep range. Meaning that some people respond better to light weight taken to failure, others moderate, and some people do well with heavy-ass weight. If you just skim through the abstract of a study like this one where they had participants train one leg at 80% one-rep max while the other one was at 60%, you'd walk away thinking that the 60% higher volume lower intensity group led to more hypertrophy while the heavier trained leg led to more strength gains because it it says that. But if you do what I did, which is take my little chubby fingers and email the editor of the case study, he'll send you the anonymized limb data for each of the participants. What you discover is actually a few of the lifters had better strength increases in the lighter leg and others had greater hypertrophy increases in the heavier trained leg. The [ __ ] just averaged out in a way where you wouldn't even know that. Which means regardless of your goal, you should be testing different loading schemes to see what you respond to best.
Also, selfishly, another reason I love within-subject design studies is because by the end of it, some of the lifters actually had one leg that was bigger than the other. So, I picture the researcher saying, "Congratulations on the study. Your left leg is now significantly bigger than your right. So, good luck with that." And then they had to just go [ __ ] off and figure it out for themselves. It's kind of messed up.
At this point, the only thing I wasn't 100% certain on were those lighter rep sets, 20 to 30 reps. Can I make the case for including those in the program over moderate weight because everybody now is complaining about systemic fatigue. They got their little plums in a knot. Yes, there's a case for injury prevention. It gives your tendons and ligaments a break every once in a while. And I personally love those sets because they are hard and they suck and I have a lot of self-hatred. But is there any real evidence for them? Yep. At least for me.
Here's a study that looked at six to 10 to 20 to 30 reps, and the individual results are all over the place. Keep in mind this was a study that looked at the lateral and medial portion of the gastro as well as a soleus. So do with that what you may. It also highlights something that I've always previously thought, and that's that you might have body parts that respond more to a higher volume or a higher rep stimulus. And for me, my arms have always grown more from higher rep sets. I don't know if that's helpful, but interesting. Also, this is by far my favorite lateral head exercise, period. So many good variations on here. [Music]
So, now that we know the best-case scenario for programming for hypertrophy is basically every single rep range, and we also still have to find time to structure those heavier lifts to make sure we're maximizing strength gains. I'm sure you're sitting there thinking, "How in the hell am I supposed to do all this?" It's actually fairly simple once you lay it all out. I'd almost go as far to say that I enjoy training like this because it allows you to destroy yourself in several different ways. And I believe that's what joy is. So, I'm going to walk you through exactly how I structured this program just in case you don't have 20 bucks. I don't know. You developed a nice little meth habit. I don't judge.
The first thing you need to know is that linear periodization, the thing your high school football coach probably had you do where you decrease the volume as you increase the intensity, has been shown to be less effective than undulating periodization, where you change the variables either daily or sometimes weekly for increasing strength. So, we're going to do that [ __ ] over there. The second thing is on exercises that we're trying to exploit for strength gains, we need to make sure we're hitting them frequently enough throughout the program because again, they benefit from lift-specific practice. But unlike most people, I value hypertrophy just as much as strength gain. So, I've chosen exercises that you typically wouldn't see on a program like this, like heavy-ass sets on the hack squat. You'll be shocked at how much your legs grow, but also how horrible the sets are. Wait till you're doing heavy fours on here. It feels like death. But at the same time, we have to be smart. We can't be doing heavy sets of six on tricep extensions. It's basically an ab workout. Yeah, that that didn't feel good.
Now, I always have an internal struggle when I build out programs because there's ways that I do things, which is borderline abusive and excessive, and the understanding that most people just don't have the time to hurt themselves that much or frequently. So, what I did is build out two separate programs that I've combined into one. This is the way that I do it. It falls into the category of more of a weekly undulating periodization and is a push-pull-legs where you start with moderate, then you do a heavy workout, and then you go into a lighter workout, and you rotate through that. So about every week and a half, you get that same heavy or moderate or light day. It's uh it's rough. It's right when you're feeling good about yourself after that heavy day sets of 20, 30 [ __ ] my life. This one's more of a Six Flags. Every once in a while, somebody will fly off a roller coaster. That one is Action Park. We're going to lose a lot of good men over there. I'm adding a disclaimer just for that program. If you haven't already, now would be a good time to start snorting your creatine. If you want to get that dual program, it's linked below. Just like always, it's only 20 bucks and it's my new favorite butt-baby of a program. Get after it.