My new macrocycle

[Hardartery]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

Appearance and performance are different things though. Sure, it's nice to look jacked. If your goal is strength it's not really important though. Guys working under a weight cap will tend towards the jacked effect, but weight classes aside 30% bodyfat give or take is probably much better for the goal than adding 10 lbs of muscle. Another example, Ronnie Coleman hiyying that questionable depth double with 800 lbs, everyone has seen that video. I hit 850 in the same suit and wraps and a lever belt at about 275 lbs and I am sure 30%+ BF. I was carrying significantly less LBM than him, and he was a PLer before getting into BB. I was not in danger of winning a Squat event at a Pro/Am-Platinum level show at the time. I currently carry arguably greater LBM NOW than I did then, and I promise that I am in no danger of replicating that squat. Age aside, gaining 10 lbs of fat would go a long ways towards hitting that number again but I doubt 10lbs of LBM would get me closer than the fat would. I think it is largely tail chasing to pursue hypertrophy for any reason other than it's own sake. It is really unlikely to produce strength gains of any consideration.

[DanCR]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

Appearance and performance are different things though. Sure, it's nice to look jacked. If your goal is strength it's not really important though. Guys working under a weight cap will tend towards the jacked effect, but weight classes aside 30% bodyfat give or take is probably much better for the goal than adding 10 lbs of muscle. Another example, Ronnie Coleman hiyying that questionable depth double with 800 lbs, everyone has seen that video. I hit 850 in the same suit and wraps and a lever belt at about 275 lbs and I am sure 30%+ BF. I was carrying significantly less LBM than him, and he was a PLer before getting into BB. I was not in danger of winning a Squat event at a Pro/Am-Platinum level show at the time. I currently carry arguably greater LBM NOW than I did then, and I promise that I am in no danger of replicating that squat. Age aside, gaining 10 lbs of fat would go a long ways towards hitting that number again but I doubt 10lbs of LBM would get me closer than the fat would. I think it is largely tail chasing to pursue hypertrophy for any reason other than it's own sake. It is really unlikely to produce strength gains of any consideration.

Where I was going was, while yes the 30% bodyfat probably is more useful than the 10 lbs of LBM, the latter still is far better than no increase in size / weight at all, for folks who don’t want to be 30% bodyfat.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@augeleven I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other. though.

I’m sure this isn’t optimal, but more work is better than less work. Here are some counter-considerations

-time efficiency often trumps optimal structures, especially for parents/people with limited time
-supersetting larger hypertrophy movements during your main lift warmups, and your smaller movements in with your main sets, ie dips with your deadlift warmups, but lateral raises with your main sets.
- splitting up your rest times between the super set exercises. Instead of resting 4 minutes in between sets of bench, you rest 3 minutes, do your rows, wait 2 minutes do your bench
- you can adapt to the general cardio demands of this, and it’s probably an adaptation that transfers to everyday life more than that 4 plate squat I may never actually hit.

- Yeah, of course, if your time is so limited that you must superset, then superset, I'd agree with that.
- Yeah I also agree that you can play with the rest times. Now honestly I wouldn't take 4 minutes of rest between two sets even for squats and deads (let alone bench press which is really not that fatiguing). But maybe for people who are very out of shape I don't know. When you mentioned supersets I was imagining doing things back to back.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Here's a helping of broscience:

I think that one of the problems that people who train for strength/powerlifting is that they don't give the hypertrophy work enough respect because they are not excited about it, and they're tired from all the "main work", and they think it's not that important anyways. The bodybuilders don't have this problem because the hypertrophy is their main work to begin with.

I feel that if they focused on progression (like they do for their main work) and getting stronger on those exercises they'd be better for it.

@augeleven I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other. But I guess it depends on a bunch of things. Supersetting things like bandpullaparts is OK though.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I think we agree on what you said, but I was not really thinking about that in the first place. What you are saying is that if individual A has more LBM than individual B, there is still a possibility that B lifts more than A. It's rather obvious: there exists 400 lbs benchers who weight 150 lbs. Those people do not even look like they lift.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of: if you take individual A, and make him gain 20 lbs of muscle all things being equal, individual A will be stronger.

I do not think you need to "focus on hypertrophy". if you care about strength you focus on strength, because specificity is a thing. But it doesn't mean that hypertrophy work is not useful, especially if you are small and natural. If you are already huge (and not natural ...) then it's a different thing.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

Appearance and performance are different things though. Sure, it's nice to look jacked. If your goal is strength it's not really important though. Guys working under a weight cap will tend towards the jacked effect, but weight classes aside 30% bodyfat give or take is probably much better for the goal than adding 10 lbs of muscle. Another example, Ronnie Coleman hiyying that questionable depth double with 800 lbs, everyone has seen that video. I hit 850 in the same suit and wraps and a lever belt at about 275 lbs and I am sure 30%+ BF. I was carrying significantly less LBM than him, and he was a PLer before getting into BB. I was not in danger of winning a Squat event at a Pro/Am-Platinum level show at the time. I currently carry arguably greater LBM NOW than I did then, and I promise that I am in no danger of replicating that squat. Age aside, gaining 10 lbs of fat would go a long ways towards hitting that number again but I doubt 10lbs of LBM would get me closer than the fat would. I think it is largely tail chasing to pursue hypertrophy for any reason other than it's own sake. It is really unlikely to produce strength gains of any consideration.

Here the question is are we discussing a) getting stronger in terms of absolute weight lifted, at all costs or b) getting stronger under some constraints.

If you are looking at scenario a), then sure the optimal strategy is to become obese and not natural. But then again how many of us are interested in a) ? I'm not sure. I'd say that the overwhelming majority of people (including dedicated, long time, lifters) are not interested in a).

I always start with the assumption that the people discussing are interested in getting stronger under the constraints that body fat percentage stays the same, that their health is not significantly impacted, that they remain in decent shape and look like they lift.

It reminds me of the discussion where Rip was telling guys asking him "at what weight would I be the strongest" that they should weight something ridiculous like 300 lbs. Technically the advice is correct, but the guys asking the question never really wanted be the strongest they can be in the first place.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

To me a good proof that muscle being more useful than fat is that, when looking at high level powerlifters, none of them are very fat. Sure fat is still useful, but if your weight is capped (or you don't want to look like a blob) then gaining muscle sounds more much useful than gaining fat.

[Hardartery]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

To me a good proof that muscle being more useful than fat is that, when looking at high level powerlifters, none of them are very fat. Sure fat is still useful, but if your weight is capped (or you don't want to look like a blob) then gaining muscle sounds more much useful than gaining fat.

Jesus Oliveires

[Hardartery]

Here's a helping of broscience:

I think that one of the problems that people who train for strength/powerlifting is that they don't give the hypertrophy work enough respect because they are not excited about it, and they're tired from all the "main work", and they think it's not that important anyways. The bodybuilders don't have this problem because the hypertrophy is their main work to begin with.

I feel that if they focused on progression (like they do for their main work) and getting stronger on those exercises they'd be better for it.

@augeleven I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other. But I guess it depends on a bunch of things. Supersetting things like bandpullaparts is OK though.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I think we agree on what you said, but I was not really thinking about that in the first place. What you are saying is that if individual A has more LBM than individual B, there is still a possibility that B lifts more than A. It's rather obvious: there exists 400 lbs benchers who weight 150 lbs. Those people do not even look like they lift.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of: if you take individual A, and make him gain 20 lbs of muscle all things being equal, individual A will be stronger.

I do not think you need to "focus on hypertrophy". if you care about strength you focus on strength, because specificity is a thing. But it doesn't mean that hypertrophy work is not useful, especially if you are small and natural. If you are already huge (and not natural ...) then it's a different thing.

I am not going to say that adding muscle won't make someone stronger, I frankly can't prove it for or against and it seems logical that there is at least greater potential. That aside, I believe that the hypertrophy blocks (et al, whatever you want to call the not peaking phases) is that they provide stimulus but allow recovery from the high %RM stuff. Taking more than a week off entirely usually results in some loss at least temporarily, so going through the motions at a minimum prevents that from happening while you get ready to push hard again.

[alek]

For bench... well, we'll see. Maybe augeleven will chime in with some lame, meme advice on what to do for upper hypertrophy.

I got you fam - I’m calling it the smuggle.
The problem - you want to do more upper hypertrophy work, but you leave it it to the end of the work out and then skip or half ass it.

The solution: superset the hypertrophy stuff in with your main stuff. Wendler mentions this in his 531 Forever, Brian Alsruhe always recommends an antagonist and an ab movement in a giant set. The Natural Hypertrophy guy has a video tweaking Alsruhe’s 4 horsemen with isolation instead of cardio exercises.

I’ve had good luck supersetting bench and press with rows (barbell or cable) or pull-ups. When I was making my best progress I was tri setting a pull, a press, and banded pullaparts or facepulls.
I’ve also supersetted curls with my squat warmups and dips with my deadlift warmups.
I’m probably going to try supersetting front raises and flyes with my lower warmup stuff. Worse case scenario is I have a pump more often.

Hah! I’ll have to think about that. I can usually spend what time I need on a session; the bigger issue is that I just wear myself out. I probably need more cardio in my life.

[alek]

1 session in, and I already have an update. On Mondays, and maybe Fridays, I’m going to do rdls for deadlift work to focus on getting my hips and glutes involved in the deadlift. See the discussion at Why do you think I failed this deadlift? for justification.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other.

I’m not sure that this is true in a way that matters for hypertrophy. Strength, yeah.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I’m not sure the idea is bigger muscles being stronger so much as it is that size provides better leverages / advantages on particular movements. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that one’s bench tends to rise with one’s upper body mass. You can fat fuck yourself to a bigger bench (ask me how I know), but if one would rather not, some jacked up chesticles will do the trick as well.

To me a good proof that muscle being more useful than fat is that, when looking at high level powerlifters, none of them are very fat. Sure fat is still useful, but if your weight is capped (or you don't want to look like a blob) then gaining muscle sounds more much useful than gaining fat.

Jesus Oliveires

I should have been clearer, I was thinking of all powerlifters that are not in the 120+ class, because that class does not have an upper limit. For other classes your weight is capped and in that case, 1kg of muscle is more useful than 1kg of fat.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Here's a helping of broscience:

I think that one of the problems that people who train for strength/powerlifting is that they don't give the hypertrophy work enough respect because they are not excited about it, and they're tired from all the "main work", and they think it's not that important anyways. The bodybuilders don't have this problem because the hypertrophy is their main work to begin with.

I feel that if they focused on progression (like they do for their main work) and getting stronger on those exercises they'd be better for it.

@augeleven I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other. But I guess it depends on a bunch of things. Supersetting things like bandpullaparts is OK though.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I think we agree on what you said, but I was not really thinking about that in the first place. What you are saying is that if individual A has more LBM than individual B, there is still a possibility that B lifts more than A. It's rather obvious: there exists 400 lbs benchers who weight 150 lbs. Those people do not even look like they lift.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of: if you take individual A, and make him gain 20 lbs of muscle all things being equal, individual A will be stronger.

I do not think you need to "focus on hypertrophy". if you care about strength you focus on strength, because specificity is a thing. But it doesn't mean that hypertrophy work is not useful, especially if you are small and natural. If you are already huge (and not natural ...) then it's a different thing.

I am not going to say that adding muscle won't make someone stronger, I frankly can't prove it for or against and it seems logical that there is at least greater potential. That aside, I believe that the hypertrophy blocks (et al, whatever you want to call the not peaking phases) is that they provide stimulus but allow recovery from the high %RM stuff. Taking more than a week off entirely usually results in some loss at least temporarily, so going through the motions at a minimum prevents that from happening while you get ready to push hard again.

OK this is interesting. My belief is that the so called "hypertrophy blocks" make you gain strength partly because they make you lift around 70%1RM and this intensity will make you gain strength. Think about it, if some dude does 6 weeks of sets of 8 reps, how much muscle will they gain ? Probably an insignificant amount, and any strength gain realized in the subsequent block might not be from muscle gained in the first place. They just got stronger because they lifted heavy enough to gain strength.

Hypertrophy useful for long term strength, but it is a background process that needs years and years to happen.

[augeleven]

Now honestly I wouldn't take 4 minutes of rest between two sets even for squats and deads (let alone bench press which is really not that fatiguing). But maybe for people who are very out of shape I don't know. When you mentioned supersets I was imagining doing things back to back.

I didn’t think I needed more time than 2 minutes, then I changed my squat rest times to 4-6 minutes and added 60 pounds to my e1rm. There’s also a different recovery need for 3@7,8@7 and 12@7.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Now honestly I wouldn't take 4 minutes of rest between two sets even for squats and deads (let alone bench press which is really not that fatiguing). But maybe for people who are very out of shape I don't know. When you mentioned supersets I was imagining doing things back to back.

I didn’t think I needed more time than 2 minutes, then I changed my squat rest times to 4-6 minutes and added 60 pounds to my e1rm. There’s also a different recovery need for 3@7,8@7 and 12@7.

That's impressive. Now 2 minutes might be pushing it, I think for me 3 minutes is the sweet spot for me on squats (at least for things like 1@8 and 8@7). If I took 2 minutes by the fourth set I would basically die I think.

[Hardartery]

Here's a helping of broscience:

I think that one of the problems that people who train for strength/powerlifting is that they don't give the hypertrophy work enough respect because they are not excited about it, and they're tired from all the "main work", and they think it's not that important anyways. The bodybuilders don't have this problem because the hypertrophy is their main work to begin with.

I feel that if they focused on progression (like they do for their main work) and getting stronger on those exercises they'd be better for it.

@augeleven I think that supersets are a good tool if you're pressed for time, but if you are not, you always end up using less energy and effort than you would if you just did the exercises one after the other. But I guess it depends on a bunch of things. Supersetting things like bandpullaparts is OK though.

I think it's a weird new trend to care about hypertrophy work at all if strength is the goal. It really is not important. Lifting for strength will result in some hypertrophy, the reverse is not necessarily true. Case in point, Mitchell Hooper has roughly 225 lbs of LBM. He has total Dad bod from the waist up. He won WSM in a walk this year, and believe me there were plenty of guys there with more LBM who didn't make it out of the heats. Sure, theoretically bigger muscles are stronger. There is no real evidence that focussing on hypertrophy is particularly useful for producing any strength gains whatsoever.

I think we agree on what you said, but I was not really thinking about that in the first place. What you are saying is that if individual A has more LBM than individual B, there is still a possibility that B lifts more than A. It's rather obvious: there exists 400 lbs benchers who weight 150 lbs. Those people do not even look like they lift.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of: if you take individual A, and make him gain 20 lbs of muscle all things being equal, individual A will be stronger.

I do not think you need to "focus on hypertrophy". if you care about strength you focus on strength, because specificity is a thing. But it doesn't mean that hypertrophy work is not useful, especially if you are small and natural. If you are already huge (and not natural ...) then it's a different thing.

I am not going to say that adding muscle won't make someone stronger, I frankly can't prove it for or against and it seems logical that there is at least greater potential. That aside, I believe that the hypertrophy blocks (et al, whatever you want to call the not peaking phases) is that they provide stimulus but allow recovery from the high %RM stuff. Taking more than a week off entirely usually results in some loss at least temporarily, so going through the motions at a minimum prevents that from happening while you get ready to push hard again.

OK this is interesting. My belief is that the so called "hypertrophy blocks" make you gain strength partly because they make you lift around 70%1RM and this intensity will make you gain strength. Think about it, if some dude does 6 weeks of sets of 8 reps, how much muscle will they gain ? Probably an insignificant amount, and any strength gain realized in the subsequent block might not be from muscle gained in the first place. They just got stronger because they lifted heavy enough to gain strength.

Hypertrophy useful for long term strength, but it is a background process that needs years and years to happen.

This is part of my thinking on it. It's fairly impossible to do studies to prove or disprove the process, and it seems obvious that more muscle is stronger muscle. The studies that are out there would indicate that it's actually the cross connections between fibres more than anything, and more individual muscle fibres would allow for more cross connections to be built. None of that is really happening on any serious level over a single block of training, so it follows that it is likely that over time those training blocks will result in that. How much of it is being 70% or above? How much of it is simply reps? How much of it the later reps when the muscles are fatigued and you are theoretically recruiting the second tier fibres?

It seems very likely to me that really the gains from those 70% blocks/Hypertrophy blocks are really recovery from the heavier work where you actually are exceeding your recovery to at least some extent. I feel like it is allowing your body the space to adapt and not just recuperate. Just my theory.

[ChasingCurls69]

I think when it comes to the hypertrophy specific programming options, there's a bit of selection bias in how people have personally responded. Like if you get huge and keep getting stronger without having to do hypertrophy blocks or shifting volume into movements with higher reps/longer muscle lengths, then it doesn't matter too much because you grew anyway. But I think a lot of people stop getting stronger if the training block that biases traditional strength training rep ranges is no longer enough to make them grow, and this tends to affect lifters with longer limbs a bit more as well.

[quikky]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

[Hardartery]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

[mbasic]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

IDK man, seems awfully hyperbole to say: "You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength".

Monstrous? nope, you are going to be stronger to a degree.

Get a "bit bigger"? .... without expressing much additional strength in the way of a 1RM on a barbell compound lift? sure

If either of those things^ happened, either one of those guy would then get appreciably stronger after a quick block of strength focused work.

[Hardartery]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

IDK man, seems awfully hyperbole to say: "You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength".

Monstrous? nope, you are going to be stronger to a degree.

Get a "bit bigger"? .... without expressing much additional strength in the way of a 1RM on a barbell compound lift? sure

If either of those things^ happened, either one of those guy would then get appreciably stronger after a quick block of strength focused work.

If said guy did a block of strength focussed work he would be chasing something other than hypertrophy. PED's aside, an example is a training video I saw of Nick Walker with his coach. They were training together at the gym, going back and forth on sets. The trainer out did Walker on some of the work, and is maybe half the size of Walker. I am using more weight for lateral raises than any of those IFBB pros, by longshot I would bet, and I guarantee that my delts are significantly smaller than any of them. If you chase size with no sidetracks for strength, you can become very large indeed without any appreciable gains in strength. The thing is, no one on this forum is likely to do that exclusive sort of training, but there are plenty of guys doing it outside of us.