Month: May 2014

cOk, having wrapped up hypertrophy training in Categories of Weight Training Part 6, I want to forget ahead and talk about maximal strength training.  Shockingly, after the endless verbiage I expended on hypertrophy training, maximal strength training is actually in many ways simpler.

Now depending on what kind of things you read, maximal strength training goes under a variety of different names including maximum effort (ME) work, maximum weights methods, maximum strength training or even neural training.   While there are probably minor differences in the definitions of all of these terms, for all practical purposes they refer to the same basic concept.

I should expand on the term “neural training”, however.  That comes from the idea that this type of training is thought to generate primarily  neurological adaptations that increase strength output.  But for that statement to make sense,  I need to look at two of the primary factors that determine how much strength/force can be developed.… Keep Reading

On Tuesday, in Categories of Weight Training: Part 5 I clarified some things regarding volume and then looked briefly at the issue of both training frequency and a bit at exercise selection.    Today I’ll wrap up the discussion of hypertrophy training, summarizing all of this mess and looking at some popular programs and how they do (or don’t) match the information I’ve presented at the very end.

This will allow me to talk about maximal strength in the next part of the series and then either look at Brad Schoenfeld’s new paper (comparing low and high repetition ranges on growth) or power training methods.  I haven’t decided what order to write in.

Today is going to be sort of a grab-bag of topics, some of which will hopefully answer some of the questions I’ve seen in the comments, some of which will probably leave you with more questions than answers.  Thus is the balance of the universe is maintained. … Keep Reading

So last time in Categories of Weight Training: Part 4, I continued with the discussion of hypertrophy by addressing the issue of volume.  In that article, looking at a recent review paper by Wernbom, I threw out a value of 30-60 repetitions as giving the apparently maximal growth response.  Before I move on to other topics, let me clarify a few issues.  Then I’ll look at training frequency and exercise selection.

Training Volume Revisited.

First and foremost, something I idiotically left out of the article but got asked about on the forum and in the comments, that volume recommendation of 30-60 reps is PER MUSCLE GROUP.  Not PER WORKOUT total.  So if you were working 4 muscle groups or something in a workout, that’d yield a total of 120-240 repetitions.   How many sets that would end up being would, of course, depend on the reps per set.

Now, one complication here is the issue of overlap between muscle groups since most people aren’t training single muscles at once.   … Keep Reading

In  Categories of Weight Training: Part 3 I continued with a look at hypertrophy training by talking a bit about the impact of anabolic steroids (which has caused a lot of very silly ideas to come into vogue) and then began to talk about loading parameters focusing on intensity (with a bit of related commentary about repetition ranges).

As I discussed in that article, due to the variety of pathways involved in stimulating growth (which may act independently or interact somehow) combined with the potential for different “types” of growth and the further potential of fiber type specific growth, you tend to see the widest range of intensities being at least potentially useful for stimulating at least some kind of muscle growth.

On average, intensity for the hypertrophy range is typically given to be anywhere from 60% to 85% of 1 repetition max, yielding an effective repetition range of anywhere from 20 reps per set (at 60% 1RM) down to about 5 (85%). … Keep Reading

In Categories of Weight Training: Part 2, I bored you with some of the underlying physiology behind hypertrophy training   In that article I discussed the issue of hypetrophy vs. hyperplasia as well as the idea that there are different types of hypertrophy (i.e. sarcoplasmic vs. myofibrillar), I also looked a bit at some of the underlying physiology of what stimulates muscle growth in terms of tension, fatigue and muscle damage (with some brief commentary about the hormonal response issue).

Today I want to use that as background to talk about hypertrophy training in more practical terms in the same way I did about metabolic training back in Part 1.  I’ll start with some more general comments and then talk about intensity/rep range as a loading parameter, saving other aspects of hypertrophy training for the next parts of the series.

Now, compared to other types of training, it seems as if you see the greatest variety in what can stimulate or generate hypertrophy in terms of the different types of training that has been done or that seems to be “effective” on one level or another.… Keep Reading