So, most programs focus on an approach that cycles strength training and hypertrophy training depending on the season and needs for a few weeks. Most would agree that this is the best approach (with a few exceptions) to truly max out ones potential in each.
However, would the same approach be as efficient if I would just cycle it for each muscle group separately?
For example:
I may be fine with my current back strength from the last strength cycle and would like to go into a hypertrophy cycle for it, but I feel that (because of injury, bad form, bad days or whatever), my pecks came out of the last strength cycle rather weak and I feel I would like/need to do work on their strength a bit more before going into a full hypertrophy cycle for them. Also, at the time I may be done with the additional strength period for my pecks, I may want to go back to a strength cycle for my back again, thus again using two approaches for two muscle groups at the same time.
I KNOW that this may be viable, like most other things if you follow a few basic ātruthsā, however, what I am asking is if it is effective as a full body hypertrophy/strength cycle?
Could you provide an example of how you would train a muscle group for exclusively size or exclusively strength?
Well, you canāt train a muscle group exclusively for anything, but you can focus more on one aspect in a program/cycle, and to my knowledge in most cases (except maybe sports and such), it is better to cycle through programs that focus on hypertrophy and strength, than to mesh them together.
The main difference would be that a hypertrophy program would have more volume and lower intensities than a program for a strength cycle would have. Of course, in both you would increase in strength, but the progressions would be different.
How the example would look in setsxreps:
Hypetrophy: 3-5sets of 8-12 reps of ~50-60% of your 1RM.
Strength: 5-8sets of 3-6 reps of ~75-90% of your 1RM.
Of course, frequency also, usually, differs in the different programmings.
Basically, going alongside the aforementioned setxrep schemes, I am basically asking if it would be effective to train one muscle group in the hypertrophy range and another in the strength range in the same cycle.
Why? Because my OHP is really weak and I want to bring it up while hypertrophying in my back that is unproportionally strong to my other muscle groups. (probably because I like it the most and i subconsciously add more effort to it)
It seems like your definition of a āstrength cycleā is more along the lines of an intensification block, where the focus is on developing the skill of handling heavier percentages rather than the actual building of strength. Typically, strength is built during an accumulation block and realized through intensification and peaking.
For the press especially, I find it gets stronger by making the muscles involved bigger, rather than focusing a lot on top end percentages. I managed to hit a 265lb log strict press in my last comp prep block, and the majority of my training time for press was spent in the lower end of percentages than the higher.
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Well, that explains why I even put my self in a situation where my press is lacking far behind my other main lifts. I tried to get it stronger like my deadlift, with basically the same setXrepXfrequency scheme, with little success!
Thanks for the input, Iāll try my luck with that and see what happens!