Gain Strength In Hypertophy Prgm?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I’m trying to incorporate a strength week into my bodybuilding focused program by having a week with reps of 3-6 with heavy weight. I am confused about whether I should increase the number of sets during my strength week.

Today i did 4 sets of heavy squats. I would do 3 or 4 sets during my hypertophy weeks, only I would obviously do a lot more reps and volume. What do you all think?

Also, I usually keep my weight the same each working set during hypertrophy. Today i did squat, bench, pulldowns, and DB mil. press (I usually do upper/lower split, but I figure total body during strength week). For squat i did 345, 365, 385, and 405 anywhere from 6 down to 3 reps.

Should I focus on finding a weight doing it for my four sets instead of increasing? I’m mainly concerned about whether or not I’m moving enought heavy weight or if I should be adding more sets and finding a heavy weight to push each set instead of working my way upwards.

2

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
I’m trying to incorporate a strength week into my bodybuilding focused program by having a week with reps of 3-6 with heavy weight.[/quote]

Why would you think that strength and bodybuilding are two separate entities? Strength should be the core of what you are doing in the first place. How much you grow from that will be based on your food intake and genetics. No one should have to “incorporate” strength into bodybuilding training because it should already be there.

[quote]
Also, I usually keep my weight the same each working set during hypertrophy. [/quote]

Why would you do this? Have you heard of pyramiding? These are basic concepts. How could you overload your muscles with enough weight to force them to adapt if you are constantly using the same working weight?

3

I knew before I even clicked on this thread that X would’ve replied to it…

4

I know strength is important. I’m just saying I’m adding a strength focused week. I’m refering to an article a little while back called pendulum training. Certain weeks focus on high reps/low intensity and others on low reps/high intensity based on goals.

I don’t always do the same weight week after week. I just find a weight that I can do and keep it there for each set. The 3rd of fourth set is much harder than the first. I’m always progressing weekly, adding more weight or more sets or more reps, etc.

I’ve heard of those concepts you talked about. I just didn’t think they were absolutely necessary nor have I found how I incorporate them into my routine. Sorry to piss you off with my questions.

5

I’ve done super sets, pyramiding, going to failure, drops sets in past. I would be haphazardly throwing them into my program if i used them now.

As far as keeping the same weight for the “working sets”, I’ve seen others do this and didn’t think it was far off base. I’m just as tired doing 4 sets with say 80 pound dumbells than maybe increasing each set from 60 to 90 pound dumbells. The total load might work out to be that same and I was under the impression that was what was most important for my goals.

6

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
I know strength is important. I’m just saying I’m adding a strength focused week. I’m refering to an article a little while back called pendulum training. Certain weeks focus on high reps/low intensity and others on low reps/high intensity based on goals.[/quote]

Why do you think it is that simple? I train with lower reps. I always have. I grow just fine from this. The belief that “higher reps” are for hypertrophy and lower reps is for strength is an oversimplification of a process that just can’t be broken down like that. Added muscle and strength are not two different concepts unless anabolics use has caused growth outside of strength gains.

[quote]
I don’t always do the same weight week after week. I just find a weight that I can do and keep it there for each set. The 3rd of fourth set is much harder than the first. I’m always progressing weekly, adding more weight or more sets or more reps, etc. [/quote]

No one said you do the same weight week after week. Have you heard of pyramiding? No one misunderstood you.

[quote]
I’ve heard of those concepts you talked about. I just didn’t think they were absolutely necessary nor have I found how I incorporate them into my routine. Sorry to piss you off with my questions.[/quote]

Piss me off? The only thing that pisses me off is when people either don’t listen (because they read an article) or assume that the info they receive is completely baseless…especially when they are beginners.

7

Believe me, I am listening to you. I didn’t post on here not to get input. The reasing I think the things you view as obvious or common knowledge is because I am a beginner. I know that there is no one way to get big. You use low reps always, but others use high reps or a variety of reps. I’m not trying to oversimplify…I’m just trying to find something, stick with it, and see if it works.

Yes, I know what pyramiding is. I’ve seen people use it in their routine and I’ve also seen people do what I do. Warm-up and then do their 4 sets of 8 or 8 sets of 3 or what ever with one weight. I didn’t think this was totally off base. I apologized because whether or not you would go as far as to say I pissed you off my beginner questions obviously irritate you. I’m not questioning your experience or anything like that.

8

Hi msundi83,

First you have to understand that a lot of people around here are sick of hearing people regurgitate “urban myths” so to speak concerning strength, hypertrophy and other training dogmas. Honestly, I believe that the large fitness organizations are largely to blame for the perpetuation of many of these dogmas.

People are tired of hearing things like “you have to use a rep scheme of 8-12 for hypertrophy, 4-6 for strength, 15+ for endurance, etc…etc…etc…”

What you need to understand is that hypertrophy is simply a form of supercompensation. As is strength, endurance, flexibility and so on. The body is a biological machine so to speak, one with an incredible capability for adaptation. If we expose the body to a stimulus greater than what it is accustomed to, it responds by supercompensating (i.e. hypertrophy, muscular endurance, etc…).

Strength is simply the ability to generate force. The ability of a muscle to generate force is partially dependant upon it’s cross section area. Basically the larger the myofibrils (functional portion of muscle tissue), the breater the potential for force.

Now, of course there are other factors such as neurological efficiency, connective tissue strength, nutrition, and recovery. But, simply put muscular hypertrophy is a byproduct of progressive overload, and increased strength is a byproduct of increased muscular hypertrophy. That’s honestly an oversimplified description, but it works in this situation.

Good training,

Sentoguy

9

I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I am not trying to spit out myths. I know you can get big doing all sorts of different rep schemes. I’m just trying to get help setting up a program based on CT’s Pendulum training article and wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything to off the wall. I don’t understand why everyone is on me. If anything I posted earlier made anyone think I disagree with the things you’ve all said that was not my intention. I just want to set up a program…that’s all. I guess its hard to get help in a Beginner’s Forum. Geez.

10

Hi msundi83,

A good, and rarely used progression when doing lower reps is to do one more set each week on all of your exercises whilst keeping the weight the same. The progresssion in the workout then becomes total volume week to week.
Do this for 3-4 weeks starting at 4 sets ending on 6-7 sets.
Re test your 1RM and hopefully you’ll be stronger meaning when you do your ‘bodybuilding’ you’ll be able to lift more weight at the higher rep ranges.

There are many ways of incorporating a strength training microcyle in a hypertrophy based macrocycle so try them all and see which suits you best.

Without getting too technical in The Black Book of Training Secrets by CT for bodybuilding focus he recommends a simple

strength block
hypertrophy block
hypertrophy block
strength block
hypertrophy block
hypertrophy block

as a good starting point.

Cheers

11

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I am not trying to spit out myths. I know you can get big doing all sorts of different rep schemes. I’m just trying to get help setting up a program based on CT’s Pendulum training article and wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything to off the wall. I don’t understand why everyone is on me. If anything I posted earlier made anyone think I disagree with the things you’ve all said that was not my intention. I just want to set up a program…that’s all. I guess its hard to get help in a Beginner’s Forum. Geez. [/quote]

You’re kind of like collateral damage. It’s not specifically you that prople are bashing on, it’s the thought process that many beginners have that frustrates regulars here. We are notorious for shooting the messenger. At least you didn’t post a picture of yourself, though.

Strength and size are intertwined. Read as much as you can on here, and search for any questions you have- they’ve all been asked before.

There are probably alot of dogmas that you’ve heard from Muscle and Fiction or your buddies at the gym. Most of them are bullshit. So just read, learn, and lift.

12

To the OP:

Pyramiding is fine if it suits you…working up to a heavy 3, 5, 8 or whatever. But if you’re working up to max weights for a given rep range (especially a lower one) for multiple lifts week in and week out, be mindful of CNS saturation and take back-off weeks.

Training at a static weight for all your work sets has its place too. If you consider a basic 5x5 setup, in some versions you go 5x5 static on Monday, and work up to a heavy top set of 5 or 3 on Friday.

Doing things like 5x5, 8x3, 4x6 etc. with a fixed % of 1RM is a good way to accumulate tonnage. Pick a couple and keep tonnage going up. Eat enough and you’ll get bigger and stronger.

13

Thanks, those are a lot of good ideas. I really like set progression.

In the past, working out for football. I always lifted by warming up, and progressing each set. I’ve look at a lot of training logs and I see people warming up and picking a weight to do for each set. I just thought I’d try that out.

CT’s philosphy struck me as a nice starting point for a simple workout routine. I just was looking for some more specifics on how I might try to impliment it.

14

I agree with Professor X. You get bigger by getting stronger basically. Just move heavy shit around consistently, you will get bigger and stronger.

15

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
I guess its hard to get help in a Beginner’s Forum. Geez. [/quote]

I’m not going to bash you, or at least not intentionally.

You seemed to come in here with your mind made up already and didn’t appear open to suggestions. When you were given advice you argued with it. If you are going to ask for help, at least keep an open mind. The other posters are right that you have been fed dogma from media sources and now need to be reprogrammed.

Everything you knew before you came to T-Nation must be forgotten. (over-simplification sure, but fairly accurate)

16

[quote]eengrms76 wrote:
msundi83 wrote:
I guess its hard to get help in a Beginner’s Forum. Geez.

I’m not going to bash you, or at least not intentionally.

You seemed to come in here with your mind made up already and didn’t appear open to suggestions. When you were given advice you argued with it. If you are going to ask for help, at least keep an open mind. The other posters are right that you have been fed dogma from media sources and now need to be reprogrammed.

Everything you knew before you came to T-Nation must be forgotten. (over-simplification sure, but fairly accurate)[/quote]

My mind isn’t made up. If by being fed dogma by media sources you mean CT’s article…then yeah, I guess that’s true.
As far as arguing with Prof. X. That’s BS. I agree with him and everyone that certain reps don’t always mean certain results. I just asked for clarification and more info. Never did I make a statement that flat out disagreed with him (at least I think so). I never said…NO X this is the right way and you are wrong. I’m not that full of myself.

My mind isn’t made up. What is the deal here? I can’t say it enough. I’ve never read a fitness magazine. I would never take advice from people at the gym I go too or take the myths I here as gospel. I’m just trying to follow CT’s article as a base for my program for now. What is wrong with that? What’s wrong with trying high reps as well as low reps. Lots of people advocate it and see good results. Should I not try everything?

If this approach doesn’t work I’ll try something else. I only needed help with a few details on how I should go about this approach. Maybe I wasn’t flamed…but I do think I was given the business for no good reason. I definately think I was misunderstood because of the wording or oversimplification of my original post and title.

17

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
My mind isn’t made up. If by being fed dogma by media sources you mean CT’s article…then yeah, I guess that’s true.
As far as arguing with Prof. X. That’s BS. I agree with him and everyone that certain reps don’t always mean certain results. I just asked for clarification and more info. Never did I make a statement that flat out disagreed with him (at least I think so). I never said…NO X this is the right way and you are wrong. I’m not that full of myself.

My mind isn’t made up. What is the deal here? I can’t say it enough. I’ve never read a fitness magazine. I would never take advice from people at the gym I go too or take the myths I here as gospel. I’m just trying to follow CT’s article as a base for my program for now. What is wrong with that? What’s wrong with trying high reps as well as low reps. Lots of people advocate it and see good results. Should I not try everything?

If this approach doesn’t work I’ll try something else. I only needed help with a few details on how I should go about this approach. Maybe I wasn’t flamed…but I do think I was given the business for no good reason. I definately think I was misunderstood because of the wording or oversimplification of my original post and title.[/quote]

You aren’t unique by any means. Most noobs come in here asking questions and argue with the results, even if they don’t realize it. I don’t expect you to just sit and take everything in without questioning it though, so it’s normal. The issue I had was your comment that it’s tough to get help in the beginner’s section. You were getting help.

One of the biggest problems I have is someone like you, a noob, trying to formulate their own program, even one based on something formal. It’s guys like you (I’m not saying for sure you will end up this way) that come back in 6 months and complain of a lack of progress.

Spend a little more time on this forum in general, both in reading stuff and interacting with the members and you’ll see that you weren’t “given the business” anymore than any other new guy. Not saying it’s right, but it’s just the way it is.

18

I didn’t think it would be that hard to get a little help with my very basic workout plan. 2 weeks high reps, 1 weeks low, repeat. Really not that uncommon I would think. I just wanted advice on some small specifics. Just some ideas. I will make progress in 6 months.

I’m young, I always make progress, just wanted to here some ideas based on the program I wanted to try. I played college football, I just never lifted for aesthetics before. I have some experience, just not lifting this way. I thought I could get some general advice.

19

[quote]msundi83 wrote:
I’m trying to incorporate a strength week into my bodybuilding focused program by having a week with reps of 3-6 with heavy weight. I am confused about whether I should increase the number of sets during my strength week.

Today i did 4 sets of heavy squats. I would do 3 or 4 sets during my hypertophy weeks, only I would obviously do a lot more reps and volume. What do you all think?

Also, I usually keep my weight the same each working set during hypertrophy. Today i did squat, bench, pulldowns, and DB mil. press (I usually do upper/lower split, but I figure total body during strength week). For squat i did 345, 365, 385, and 405 anywhere from 6 down to 3 reps.

Should I focus on finding a weight doing it for my four sets instead of increasing? I’m mainly concerned about whether or not I’m moving enought heavy weight or if I should be adding more sets and finding a heavy weight to push each set instead of working my way upwards.[/quote]

msundi83,

I posted your original post so as to illustrate why people reacted the way they did to you.

First, you never once mentioned that you had read CT’s article, nor did you clarify what you meant by “trying to incorporate a strength week into my bodybuilding focused program”. This set off a lot of people’s noob alarms, and they just assumed that you were like a lot of other misinformed begginners who come to this site.

People just never seem to use the search function, and the same basic questions end up getting asked ad nauseum.

As for your original questions;
Well, there are several different methods that will work. Using the same reps/weight for each consecutive work set is fine, so is working up towards a 1Rm/3RM/etc… Really just make sure that you get at least 24 total reps per muscle group (which if you’re doing total body probably means per exercise).

There are also several types of ways that you can progressively overload, but all of them basically just boil down to total volume. They include adding resistance, adding repetitions, adding sets, decreasing total time, decreasing rest periods, etc…

If you’re only doing this for a week at a time, then you’d probably be better off working up to your 1/3 RM. If you were going to cycle between different rep schemes om a regular basis, then perhaps keeping the same weight for all your working sets would be the way to go. But, hey that’s just my opinion.

Good luck and good training,

Sentoguy

20

Thanks for understanding and putting up with my rant. That post was very helpful to me.