I like this, the only change I would make is that the goal is to get stronger, if i could do that with less beat down I would !!
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Growth and strength are pretty much the same. Same principle applies: accumulate fatigue, recover, repeat, peak.
Interesting you say that. Are you then saying that it is not possible to get stronger without growing? How do you define growth ?
To an extent, yes.
Eventually you need bigger muscles move.more weight. I think it usually goes: strength increase without much size increase (usually the early stages where technique improves, you are rapid progress, etc); then to get stronger it becomes imperative to get bigger, because you need more muscle to apply the techniques you can now execute; then waaay down the track it gets more complicated because it’s harder to get bigger and your technique is already ingrained.
I like to think of it like a track day: initially you’ll get better and better times on your little Corolla because you learn to get the most out of it, but eventually you’ll need to get an SS simply because no matter how well you drive a straight four will never be as quick around that track as a a v8 driven with the same skill.
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Nice description Mark but I don’t own a car just a motorbike and its way smaller but a lot lot faster than a corrolla or an SS!! lol 
Substitute a 125 and a Hayabusa
I got ya mate, just pulling your chain.
When you first start lifting you get strength gains mainly from neural adaptations and (like Mark said) improved technique. But when you’ve neurally adapted to an exercise there must be muscular adaptation (hypertrophy) to progress even further in weight.
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This is the easiest thing for me to understand, but how do you explain the people who compete in weight classes but keep adding weight to the bar? Are they still perfecting technique? I’m thinking of @ape288. He’s a beast by most standards, but when you consider pound for pound strength it’s downright freaky (for a big oaf like me).
@ape288, if you happen to drop by and look in here, how do you explain your strength gains? Are you still perfecting your technique or improving your neurological system?
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It’s technique, more neural adaptations. Elite lifters can get up to 90% efficiency, that takes some serious time, it’s not a clean cut of "now you’ve adapted, let’s add mass. Some lightweight guys also train in a way that does not promote much hypertrophy at all - think low volume, high power output, such as 6x1@70% etc. Also dietary factors - if you don’t eat enough you won’t grow much and your strength gains must come elsewhere (so neural again)
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That makes sense. I kind of forgot that we don’t really use all of our potential strength. Sounds like the people in that category are spending years to override the body’s protective mechanisms.
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Well, I don’t add much weight to the bar these days haha. It is certainly a combination of factors, however. I don’t think that I train in a way that explicitly DOESN’T promote hypertrophy, I just think that I don’t eat enough calories to support putting on more lean mass at this point. It’s also important to consider that it’s not like I haven’t added substantial amounts of body weight in the last 10 years, because I have. I weighed 115lbs when I graduated high school and i had gotten up to 130 by the time I entered college. My sophomore year I still remember I weighed in at 144lbs when I tried out for the football team, so good luck right? And I was up to 170lbs by the time I graduated. Since then, however, I’ve made tremendous improvements in body composition. I carry more muscle, now at 155-160 than I did when I weighed 170lbs and far, far, far less fat. When you think of it like this though, I’ve put on 40-50lbs of mostly muscle in the last decade. I just started off far lighter than most guys start off, so I’m still just not very heavy. If I started off at an average weight of 160, I’d be over 200lbs now. At this point it takes me force feeding myself to gain weight, and when I force feed myself I mostly just seem to gain fat, so I don’t do it anymore. I eat quite a lot of calories, and I love eating, but I also enjoy putting in large volumes of work.
I’ve also made technical improvements. You can see the increased efficiencies in lifting form over the last few years, especially if you watch some of my older stuff. And clearly I’ve made improvements in neural output over the last few years as well, that’s simply a given. But my training volume is certainly not low, and I don’t train with “light” weights either. If anything my tendency is to get greedy and go too heavy and grind too much, which is something I’ve had to force myself to temper in recent history. Kind of rambly, but I hope this helps!
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Thanks @ape288 I think this is me too. I am getting stronger but to make any significant weight gains I have to eat and eat. Now I’m over 40 if I eat too hard then the waists starts to blow out. It’s a balancing act for me between not eating enough and not getting the recovery or growth I want versus eating hard and needing bigger pants !!
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I’m in the exact same spot. I’ve put on about 5 - 6 kg and I just think it’s around the waist all of it. Damn
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Oh I am hearing you mate
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Sunday 29th April
Micro 4 week 1 - Deadlift and oh press
Deadlift
Bar x 10
65 x 8
105 x 8
125 x 8 x 4 sets
RPE 7 - grip was going on last 2 but speed was still ok, 7, 8 getting harder but speed is still ok, 9 had to reset grip after 5 and that really slowed the last 3 reps down. Still got all the reps without any issues so happy.
OH press - band pull aparts between sets
Bar x 10
45 x 8
55 x 8 RPE 8 moved quicker than I expected
55 x 8 RPE 8 ok mid section a little wobbly need to brace harder
55 x 8 RPE 8 better speed but slowed for last 2 reps
55 x 8 RPE 9 good stuff
55 x 8 RPE 10 last one was a grinder
Very happy with OH tonight, that made up for the crap bench on Tuesday !!
Pull ups - Max x 4
10, 8, 7, 6
Superset with
Push ups - Max x 4
30, 20, 20, 15
Hanging leg raise 20 x 2 - superset with hammer curl 12.5kg x 12 x 2
Ab wheel rolllouts from knees x 10
Legs were still trashed from Thursday, the DOMS didn’t slow me down but it still hurt !! Starting to feel the heavier weights, the assistance reps were deff down tonight and I was feeling tired. That may also be because I trained on Sunday night after spending a day running after the kids ! Overall I am happy with my efforts tonight.
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Resting up after tonight’s training and my right bicep is very angry again. It felt fine during the workout and I have no idea if the deadlifts, the pull ups or the hammer curls have caused it. Not happy, it was starting to feel good again until tonight. Hopefully it won’t be sore tomorrow !!
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At a guess, pull-ups. Out of DL, hammer curls and pull-ups, pull-ups are the only one that have ever given my elbows grief.
I’ve gotten some medial epicondylitis from too much pull-up volume before, however, I have also strained my distal bicep tendon from going too heavy on hammer curls and getting sloppy with form. So it depends where he’s hurting I would say.
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The pain is in the bicep itself not the elbow, it doesn’t hurt when I grip hard with the arm extended. It hurts most when the arm is at 90+ degrees and when the hand is fully supinate so litttle finder higher than thumb. Didn’t feel any pain doing the deadlift and the hammer curls were very slow ( no swinging) and only gave a pump no real pain. I am thinking I might drop the pull ups and maybe bent rows for a couple of weeks
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