Wanting to know your thoughts on whether it would be more beneficial do a strength or hypertrophy phase first after an extended layoff? Let’s assume someone has had a three month layoff with sporadic workouts here and there. Then for the past few weeks, they’ve been lifting a few times per week just to get their body used to the movements again. Things like squats, deads, presses, chins, etc. Nothing too heavy; just working on form. Where do they go from there?
Part of me thinks going for hypertrophy would be a good way to see quicker results (and thus keep motivated): get’s the muscles pumped up and looking good. The other part of me thinks a six week strength phase may be a better primer for hypertrophy on the following phase (since you would be throwing around heavier weights).
So what do you think? Is one really better than the other? Does it even matter? Assume that the person’s goals are not set in stone, therefore either program would work. Bottom line: all things being equal, what’s the best way to start up again?
In the last year I had to take about 8 months off because of an orthopedic injury and I have been back at it for about 22 weeks.What I did was for the first six weeks I did kind of a general program involving cicuit training with special emphaisis on core muscles and correcting any muscle imblances. Then I did a 8 week powerlifting routine revolving completely aaround squat, bench, and deadlift with minimal assistance exercises(ex. 1 set of
barbell rows after deadlifts). After that I switched to HST and blew my past physique development away.I don’t know if there was a better way to do it,but I was pleased with the results I got after such a long lay off. I had
lost 30 between not working out and depression(they go hand in hand for me) and I actually gained the majority back during the strength phase. Hope I was of some help.
I would go with a hypertrophy phase and gradually blend it in to a strength phase. The reason being that I personally would not want to go straight into the heavy weights. I need to become accustomed to gradually heavier weights. The step from layoff/come back training to a strength phase in my opinion is too large (for me maybe you can handle it) and a hypertrophy phase would be a nice bridge
I would go with Hypertrophy. Look for HST on this site. Read up on Joel Marions Ripped, Rugged, and Dense. It will give you good guidelines to go on. Or check out issue #1 maximal weights.
Test your strength deficit, and that should tell you what you need to focus on first. Try compound exercises like vertical jump and bench press. If you have a 30%< difference between your max and your max negative lifts, work on hypertrophy. If the difference is greater than 30%, you need to work on your maximal strength. Also, Poliquin recommends doing hypertrophy phases first, syas that they make your strength gains a lot better when you go to a maximal strength protocol.
hey, I like the idea of using the strength deficit as a method of deciding what aspect of training should be focussed on but havent read much about it. Where did you get your info. Also doesnt it involve testing a 1RM and a max negative. Would this be too much for someone who is only a couple of weeks into coming back to training ie injury potential etc