It might be true some old-school powerlifters ate twenty Happy Meals a day… and looked it. But fat is not always functional, and an athlete should probably be able to climb a flight of stairs. Sumo wrestlers probably know a lot about hypertrophy too. But they have staff to attend to certain needs that arise. Most likely, you take care of your own personal business^.
^Reminding me of the Demetri Martin comedy bit about how “mind your own beeswax” is the only phrase where it is acceptable to substitute “beeswax” for “business”. Are you travelling for beeswax or pleasure? I’m in show beeswax… we call it show bees for short…
What does this have to do with bodybuilding though? Where the goal is building a muscular, aesthetic physique. Where proportions are taken into consideration. That is what the post was about. Who cares what athletes are doing for their sports?
Did you just start watching a bunch of Natural Hypertrophy videos and decide to go on a rampage? I partially agree with what you’re saying, just amongst the YouTube comment crowd, but I feel like people actually competing in bodybuilding Train like bodybuilders. Maybe sometimes Powerlifting technique infiltrates some bodybuilders’ training like arching on bench or squatting really wide. But most actual bodybuilders I see train online or in person or even myself still train in a conventional bodybuilding style with high reps, lots of sets and a lot of intensity on a wide variety of exercises to cover every angle and detail.
Edit: just wanted to add that I highly doubt any bodybuilder is doing Starting Strength
My first reply was literally made by reading the original post and responding to points raised by Nyseto in sequence. I grant that not all of them are unique to bodybuilding. But if my points are rambly, and I don’t think they are, then so was the original post which referred to all the same things.
But sumo? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. But it’s obviously tongue in cheeks.
I see strength training infiltrating bodybuilding by making it seem as if hypertrophy and strength are symmetrical, when in reality they’re asymmetrical. The type of strength that comes with hypertrophy is a completely different beast from powerlifting strength and the intent behind it. The result is that you end up having bodybuilders training like powerlifters with the goal of bodybuilding.
It’s a kind of brainwashing where the goal is adding weight and isolations are treated as an afterthought. It’s the same bad advice as “You want big biceps? Get your barbell rows up.” For hypertrophy, you chase failure at a moderate rep range, never the weight. Chasing weight, introducing momentum, etc. is always going to end up being counterproductive.
Because the goal of building a muscular physique requires a specific kind of intent or priority, and if the right intent is not there, then results will be mediocre.
Where are you seeing this? Can you provide a link to a study ?? I see lots of people telling new lifters to get stronger, but this is usually just a way of saying you need progressive overload to effect a training response. I don’t see many people saying do powerlifting to get big biceps. Accept those old articles that tell you squats make all your muscles grow and they are true
There are lanes when you take optimal into account. More ways to skin a cat doesn’t negate efficiency. Your idea of “there are no lanes” would for example apply really well to beginners who will grow off of anything. It wouldn’t however apply as well to those who are further along or those who are a strength purist or hypertrophy purist.
Sure, the initial progression in numbers is addictive but once that progression stalls and a bodybuilder remembers why he got into it in the first place, they start to lose their passion for lifting because now the results they truly wanted aren’t there. Initial progression can be deceptive. It attracts many bodybuilders, but fails to keep them because pure bodybuilding requires a mindset that is diametrically opposed to chasing numbers.
The amount of PED users who give good advice is a very small amount and it’s mostly those who started using after reaching an elite status naturally, the majority started using early on.
There is a right way to train for hypertrophy if you are further along in your progress, or a purist. The “just lift heavy bro” advice only works for a subset of people and up to a point.
“Great genetics” is mostly noticeable at the top level on stage. On a day to day basis, someone with average genetics can be perceived as having great genetics just by being muscular.
The strength gained from having a larger muscle is different from the strength gained as a skill. My strength on olympic lifts for example, would be trash.
“Strength is strength” but the intent differs in strength gained from powerlifting vs. hypertrophy.
The “no such thing as having a bad day in the gym” was mostly said from the hypertrophy perspective where the main objective is to chase a stimulus such as failure, rather than a specific weight.
Lifting everyday isn’t a big issue when training for hypertrophy if frequency and volume per muscle group is taken into account. I don’t use big weights because I’m always lifting in the 9-15 rep range, it only looks big to those who can’t lift what I lift in that range. For example 12 reps with 315 for me reminds me a lot of the days I did 165 for 12 reps because they both felt the same.
I mentioned minimalism with regards to something like omitting bicep curls due to already doing barbell rows. Going from Big 3 to Big 5 is still rather minimalistic for a hypertrophy purist. Bicep hypertrophy will eventually stall from rows alone once the back becomes the limiting factor. Rows at the end of the day are a back exercise because I can destroy my biceps and still go row afterwards.
For a hypertrophy purist, “heavy” means muscular failure. Your idea of heavy is measured in percentages, for me it’s measured in proximity to failure. My main goal is to take a lighter weight and make it feel heavy.
How much you bench doesn’t matter to a hypertrophy purist. I’m not a lifter, I’m a bodybuilder. I use weights just as a furniture delivery driver has to unload couches and carry them up a flight of stairs. Is the furniture delivery driver a lifter? Not necessarily.
Saying you love training for hypertrophy already implies there’s a right way to do it.
I meant that hypertrophy training turns less heads than strength training, that is in the act itself. Almost no one cares to look at the guy squirming with 225 on the 12th rep, they look at the guy who is about to max out his 405 bench.
“Get stronger to get bigger” starts to quickly become nebulous. For a bodybuilder who’s no longer a newbie, this would be bad advice, it needs to be refined. If you mean “get stronger to get bigger” by disregarding that phrase entirely in order to reach failure at 9-12 reps..in order to cause an overload to add more weight later, then I agree.
These points are actually pretty solid. I don’t habe much to disagree for the most part.
Except that progressing in big lifts in ”higher” rep ranges is a valid way to increase hypetrophy, at least according to many competitive bodybuilders. As long as you don’t focus too much on progressing via strength-skill or technical improvements.
Maybe choosing some lighter compound excersises is important too. I guess nobody here says that doing low bar squats, DLs and competition bench is the way. But HB squats, RDLs and incline bench seem to be quite common among successful BBs.
There’s no link, you are already seeing it with the existence of the mantra “get stronger to get bigger”. Yeah it means progressive overload, but progressive overload gets conflated with strength.
Hypertrophy can continue without big external strength jumps. You might still do the same weight but with better control. From the muscle’s perspective, you’re still overloading. From the barbell’s perspective, you’re “stuck.”
Right, better control is getting stronger…but it comes as a consequence of focusing on hypertrophy and when you stop worrying about getting stronger, is when bodybuilding really begins.
It’s all the bodybuilders who are obsessed with the weight they lift, rather than the muscle they’re trying to work.
Their obsession with the weight comes from powerlifters brainwashing them into thinking all they gotta do is to get stronger in order to get bigger because those powerlifters are trying to “rescue” them from all the bad advice they got from PED users in an effort to “fix” bodybuilding.
