Once you have been lifting weights for around 3 - 6 months and you have built up a knowledge base of exercises and correct exercise form, you will need to start mixing up your weights sessions to continually get the right training stimulus and force adaptation to take place, so that you can start to increase gains in Muscle Mass (Hypertrophy) and increase your strength. I have mentioned before that doing the same programme all the time will eventually lead to a training Plateau and staleness, even reversal of some of the gains you have made. It comes down to the old saying "The definition of Insanity is doing he same thing over and over and expecting different results" why waste hours of effort for no gains. Now if you are going to progress with your training, you must have a basic knowledge about what you are trying to do and that is the point of this blog from here on in.
Muscular Hypertrophy Training
Since you started training you will have been seeing some signs of Muscular Hypertrophy (muscle growth), as it happens, when you first start out, just about any stimulus will work for you, but this stimulus will tail off, so now you have to progress, but what are you going to do?
The first thing you will need to do is a good year of Hypertrophy training. You have a few choices open to you.
- You can do lots of Isolation work (if you have read my blogs you will know that I do not subscribe to this unless you are specifically training for Body Building))
- You can do a Split Training Routine (Best for if you can train 4-6 times per week)
- You can do a Full Body Training Routine. ( best for if you can only train 3 times per week)
If you are sticking with full body sessions, the reps and percentages I am going to prescribe for the split routine apply.
For a Split Training Routine you can use many different variations, but here is a sample one for you.
Session 1. Locomotion --------Lunges, step ups. etc.
Session 2. Push ------Press ups, bench press, overhead pressing. etc.
REST/ RECOVER DAY
Session 3. Pull -------Chin ups, pull ups, decline rows, Lat pull downs, Seated rows etc.
Session 4. Changing levels -----. Squats, Dead Lifts, Pistols
REST /RECOVER DAY
Session 5 Rotation ------Wood chops, sledge hammer work, medicine ball work
If you can only fit in 4 sessions, add rotation into session 1 and session 3.
To specifically train HYPERTROPHY, you must work in the 8-12 repetition range for the majority of exercises, however some parts of your body may respond better to higher repetitions, such as your Traps and your Legs, it is not set in stone as all people respond differently to training stimulus, so a bit of experimentation on your behalf is necessary. Not a bad thing as this is how you learn.
You might be thinking that it is a lot of guess work, but here is where a bit of experience comes into play. Over the many years of strength training, we know that if you lift in the 8-12 Repetition range at the right weights intensity (Load in this case) you will stimulate mass growth.
The correct training intensity for Hypertrophy is around 60 - 85% of your 1 repetition maximum for a given lift. This percentage figure will differ slightly depending who you listen too, but you won't go wrong with it.
When you are at this training stage you will know that the heavier you lift the less number of reps you can do with a given load, so training for Hypertrophy in the 8-12 rep range will give you strength gains as well, but the main effect will be growth as long as you back your training up with the right Nutrition. This means eating around 1.8 to 2.2 gram of Protein for each Kilogram of fat free mass (Lean Muscle Mass) and you will need to eat plenty of Carbohydrates too.
It may not be practical to test a 1 rep max for all the different types of lifting that you are going to be doing, doing a 1 rep max for some lifts is not advised. So you will 1 rep max test just a certain few lifts. The rest of your lifting intensities are done using a bit of guess work and trial and error.
The main lifts suited to 1 rep max test.
The Squat
The Dead lift
The Bench Press
The Pull up
The Overhead Press
The Power Clean
The Bent over row (I would use a 3 rep max test for this, for safety sake. When you have your max, use a predicted 1 rep max using a chart) Repetition Max Calculator (click the link to view)
You can use the calculator for any lift if you don't fancy an all out effort.
Putting it all together.
For example sake I will use The Bench Press.
You test your 1 rep max on the Bench Press and find that it is 100 kg
so you would train the bench press for 8-12 reps between
100/65% = 65kg to 100/85%= 85kg
Meaning 65kg x 8-12 to 85kg 8-12
This does not mean that you will definitely get 8 reps at 85% of your 1 rep max, but it will come somewhere between those weights specified.
So a Hypothetical session for the Bench Press may look like this
Set 1. Warm up 12 reps at 50%
Set 2. Warm up 10 reps at 60%
Set 3. Working set 8-12 @ 65% ( You will do a maximum of 12 reps)
Set 4. Working set 8-12 @70%
Set 5. Working set 8-12 @ 75%
Set 6. Working set 8-12 @ 80%
By the time you get to the latter sets you will be looking to be at failure somewhere in the 8-12 range. You can see that you are increasing the load by 5% each time.
Or another method could be:
Set 1 and 2 warm up sets
Set 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 75% x 8-12, here you are using the same load for all your sets, hoping that the sheer volume of the sets will induce muscular failure.
There is no right or wrong as long as you get the Percentage right and the correct amount of reps. You will have 12 months of this Hypertrophy training to experiment all the different loads and reps to use to find out what works best for you. Using all the different methods will also give you an ever changing training stimulus to force adaptation to take place.
I hope this all makes sense, tomorrow I will do a piece on Maximum Strength training.
Have a good night
Steve
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