I’m certain the doctors would’ve had an answer about this, and answered it a million times, but I don’t know where it would be. But Doc Feigenbaum’s vlog made me think of getting a hypertrophy program and just flipping between that and Super Total to increase 1RM. Does anyone know about this?
I think the answer is likely that more muscle will be helpful for powerlifting but you should probably do what you enjoy doing. If you enjoy throwing in a hypertrophy template do that. Anecdotally, I get achy if I run the same template type too many times in a row. I find that the variation of the exercises and the high level goals of the strength vs hypertrophy templates keeps me feeling healthy. I have been running two rounds of strength templates followed by two rounds of hypertrophy templates. It works for me, figure out what works for you.
I think that it’s undeniable that larger muscles are associated with greater strength. When when looking at cross sectional data, people with the more muscle mass tend to lift more than people with less muscle mass. That’s not really the cruz of your query though, which is “does increasing muscle mass increase muscle strength?”
Based on existing data, it looks like strength can increase without gaining muscle mass as well as decrease without losing muscle mass. The opposite is also true, muscle mass can increase without improving strength performance.
In this way, strength performance is more complex than just raw force production. Rather, it’s a force concert that needs a trained conductor (the brain) at the podium instructing the muscles what to do and when to do it. Taking long periods of time away from training for strength, which is specific, is probably not the best way to get stronger.
There is considerable overlap in most strength and hypertrophy programs to where a “strength-focused” program is likely to drive hypertrophy and a “hypertrophy-focused” program is likely to drive strength changes. Still, rather modest changes in muscle mass one way or another are unlikely to make a real difference in strength performance.
This podcast may be helpful: Episode #205- Training For Strength vs. Training For Size