Dear Barbell Medicine Crew,
Thanks you for all you do! The information you put out is just amazing.
I wanted to ask you how much progress from a hypertrophy / strength endurance perspective is possible on the at home template - and in at home training in general. I live outside the US, and it looks like home training will have to suffice perhaps for the rest of the year. I will be able to get access to two adjustable dumbells upto about 40kg each, but that’s about it in terms of equipment.
So of course, much of this is contingent on the existing condition of the lifter - but how much hypterophy/gains are possible on a home training program? I know that strength training for 1RM etc cannot work with this equipment, but if someone could presumable find ways to keep hitting a 8-12 rep range at around RPE 7-8 (scaling up the exercises…e.g RF elevated split squat, with extended ROM, tempo, pause, shorter rest times, myoreps etc.), wouldn’t hypertrophy progress be possible? And strength endurance could be worked on for a very long time, I would imagine. I am currently trying to lose fat, and was using a hypertrophy template earlier, and have also used your endurance template.
so I know there is a lot that I can’t do at home, but curious. My lack of training of course means I have a lot of room to progress, but in general terms, I wonder how much “progress” is really possible in this context? I am curious to see, almost as a minimalist (if inefficient) challenge, since I won’t have an alternative for 6=8 months.
Many thanks!
What sort of answer are you looking for here?
It is not even possible to provide a quantitative answer here in general, much less for a specific individual.
It is highly likely that hypertrophy improvements are possible, but the specific amount is unfortunately completely impossible to predict or to project. You’ll just have to train hard during this period of time to find out what’s possible.
Austin - thanks for your reply, and it makes me realize that this was a silly question!
(As an aside, one thing I love about the material BBM put outs on forum/IG stuff is how you point out how to think through things, and I’ve learned a lot from that).
I think I just wanted to know if limited (in equipment, i.e. only dumbbells and a few other things) home training could be something that is viewed as a long term (by manipulating programming) strategy rather than just a stop gap. But I now realize that question is so broad and contingent on so many things that it can’t be answered.
But I’m going to adopt this part of your answer as my approach: “You’ll just have to train hard during this period of time to find out what’s possible.”!! That sounds like a perfect way to go.
Thanks again for your reply.
I can offer my own anecdotal experience here. I’ve been following a very lightly-modified at home template for 8 weeks now, and have seen some of the most rapid and satisfying hypertrophy response I’ve ever seen. The first couple of weeks of the template were uniquely challenging for me, as nearly everything about the training was significantly different from what I’ve done for the past few years, but I found myself adapting pretty quickly to the much higher rep ranges and challenges to keep from losing balance during a bunch of the motions.
I can definitely tell that I’ve lost a fair amount of 1RM strength in the “big three”, but putting up big numbers has never really been a goal of mine, so for me, it’s a fair trade. I’m going to start going back to the gym next week to get under a barbell again, and am looking forward to it, but I ended up really appreciating this forced opportunity to explore a completely different kind of training, and am very happy with what I’ve gotten out of it.
All of that said, I’m a very lean, not very strong guy going into the at-home template to begin with, so YMMV.
@DorianStarbuck I’m sorry I missed this response - this is very encouraging. Austin’s reply just sort of set off a light bulb in my head - the only way is to commit like hell to the program, train hard, and see where it takes you. I’m glad to hear it had excellent hypertrophy results for you!