Hypertrophy I ---> Hypertrophy II?

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Hi there,

I’m reaching the end of the Hypertrophpy program (my first with BBM) and really enjoyed it. My 1RM have increased, my working sets have increased, generally I feel a lot stronger in all of my movements (once the program ends I’ll post a progress story). It was my first time with an RPE system too so that took some getting used to.

Would hypertrohpy II be the next logical step? Some details about me:

  1. Male, 34, 225lbs, 6’2" (I’m carrying a bit more weight than I’d like)
  2. Current goal is to increase muscle mass (hypertrophy) as I feel that 1) my muscles are too small for my size and 2) previously I felt like my LP had capped out because of muscle size
  3. No desire to compete in powerlifting
  4. Have basic equipment at home – stands, incline bench, bar with plates (no dumb bells or other fancy equipment) I’ve read some folks here suggesting following another program as a transition period, so I wasn’t sure.

I should also add that the Hyper I program did call for 2x days of GPP work, which I never managed to do. Is the fact that I missed these incredibly detrimental to my progress? I think I saw them as optional, and with the lifting days taking ~2hours saw them as time I did not have. Would love to hear how essential those days are viewed, and whether it’s maybe better to do something vs nothing on them.

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General answers:

  1. The biggest difference between hypertrophy I and II is the amount of volume. Increasing volume is one way to continue once your body stops responding to the current stimulus. One school of thought would be that if hypertrophy I worked, run it again. The reasons people generally switch between programs is to impart novel stimulus–the exercises are different along with the rep ranges. I think my decision point would be if I responded really really well, I’d run it again, else switch to the powerbuilding template.

  2. GPP–if MCSA is your focus (sounds like it) then I’d at least do the weights on GPP days. I don’t own the hypertrophy template but in the other templates all of the GPP (aside from the LISS/HIIT) is focused more on hypertrophy (high rep sets, AMRAP, etc.) than on strength, so even if you wish to ignore the cardio I would think the other portions align with your current goals.

You’ve hinted at a loss in fat (i.e. too much weight but want to increase muscle size) for which you either want a calorie deficit or maintenance.

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My experience: I’ve run the Hypertrophy I a handful of times. Sometimes I’ll run it twice in a row, but change up the exercises. For the past couple of years I’ve been doing strength focus once a year over the winter when I’m indoors more, having fewer demands on my time, eating more, and training motivation is higher. I don’t compete in meets but still like to compete against my log book. Other times in the year, I’ll do a powerbuilding type program as a break from hypertrophy focus and to get back to some heavier weights.

I am 100% certain that skipping GPP is detrimental to my progress on GPP. And consistent something > inconsistent something > nothing. I’ve found that if I don’t make the GPP exercises look like the regular training or do them first, then I don’t give them attention. Currently, I manage to use the rower once a week, and get some arm work in between compound lifts. To combat my neglect of dedicated back work, I’m going to program it first on each day for the next training block. I’ll probably need to do the rower first thing in the morning, maybe even ten minutes every day as soon as I wake up.

Your goal is hypertrophy, so I say stick with that. You wrote that you made good progress on Hypertrophy I and enjoyed it. I don’t think Hypertrophy II would be the next logical step. My recommendation would be to run Hypertrophy I again. Make a fourth day dedicated to GPP. But do it first as Day 1, and log it. You could get some consistency to GPP, observe any difference from GPP, and see how you do with four programmed days. Maybe change up the compound exercises as your equipment permits. The nice thing about this template is that when exercises get stale, you can rotate in new ones and make progress. Later, if you find yourself wanting to focus more on strength, make the transition then. It’s hard to go wrong, unless you are programming against your goals, or get injured, or miss training days.

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Thanks to those who responded!

I’m curious why there is no recommendation to run Hyper II? From what I can tell, Hyper II will just add another lifting day, and potentially more volume? Would that not be simply more helpful for what I’m trying to achieve?

Is there something about Hyper II that would not meet my goals? Is it simply to save money by not buying it? Or that if I made gains on Hyper I then I should just continue on it?

I don’t think Hyper I is boring by any means, and now that I understand the RPE system and the general progression of the Hyper I programming I think I could do better, but I feel like I’m failing to grasp something.

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Because you are responding well to hypertrophy 1 which means it may work again with minimal adjustments and even if not, switching to another similarly loaded program (such as body building or powerbuilding or hypertrophy 1 with different exercises) is likely enough volume and, because of the novel stimulus of slightly different movements and block periodization is enough to drive additional high quality results.

Increasing volume incurs an additional time cost and because it is an increase in load, might be more inefficient (i.e.your body might not recover and rebuild as efficiently to that stimulus).

If you were seeing mediocre or bad results, the story would be different.

Of course, it is impossible to predict how and individual will respond to a given program and it could be that you’d respond even better to hypertrophy II.

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It’s kind of odd that you want more volume but didn’t do the GPP days.

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If you’re carrying more weight than you want, and your waist isn’t within the guidelines (you didn’t mention waist, so maybe you’re within guidelines), I highly suggest getting the GPP in on H1 or H2. It’s been a massive help to me and you’re missing a LOT of work as it ramps up over time. GPP is recommended on non-lifting days, and generally only takes me 30-45 mins, which is shorter than my H1 lifting days.

For you, I’d think Powerbuilding 1 or H1 and including GPP with some changes in your lifts would be a good choice. H2 adds a 4th day of lifting, so if you can’t find time for GPP days now, will you find time for it in H2?

My plan when I end H1 is to move to Powerbuilding 1 or H2. Given the templates I own, I’ll probably move to PB1 and wait for a sale on H2 and run H2 after PB1.

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Thanks for sharing this. I guess my thinking with going to H2 was this:

I’ll add 1 day of lifting so I’m doing 4 instead of 3 days and that will help my muscles get bigger more than some running or ab work 2x/week." I imagine there is some fault to that logic that I am missing – can you help me?

Regarding the GPP days, I looked at the exercises and noticed they were largely LISS/HIIT, abs, trunk, and some arm work. I didn’t think that would help me achieve my goals of hypertrophy as much as sheer fitness, and omitted them out of sheer laziness. I’ll start doing them for variety and to see what they do to my results, but I can’t help but feel like they aren’t going to do much in terms of making my muscles bigger.

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Whenever I’m evaluating situations like this I always take it to logical extremes, just to see where it goes.

So…why not 5 days? 7? Twice a day? Wouldn’t those muscles grow even bigger? What if you did it all day? Skipping sleep? Even bigger?

At some point…I think the answer is clear–eventually you work them harder than they can recover from and your progress goes from good to not as good to actually worse.

So the goal is to find the sweet spot–the spot where you have done enough to disrupt your balance but not so much that your body can’t recover from the workouts. You have found “a sweet spot” as evidenced by the fact that you made gains. It could be that adding more volume in H2 will accelerate those gains…or it could be more than your body can recover from which could stall progress and increases the chance of injury.

I have absolutely no idea where you fall on this spectrum. :slight_smile: I gave the advice as if it were me deciding what to do–repeat a program I saw good progress on vs running the same type of program with more volume. If I didn’t see progress and felt really recovered right after each workout, that would tell me I should move to H2.

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Thanks for the response!! I’m actually super appreciative of everything you’ve shared so apologies if I appeared stubborn or combative.

I’m going to re-run Hypertrophy I but this time make sure I complete the GPP days.

As I get into it, I’m wondering what folks do for the low intensity cardio days? I don’t have a rower or treadmill, do I just run at a slow pace? And what did folks do for abs, as it says AMRAP and I don’t suppose they want me to do 1000 crunches?

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Your questions are fair, I think, and similar to the lines of thought most have.

For LISS I usually just jog. I prefer to use a HR monitor (I like numbers) and stick around 140 BPM (I’m 44, so it’s probably a little high, but feels fine).

Abs I either do ab wheel roll outs, or some combination of mediocre dragon flags and planks. Some times I’ll do high pulley crunches (use the rope attachment and bow essentially) or make L’s from a pull up bar.

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@vashts85 On my second run of Hypertrophy I now. I plan to keep rotating it with either Strength I or PB I. My concern, at least for me, is that I wouldn’t be able to recover sufficiently between training sessions from the extra volume in the four-day a week templates, at least at this point.

As far as GPP goes, I jog for LISS and I’ve gone back to planks for abs. They’re boring but effective. If you choose ab wheel rollouts, make sure your form is correct and you’re using your abs and not your arms and legs to perform the movement. I made this mistake early on. Check YouTube for some examples on how to perform them correctly.

When I do the ab work for AMRAP, I do them at intervals beginning at 1 minute on and 1 minute off. So for 7 minutes, I do 4 sets on/3 off and add a set as the programming adds additional minutes. Once I get to ten minutes, I shorten the rest interval. There are probably other ways you can organize this. It’s just the way I do it for now. I found that if I just try to hold a plank for 7 minutes, I get about 2 minutes in and then can’t hold it for very long after that. By incorporating timed intervals, I spend more time actually planking during the time allotted.

Speaking of GPP, I rotate my exercises. During a hypertrophy block, I incorporate more unilateral movements. During a strength block, I use bilateral movements. For example, during a hypertrophy block, I’ll do chin-ups, lever rows, one-arm overhead tricep extensions, and hammer curls. For my next strength block, I’ll probably switch to pull-ups, bent-over or seal rows, dips, and EZ bar curls. I don’t think unilateral vs. bilateral is so important as switching things up every 10 weeks so things don’t get stale. Sometimes, I set this up as a circuit just to keep it interesting.

For HIIT, it depends on the weather. If I have to be inside, I use the rower set on 6. If I can, I’d rather be outside. I’ll do sandbag carries, keg carries, “sled” pulls, or something along those lines. My sled is an old sedan tire. I set the keg on it and tie a bowline knot in the end of a tow strap, and step into it. I’ll either drag or carry as far and as fast as I can for 20 seconds, then walk around for 100 seconds, and then repeat in the opposite direction. Incorporating these strongman exercises into my GPP helps target my upper back musculature, which I long neglected before I found BBM. It also adds some fun.

Hope something in all that might be useful.

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