I’ve been doing a lot of research on hypertrophy and found much conflicting information.
- Some people recommend strength training with low reps but increased weight at each session for hypertrophy claiming that a stronger muscle is a bigger muscle. However, scientific literature showed this to be false.
- Others recommend low-volume HIT (as low as 1 set per exercise) where each exercise is done to both concentric and eccentric failure.
- Then there are the rep speed folks who recommend eccentric contractions that last up to 30 seconds for maximum muscle gains.
- And finally, we’ve got the high-volume crowd who recommend training each muscle group 2-3 times per week. These programs typically contain 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise. I asked ChatGPT how one should train to achieve maximum hypertrophy and got the following response:
“To achieve maximum hypertrophy, you should aim for 3-5 sets of 6-12 reps with 1-2 minutes of rest between sets. You should train each muscle group 2-3 times per week with at least 48 hours of rest between sessions. A moderate rep speed of around 2 seconds per rep is generally recommended for maximum hypertrophy.”
I also asked about HIT vs high volume and the reply was “Both HIT and high volume can be effective.” so ChatGPT doesn’t seem to think that there’s a difference according to its training data. However, given its response above, it seems to recommend high-volume training in general.
Given this information, it can be hard to build a program if say for example, a HIT program consisting of 1 workout session every week can be considered to yield the same benefits as a high volume 6 days per week program where each muscle is trained 2x per week.
What are the knobs that are actually worth playing with to stimulate more hypertrophy according to the current evidence?
Recommend checking out podcast episode [NODE=“205”][/NODE] to start out with on this topic.
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In addition to Dr. Baraki’s recommendation to check out that podcast on the topic, our Bodybuilding Template has an extensive ebook on this, along with practical examples of how to program (e.g. the template). Some replies for clarity:
If you look at a cross section of the population, a larger muscle is a stronger one. It’s just not as clear how gaining small amounts of muscle slowly over time affects an individual’s strength.
- Others recommend low-volume HIT (as low as 1 set per exercise) where each exercise is done to both concentric and eccentric failure. [/quote]
This would not be a great choice, as nearly all available data shows this to be sub optimal.
- Then there are the rep speed folks who recommend eccentric contractions that last up to 30 seconds for maximum muscle gains.[/quote]
This is completely made up.
- And finally, we’ve got the high-volume crowd who recommend training each muscle group 2-3 times per week.[/quote]
If total sets per muscle group are greater than ~ 10-15, splitting it up seems to drive more hypertrophy than a single session. It’s not a huge difference, but some data there.
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Thanks, guys. I listened to that podcast a while ago and it was great as usual.
I wanted to start this discussion since it didn’t address things like rep speed and rest periods between sets but I’m assuming you guys didn’t touch on those because they aren’t that important.
I’m definitely grabbing the bodybuilding template soon because physique is my main thing right now.
The rest periods for strength and hypertrophy work are likely to be similar enough to not make a unique difference one way or another, save for more advanced techniques like supersets for example. For bar velocity, we did not address consciously slowing down the tempo, no- but neither of those would be best for strength or hypertrophy. Rather, moving each rep (under control) as fast as possible would be preferred.
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Thanks, Jordan. A lot of bs about hypertrophy on the Internet. Either way, I’m making great progress since I started optimizing my protein intake as described in your article. Now I’ll start a proper bodybuilding block to achieve my goal.