Hi BBM, I am 18 and have been training for about 3 years without a proper program and have never did powerlifting style training so I would consider myself still a beginner. Additionally, I was in a 3 month cut during which I was injured and couldn’t squat and deadlift properly, and as such I believe I lost quiet a bit of muscle (I now weigh 70 kg @ 13.3% bf, and I am 178 cm). My main goal is hypertrophy, but a side goal is also strength. I already asked a similar question to this, but my goals have slightly changed and now I am a bit more focused on hypertrophy so I wanted to know whether the original recommendations that Jordan made when I said that I am equally interested in strength and hypertrophy are still good for my goals?
The recommendation was:
- Beginner template
- Powerbuilding I
- Strength I
- Powerbuilding II
I have already purchased the beginner and powerbuilding I templates and the question I have about them is whether the volume there is high enough to make enough progress when it comes to hypertrophy and where should I go from there?
Josh,
Thanks for the post and hopefully you’re back to training now.
The main goal of your resistance training should be to increase muscle mass and improve muscle function, e.g. strength and strength endurance. I think that a good strength and conditioning program is likely to be programmed in such a way that there is a good hypertrophy stimulus. Similarly, I think a good hypertrophy program should be programmed in a way where the individual can get stronger on the movements they’re using within similar rep ranges.
In any event, since you’ve already got the Beginner template, are young, and haven’t been training formally for that long, I’d do the beginner template.
Additionally, I’d keep the idea that you’re about 15-25kg away from starting to fill out your frame. This is going to take ~ 2 years or so to do. I wouldn’t cut for the next year unless your waist gets >35" or something else pops up.
Thanks for the help and the quick reply Jordan!
About the training itself, I am planning on doing the beginner template and then the powerbuilding I template after that since I have already got it, but where would you recommend I go from there (Maybe the hypertrophy template or powerbuilding II)?
Another side question I have is whether I should add some isolation exercises for muscle that aren’t being trained directly such as the calves and side delts, or are the exercises included in the programs enough to make progress?
Hey Josh,
You’ll probably be on the Beginner Template for the next 4-6 months, so I’m not sure I would be thinking of what’s next yet and any answer given now may change in that time period. That said, the hypertrophy or powerbuilding template could be appropriate for you afterwards, but you’d need to decide if you’re interested in strength in the squat, bench press, and deadlfit and want to prioritize them for any particular reason. If so, powerbuilding would be the choice. If not, Hypertrophy it is.
As far as if you should add isolation exercises to the beginner template, I don’t think so- but in future programming…sure. Again, the biggest keys to your success are going to be training consistently for the next 10 years and gaining body weight slowly over time.