Where to go from here ? Strength and Hypertrophy Question..

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Hi guys, first of thank you for all the content you provide from the podcast to the seminars, and the amazing templates, they have been working wonders for all my lifts. So I was wondering if you guys could help me in figuring out what my best course of action should be,

I’m 26
6’3 and 215 lbs
Bench 365
Squat 405
Dead 485

As far as lifting history, I’ve been lifting since I was 16, always with hypertrophy-biased training, and I started to focus more on strength for the big three when i was about 21 (with questionable form)

Currently, I’m on week 11 of the 12 week for strength, surprisingly I’ve had a incredible response in all my lifts, but my squat is lagging. A while ago I sustained an injury at work where I couldn’t move my legs for a long period of time, which made me lose some size, they aren’t noodles but they are certainly disproportionate and I would like to add some size back to them, my upper body is already holding a good amount of muscle mass, so I don’t know if i should buy a template for overall hypertrophy, or re do 12 week strength and add more volume at lighter loads for my thighs, maybe lunges, leg presses, or light high bar squats.

If it helps, my goals/priorities are as follows; 1) add some size to my legs and shoulders 2) lean out, currently at around 20% bf I would like to get down to 190-200 lbs BW 3) get back on the road for strength

Without forgetting about Strength, Do you guys think that I should continue with the 12 week strength, while tweaking things and applying some caloric changes ? or should I move onto the 12 week hypertrophy, alternating my caloric goal as my weight changes? or is there a third option to all of this that I’m not seeing ?

Thanks again, and I’m sorry for the loaded question.

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Thanks for the kind words, Lears.

As far as the goals here, they’re a bit disparate considering you want to “add size to legs and shoulders” and “lean out” at the same time as a well-trained individual.

I would be curious to what your waist is right now, but if it’s 34" or less I’d be pretty confident in advising a slow weight gain (1-3kg/month) whilst re running the 12 week strength program. I do think the legs get a lot of work in that program so provided you’re gaining a bit of LBM, I’d expect your legs to grow too.

After that 3 months where you’d ideally have put on 3-6kg, you could reassess what you want to do. I wouldn’t let your waist get about 36.5" at any point in the process. If it is that high right now I would likely add some conditioning volume and make some dietary changes to fix that, probably combining it with the 3 or 4 day hypertrophy plan.

Okay- think I’ve covered what I’d do in this scenario :slight_smile:

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For conditioning volume, I mean total amount of cardio (LISS or HIIT) being done.

I do think it’s possible for 1RM’s to improve if programming is appropriate, yes.

I don’t think I would add the additional work you indicated to that program.