My issues with measuring hypertrophy by strength increase

[oojeanetteoo]

I’ve been working out for almost 2 years now (a lot of it sub-optimally) and I’d say I’m close to an intermediate level in the sense that I no longer have linear progress with my lifts. My goals are 100% hypertrophy, I dont care about strength at all, but I use strength increases to measure my hypertrophy progress, which leads to the situation below.

During the last few weeks of my first bulk that I finished 2 weeks ago, I was hitting plateaus that I could not figure out how to break through even though I was gaining weight. And it was causing me to go through the following cycle ->

(My progression scheme on bench is once I hit a weight for 3x12 with good form, I add 5lbs and go for 3x8 and build up to 3x12)

1. Feeling really good on Push Day A, hit 140 3x10 PR. Last set was say 9-10 RPE
2. Five days later Push Day A again, I hit 140 3x10 with similar results, last set RPE 9-10
3. Next week on Push Day A, my first set of 140 feels so heavy, I can get 10 reps but at RPE 9. There's no way I can get 2x10 with good form.

AND HERE IS MY ISSUE : I get so in my head about “if I cant lift as much as I could the last session im getting weaker and smaller” and I feel so attached to tracking my lifts and not going backwards, that I FORCE myself to do 2x10, by worsening my form (speeding up the eccentric, starting to push with other muscles). I end up not getting a great stimulus in my chest and I feel like this is hurting my joints when I train like this. The following chest sessions go the same way until im forced to drop the weight.

So many questions are: How do I solve this bad pattern?

If I am going “backwards” in terms of how much i can lift, is this a sign that my diet/recovery/training is poor, or is this normal to experience?

What should I do when I feel that first set seems too heavy?

Kind of a tangential question, but how do you know if you're making progress or your form is just deteriorating week to week?

EDIT :

The above doesn't give a good indication of my programming (not saying its good, but I dont ONLY bench)

I do chest 3 times a week, and have 2 separate days with different exercises. The reason I focused on my Bench is because that lift highlights what my issue has been with tracking progress

Push A :

• Barbell Bench
• Dumbbell Incline
• Machine Press
• Some isolation work for shoulders and triceps

Push B :

• Flat DB bench
• Barbell Incline
• Cable Flys
• Some isolation work for shoulders and triceps

I just do Push A -> B -> A ->B repeated

 

[johnc101]

@oojeanetteoo progress tension, not strength. strength will come as a byproduct of progressing tension.

so if you do 140 3x10 (30 reps), next workout do 140 3x10 and another set of 8 (38 reps) or 145 3x9 and another set of 3 (30 reps). either total weight or reps must go up - failure, strength levels, etc doesn't matter - you should always be progressing tension. most programs are combining hypertrophy with aspects of strength, but if you want pure hypertrophy, the way above is the way to do it.

for example - if you're progressing by only moving weight up when you hit 12 reps for 3 sets. so you hit 10, 10, 9, then next workout 11, 11,11, then next workout 12, 11, 10. you've hit 12 reps for a top set - your strength is there to be able to do that. you should just up the weight. but instead, now you are training strength endurance - your ability to produce strength output for multiple sets. so you hit 12, 10, 10. then 12, 11, 10. 12, 12, 10. 12, 12, 11. then maybe 12, 12, 12, finally! and there may be some ups and downs during this whole process after you've already developed the strength to hit 12 reps. during this whole time, you have barely been progressing tension - maybe 30 to 36 reps for the same weight over the course of weeks or months - very likely theres little to no hypertrophy happening. that's why intermediates rate of gains are so small - they're focusing on progressing the wrong things.

strength - a top set (not all this strength endurance work), is very correlated to hypertrophy for the most part. if you do a set of 12 at 140 then a set of 12 at 150, you'll get more hypertrophy from the second - so aim to continually improve strength. but once strength plateaus, the problem is most people focus on gaining strength by training different aspects of it. that may or may not bring hypertrophy with it. instead, focus on training hypertrophy - like i described in the second paragraph, if you care about hypertrophy.

 

[sweetascandy1990]

@johnc101 So we shouldnt wait until we can hit 12 for all sets, and instead, once we hit 12 for one of the sets, just up the weight?

 

[johnc101]

@sweetascandy1990 if you care about hypertrophy first and foremost, yeah, up the weight if you hit 12 for just 1. if for some reason you care about strength endurance, no. the all sets method incentivizes more rest, makes it more likely for you to stall, doesn't progress tension and imo just isn't well thought out.

to really expand on why it sucks (sorry if i'm indulging here), think about what it's making you do. in order to hit 12, 12, 12 with say 100lbs, that 100lbs has likely got to be your 15 rep max or so (the better strength endurance you have, or more rest you take, the lower the rep max can be - maybe 13RM or 14RM instead of 15RM). so for example say you got to 12, 12, 12 with 90lbs, and you now jump to 100lbs and you do 10, 9, 8 with it. 100lbs is your 10RM. you have to now figure out how to get your 100lbs 10RM to a 15RM.

but here's the problems with this progression model in trying to achieve that goal. it only allows you up to 12 reps per set, so you're not directly practicing getting more reps. it only allows you 3 sets, so you can't increase volume significantly enough to get much stronger. it only allows you to add volume to later sets when you're already fatigued. it doesn't progress tension quickly - big component of strength gain is muscle gain, and tension overload = muscle gain. if you're adding 1-3 reps a week, you're basically giving it the same stimulus every week and as your muscle adapts, you're going to get less and less proportional growth

in terms of pure hypertrophy (this is very oversimplified, but bear with me). week 1 your muscle needs 100lbs, 10, 10, 10 to grow for example, you give it 100lbs 11, 11, 10 - you grow. then your muscle adapts and needs 11, 10, 10 to grow - you give it 12, 11, 11, you grow. then your muscle adapts and needs 11, 11, 11, to grow. then you have a bad strength week and you only do 11, 11, 10 - no growth. your muscle still adapts as you've hit 12, 11, 11 before - so now it needs 12, 11, 11 to grow - and you gotta hit that to grow. but you're not stronger than you were before, and you're barely more muscular - so now you've stalled strength and size as very unlikely you're not going to be able to hit 12, 12, 11 magically unless you have a really good strength day or take tons of rest, etc. if you had the option to move up weight to say 105lbs and you did 11, 10, 9 for example - that's very likely above the what the muscles adapted to - so you'll grow again. if you were able to do 100lbs for 4 sets - 12, 11, 10, 8 - that's likely more than what the muscles adapted to - so you'll grow again. but this method doesn't allow for that (but ironically is what people do to overcome these stalls)

compared to the other method of just hitting the first set 12 and moving up weight. week 1 your muscle needs 100lbs 10, 10, 10 to grow for example, you give it 100lbs 11, 11, 10 - you grow. then your muscle adapts and needs 11, 10, 10 to grow - you give it 12, 11, 11, you grow. then your muscle adapts and needs 100lbs 11, 11, 11, to grow. but in this case, you have upped the weight, so you're using 105lbs now and hit say, 10, 10, 9. that's going to be above the 100lbs 11, 11, 11 very likely. then your muscle adapts - but it's adapting to say 102.5lbs 11, 11, 11. so next workout, you push and do 105lbs 12, 10, 8 and still grow, and then move up weight again and do 110lbs 10, 8, 6. you're staying way ahead of where your muscle is adapted to, growing the whole time, and i would almost bet anything that if you're able to do 110lbs for 10, you'll be able to do 100lbs for 14 or 15 and be able to hit the 12, 12, 12 if you choose to.

for beginners, whose strength and fitness is increasing rapidly, it really doesn't matter - and that's who the 3 sets approach works well for. their 10RMs are going to transform into 15RMs simply by doing the minimum volume (which is low for them - and likely covered by 3 sets), which is great. for more intermediate lifters, they can't count on this implicit strength gain, so they have to force it by either doing more volume or using heavier weights - which this method does not allow for.

sorry for rant, got carried away. i used to use the 3 sets thing for a lot of my isolation lifts and ran into these issues and spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it kept stalling. hopefully this helps you and others avoid training like this.

 

[sweetascandy1990]

@johnc101 I appreciate the thorough response, you rock!

 

[dawn16]

@johnc101 Hey, I really like this methodology and thanks for the detailed response. But my question is, when does it end? How do you program adding additional sets? And do you take those additional sets to failure as well?

This seems very similar to the Renaissance Periodization progression scheme, is that what your method is based on or similar to?

 

[johnc101]

@dawn16 You should always try to progress tension, if you’re not giving your muscle a tension stimulus above what your muscle needs to grow - you won’t grow. Program based on your recovery and ideally match to your rate of strength progression in hypertrophy rep ranges. Failure is just a tool, in some cases it’s needed to keep strength progressing, in others it’s just gonna lead to excess fatigue which will limit how effectively you can train.

Nah, I don’t like RP programming. Effort and number of sets imo arent great metrics for tension and their whole system is based on that. Effort is arbitrary (and hasn’t really been proven to have much effect on hypertrophy) and number of sets is based on effort and fatigue. I prefer total reps and load - if you do 100lbs for 30 total reps this session, and you do 105lbs for 30 total reps next session (even if it takes you 2-3 more sets), you can be sure you’ve progressed tension. If you do 3 sets of 100 this week and 3 sets of 105 next week you might go from 100 x12,12,10 to 105 x9,8,6 and it’s debatably progressing tension. If their sets happen to progress tension or if they add sets that likely will progress tension - but imo it’s working despite their system, not because of it.

 

[dawn16]

@johnc101 That all makes sense, but at what point does it get to the point where your workouts are taking 2 hours and you aren’t recovering? It seems like forced progression rather than true progression.

 

[johnc101]

@dawn16 yeah, i mean theoretically, if you're progressing at the correct rate and eating enough, etc. you should always be recovering enough. in terms of time constraints, ideally you wouldn't have any, but obviously this is reality. my workouts rarely go above 1.5 hours (usually an hour actual workout time) and i do full body every other day or 3x a week.

there's lots of ways to do what i'm trying to convey without it eventually taking 2 hours in the gym daily. in terms of what i actually do - hopefully this will give you a better sense of what i'm talking about. i start with 60% of my H1RM (hypertrophy 1RM) and progress 2.5% every workout up until 80% of H1RM, then reset to 60% and repeat. my hypertrophy 1RM is just an estimated 1rm (weight*reps*0.0333+weight) based on my best sets performed during the 60 to 80% cycle. so for example, one workout i do 110lbs for 12 reps = 154lbs and the next workout i do 115lbs for 11 reps = 157lbs. so, if 154lbs was the best set H1RM i've performed as of yet, that's what the 60-80% are calculated from. then, since i beat it - 157lbs becomes the new number and the 60-80% numbers are recalculated. first set i go for a new H1RM, which is typically failure or close and form i allow myself not to be perfect, remaining reps i just try to execute them as perfectly as i can without worrying about how far from failure they are. i have three exercise rotations, so 27 progressive workouts, all increasing tension. i'm generally hitting new H1RMs for 1/3 to 1/2 of my lifts every workout. in terms of volume - i start at 30 total reps per movement pattern and decrease to 15, which keeps recovery solid and when i reset from 80% to 60%, it's an increase in tonnage (although a decrease in load).

in this method, you're forcing progression, by increasing weight every workout, but you're also getting true progression by measuring H1RM and literally every time i've reset from 80% to 60% i've been able to do more weight for the same reps as i progress back up (60-80% is like 7 to 25 reps for most of my lifts). honestly, i wouldn't worry about forcing progression vs true progression - one leads to the other.

 

[dawn16]

@johnc101 So you let your top set drive progress in weight and always make sure you’re getting more total volume afterwards?

 

[johnc101]

@dawn16 the top set drives the overall progression, but weight always goes up every session. for example, an exercise that my best set has given me an estimated max of 115lbs - the 9 weeks of training will look like this: 70lbs for 30 total reps (70 x30), 72.5 x28, 75 x26, 77.5 x24, 80 x22, 82.5x21, 87.5 x19, 90 x17, 92.5 x15. if on the third week when i'm using 75lbs i hit a top set of 18 reps - that gives me a new estimated max of 120lbs. so all the numbers get updated so: 72.5lbs for 30 total reps, 75 x28, 77.5 x26, 80 x24, 85 x22, 87.5x21, 90 x19, 92.5 x17, 95 x15. i'll finish up that workout with 75lbs and get the last 8 reps. then the next week i'd go up to 80 instead of 77.5lbs. when starting a new cycle, now id go back and start at 72.5lbs for 30 reps instead of the 70lbs.

over the course of a cycle i probably hit 3-4 new estimated 1rms usually by 1lb or 2lbs (H1RM i call it), so the numbers can update relatively quickly.

 

[deejayjr]

@johnc101 The problem with adding sets is that your sessions become too long and too confusing.

Eventually you have to reset but when? It's complication for the sake of complication.

Keeping sets/reps the same and just adding weight is much easier and should work just as well. You're adding mechanical tension and eventually progressing in reps/volume. How is that different from just adding sets until you reset?

 

[johnc101]

@deejayjr in terms of time - depends how you set up your workouts. i do full body and my max session is 1.5 hours and its more like an hour tops. most exercises should be staying between 60-80% of max (like 6-25RM depending on lift) - so for 30 reps, that's at most 5-6 sets which is not crazy in terms of time commitment. i progress from 60% to 80% then reset back to 60% and progress up again. every time i reset, my 8RM, 10RM, 15RM, etc are all using heavier weights. you'll have to reset in any progression though. in terms of confusing - imo it's easier to track say 30 total reps (or however many it needs) of an exercise and just up the weight every session while not caring about how many sets it takes, than to track how many sets to do and how many reps for each set i did last time and what i need to do this time, not to mention guessing if mechanical tension is actually progressing.

besides that, at some point you're not going to be able to add weight and get the same sets/reps. if your 10RM for an exercise is 100lbs, you're not going to be able to do 3x10 for 100lbs, then add weight and be able to do 3x10 for 110lbs then add weight and be able to do 3x10 for 120lbs. your reps are gonna look more like 10,8,8 then up the weight, then 9,7,6, then up the weight, 7,6,6. so you're likely not progressing tension this way - even if the weight is moving up. strength doesn't increase that fast - and if it does, yeah that's what you should be doing - but at some point it will plateau. tension, you can do 30 reps for 100lbs then 30 reps for 110lbs then 30 reps for 120lbs, no problem (just might take 2-3 more sets) - it's just a matter of eating and recovering enough to be able to do so.

my point was more about what to do when you get to those strength limits - you should still be aiming to progress tension. so if you are wanting to progress from 100lbs, but can't do 3x10 for 110lbs, you might be able to do 30 reps with it, but in 4 sets. or you can do 40 reps of 100lbs in 4-5 sets, and that extra tension = more muscle, which will likely lead to you being stronger when you do move up the weight. it's better to do that, imo, than to wait until your strength has increased enough that you're able to do 3x10 with 110lbs. depending on the lift and your strength level, that may take months or you might just stall out completely this way.

 

[dawn16]

@oojeanetteoo This has a simple answer. Stop paying attention to the weights and reps and lift according to exertion. I'm going to outline a simple program to give you an idea below.

Example Mesocycle

Week 1 - all sets leave 3 to 4 reps in reserve herein (RIR)

Week 2 - all sets leave 2-3 RIR

Week 3 - Push hard, 1 RIR or contractile/technical failure

Week 4 - Recovery - 4-5 RIR

Repeat

You can repeat the mesocycle w/ different rep ranges. For example maybe the first mesocycle you target 15-20 reps, the second mesocycle you target 12-15 and the third mesocycle you target 8-12 reps.

 

[carlossantana305]

@dawn16 Honest to god, who is leaving 4 reps in reserve and feeling like they actually did a quality workout? I go with 1RIR every set and my recovery is still fine. Should I be pushing less in the gym?

 

[dawn16]

@carlossantana305 I'm probably more 2-3 RIR 80% of the time and the other 20% I goto contractile failure. I wasn't trying to get into optimal RIR setup and programming w/ my comment just wanted to expose OP to the idea.

 

[carlossantana305]

@dawn16 Understood. How many sets per week are you doing per body part with that 80% 20% split? I think that with 2-3 RIR you could be hitting a lot of sets with adequate recovery.

 

[levind]

@oojeanetteoo enough rest? enough water? overtraining? there is a lot that can affect your lifts, don’t track your lifts on a day to day basis as a natural, just track your lifts on a week to week or month to month basis. just go with what your body is giving you, you’re gonna have good days and you’re gonna have bad days, welcome to being natty

 

[oojeanetteoo]

@levind I'd love to not track daily, shit gets in my head and I feel like it distracts me from my lifts.

But if you don't track daily, how do you know how much weight/many reps to do session to session?

 

[levind]

@oojeanetteoo when i mean don’t track, don’t pay to much mind to it. just keep the big picture in your mind. as long as you’re making progress overtime then all is well. there’s days where i can lift what i lifted and it is what it is, doesn’t mean i’m regressing.