Size AND Strength: The Best Way to Train for Both

 

Muscle Mass AND Serious Strength:
 The Best Way to Train for Both!

     There seems to be quite a bit of confusion out there—whether it’s on the internet or at the gym—about how to train for BOTH hypertrophy and serious strength gains.  The first problem seems to be that some folks just don’t know how to do either.  Guys go to the gym to “get big” but then spend most of their time attempting to max out on a lift.  Or, conversely, a guy wants to be massively strong but spends too much of his time training for a pump or doing a lot of repetitions.

     If your goal is just hypertrophy, then don’t train like a strength athlete.  You should focus on pump-style training, “feeling a muscle” instead of working the movement, and ensuring that you can do more and more work for each individual bodypart.

     If your goal is just strength, then you need to train for strength.  This means doing only a few core exercises—the ones you are training to get stronger on—and doing either a “Westside-style” program that focuses on dynamic strength and maximal strength or to implement more of a “Russian-style” program using synaptic facilitation (what is commonly referred to the past twenty years or so as “grease-the-groove” training) that focuses on getting a lot of sets for really low reps.  To keep things simple here, a common “basic” grease-the-groove strength program—but one that would also work well for advanced strength and power athletes—would be something such as 10 sets of (between) 1 and 5 reps (5 reps would always be about the max for repetitions).

     To train for both hypertrophy and serious strength & power you have basically two options for training—with “subsets” within both of these options.

     The first option is to divide your training into both “pump” sections and “power” sections.  You can either train both at the same workout, or you can divide up the workouts so that one day is devoted to strength and power and the other day is devoted to hypertrophy.

     If you do both on the same day, begin with the power and strength portion, and end with hypertrophy work.  An example would be the classic “Hepburn” method of training where you begin by doing 5 to 8 singles on a lift at a near max weight, and then drop down 50 pounds or so and do 5 sets of 5 reps after that.  But anything similar will work well.

     Here is what a bench press-oriented workout might look like using the Hepburn method (just for the ease of program design and writing, I will use example bench press workouts for this article, but keep in mind that you can use the exact same workouts for any other core lift):

• Monday: Work up to around 95% of your max for the bench press over the course of several progressively heavier sets of 5s and then triples.  If you can bench press 315 pounds, then you would work up to around 300 pounds for your singles.  Perform 5 to 8 singles with this weight.  If you manage to get 8 singles with this weight, you would add around 5 pounds at the next session and repeat.  Once you’re finished with all of your singles, drop down to 250 pounds and perform 5 sets of 5 reps.  Slowly increase the amount you’re doing for 5 sets of 5 reps.

• Don’t perform another bench press workout for at least 5 days later, so the earliest you would want to train again would be Saturday.

• Add some assistance work as you see fit.  Once you get better conditioned to this sort of training, you could also perform the same sort of singles + 5x5 training for your overhead press, and train this as soon as you’re finished with the bench press work.

     If you decide to divide your strength workout and your hypertrophy session, then (typically) do the power workout first in the week and the hypertrophy training in the 2nd workout.  The first workout can be multiple singles or multiple sets of 2 to 3 reps.  The second workout focusing on hypertrophy could be the same lift but for multiple sets of 5 to 8 reps or it could be a more traditional “bodybuilding” program of multiple exercises for 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps each.  Another idea is to use a Westside template, but replace the dynamic effort day with a 10 sets of 10 reps approach (or something similar).

     Here are a few example programs using this approach:

Workout One: The “Divided” Hepburn Method

Monday:

• Bench Press: 10 attempted singles using 90-95% of your max.  Once you can get 10 singles with a certain weight, then increase weight at the next Monday session.  Warm up to this weight as described above for the “undivided” Hepburn program.

• Add a few basic exercises for your “assistance” muscle.  This means a couple sets for your shoulders, your triceps, and your lats.  Good choices should be the most basic: overhead barbell or dumbbell presses, dips, and chins all fit the bill.

Thursday:

• Bench Press:  Use about 80% of the weight used for your Monday singles, and perform 5 sets of 5 reps with this weight.  Make sure it’s a weight that you know you can get the first time you train in this manner.  Add 5 to 10 pounds to your lift each week on this day.  If you don’t manage 5 sets of 5 reps at a workout session, then stick with that weight until you do get it.

• Assistance work the same as Monday.

Workout Two: Ramps + Bodybuilding Program

Monday:

• Bench Press: Ramps of 5s, 3s, and singles.  For the “strength and power” portion of this program perform ramps.  For ramps, start with 5 reps, even on your warm-ups.  Add weight slowly over several sets until you hit your max of 5 reps.  When you can’t do 5s any more, switch over to triples.  Once again, stick with triples as you slowly progress in weight over several sets.  Once you can’t get triples any longer, switch over to singles.  Stick with the singles until you hit a “near-max.”

• Once you finish your ramps, perform assistance work the same as Workout One.

Thursday:

• Chest: Pick 3 of the following exercises and perform 3 to 4 sets of each exercise for 8-12 reps each - bench presses, dumbbell bench press, incline bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, and wide-grip dips.  Change exercise order or selection at each Thursday workout.

• Shoulders: Pick 2 of the following exercises and perform 3 to 4 sets of each exercise for 8-12 reps each - barbell overhead presses, side lateral raises, behind-the-neck presses, seated dumbbell presses, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  Change exercise order or selection at each Thursday workout.

• Triceps: Pick 2 of the following exercises and perform 3 to 4 sets of each exercise for 8-12 reps each - cable pushdowns (rope or bar), lying triceps extensions (skull crushers), dips, bench dips, and overhead triceps extensions.  Change exercise order or selection at each Thursday workout.

Workout Three: Modified Westside for Hypertrophy

Monday:

• Bench Press: 10 sets of 10 reps.  Since the ‘90s, this form of training has also been known as “German Volume Training” thanks to an article by Charles Poliquin in the old “Muscle Media 2000” magazine (even though there’s no evidence that it’s a form of training used by the German weightlifting team, despite Poliquin’s claims to the contrary).  Anyway, I wrote about this form of training in IronMan and MuscleMag International before Poliquin’s article, and I absolutely stole the idea from Vince Gironda, Greg Zulak, and the many other bodybuilders that had been using it since at least the ‘60s.  Anyway, brief rant aside, select a weight where you know you can get 20 reps with, and now do 10 sets of 10 reps, taking only about a minute of rest between sets.  The reason this is a “modified” Westside program is because this day replaces the “speed” day—or the dynamic effort method day—of the original Westside program.

•  After performing the 10x10, do assistance work the same as you did on Workouts One and Two.

Thursday:

• Max Effort Bench Press: Perform ramps the same as Workout Two but work up to an absolute max single.  However, and this is what differentiates Westside, rotate between different exercises at least every couple workouts.  If you’re advanced, then you would need to rotate to a new exercise every single week, but I doubt that is most readers, so stick with the same exercise for two, maybe three weeks, and then rotate to something different.  Switch exercises but make sure that the new exercise is also an exercise that will work the muscles of the bench press.  No machine exercises whatsoever.  Good choices would be bench presses, incline bench presses, dumbbell bench presses (though you would need heavy enough dumbbells to max out), board presses using different board sizes, and perhaps weighted dips.

• Assistant work the same as Monday.

     The second option for building both size and strength is to not divide up your training into a “pump” and a “power” section, but, rather, to use a volume-based strength program that—mainly because of the workload—produces muscle mass gains along with the strength.  I sometimes refer to this as “Russian-style” training, but, in reality, it would also encompass the historic training methods of other Eastern-bloc countries, and of the Bulgarian method too.  I discovered just how good this form of training is for gaining muscle when I was powerlifting.  The “problem” with Sheiko–and other similar Russian methods—was that I would gain too much weight, even when I was trying to severely limit my calories.  Anytime a methodology produces “accidental” hypertrophy gains, anyone whose goal it is to gain muscle mass should probably pay close attention!

     Pavel Tsatsouline once wrote that, “if you get a pump with heavy weights, you will get bigger.”  When you train with volume-based, fairly high-frequency training, that is exactly what happens.  You get a pump even when you’re not training for a pump.  This may be one of the reasons why it produces muscle mass along with copious strength gains.

     The other reason that I believe it creates a lot of hypertrophy gains is because typically lifters that use these kinds of programs train multiple lifts in one session. So for the following workouts, we will not just use the bench press as an example.  In fact, the following workouts—and the tips that accompany them—come from an article I wrote more than a decade ago for Mike Mahler’s Aggressive Strength website entitled “From Russia with Strength and Power” but perhaps it would best be called “From Russia with Strength, Power, and Muscle Mass.”  Here is both a “beginner” and an “intermediate/advanced” program:

Routine #1

Day One

1. Squats—50% of one-rep maximumx5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 90%x1repx4sets

2. Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 85%x1repx4sets

3. Squats—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx1set, 70%x5repsx1set

4. Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses—10repsx5sets

5. Standing Good Mornings—10repsx3sets

Day Two

1. Deadlifts— 50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx5sets

2. Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx1set, 70%x4repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 70%x5repsx2sets, 60%x8repsx1set, 50%x10repsx1set

3. Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses—10repsx5sets

4. Deadlift Off Boxes—60%x5repsx1set, 70%x3repsx3sets, 80%x2repsx4sets

5. Weighted Sit-Ups—10repsx3sets

Day Three

1. Squats—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx4sets

2. Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx3sets, 80%x1repx3sets

3. Dips—10repsx4sets

4. Seated Good Mornings—10repsx3sets

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of this program:

—Make sure you lift on three non-consecutive days each week. Most people thrive best on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

—Each percentage of your one-rep maximum should be based on your best lifts in either your workouts or your last competition (if you’re a competitive powerlifter).

—On the sets that aren’t based on percentages, pick a weight where you take each set a couple reps shy of failure.

—Make sure that you change the reps each week on the core lifts. Work up to fives, threes, twos, or singles.

—The Day Three workout should always have the lowest volume. This will help you to recover better for your Day One workout the next week.

—Test your one-rep maximum at least every five weeks. This will cause you to constantly increase the weight used for your percentages. 

Routine #2 

Day One

1. Squats—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 90%x2repsx4sets, 80%x5repsx1set, 70%x6repsx1set

2. Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 90%x2repsx4sets

3. Squats—60%x5repsx4sets

4. Dips—5repsx5sets

Standing Good Mornings—5repsx5sets

Day Two

1. Deadlifts Off Box—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx3sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 90%x1repx5sets

2. Incline Bench Presses—60%x5repsx6sets

3. Sumo Deadlifts—60%x3repsx5sets

4. Weighted Sit-ups—5repsx5sets

Day Three

1. Squats—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx1set, 70%x3repsx2sets, 80%x3repsx2sets, 90%x2repsx2sets

2. Close Grip Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx3sets, 80%x3repsx3sets, 90%x1repx4sets, 80%x5repsx1set, 70%x7repsx1set, 60%x9repsx1set

3. Squats—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx2sets

4. Weighted Push Ups—10repsx5sets

5. Seated Good Mornings—8repsx4sets

Day Four

1. Conventional Deadlifts—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x4repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx5sets

2. Bench Presses—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx2sets, 70%x3repsx4sets

1. Rack Deadlifts (pins set at knee level)—50%x5repsx1set, 60%x5repsx1set, 70%x5repsx3sets

2. Lying Triceps Extensions—10repsx3sets

3. Hanging Leg Raises—15repsx4sets

All of the tips from the first program can be applied to this one. Here are a few more, however, so you can get the most out of this routine:

—Train four days a week. You can use one of two splits. Either use a two-on, one-off, two-on, two-off split (training on, say, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday) or use a one-on, one-off, one-on, one-off, two-on, one-off split (training on, say, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday). I prefer the former, though most Russians have traditionally used the latter version.

—The first couple of weeks you might want to decrease the volume used on the last two workouts. After that, however, make sure you stick with the program.

—This is a taxing workout program. Don’t attempt it until you’ve spent several months training on the first routine, or one very similar to it.

     There you have it, some great routines for when you want size AND the strength to go with it.  If you’re not using one of these programs—or something very similar—you have little hope of being outrageously strong and downright massive.  But if you DO utilize them, the muscle-building, strength-gaining sky's the limit!