Creating the perfect environment for muscle gain: Strength, hypertrophy and endurance.
Do I have to lift heavy to gain strength and muscle?
To a certain extent yes. If anyone ever tells you, you don’t have to lift heavy to build muscle, they’re wrong. If anyone tells you, lifting light weights don’t build muscle, they are also wrong….. according to research (*insert smirk* so I don’t get digitally attacked by some keyboard warrior).
Previously I wrote a blog about the differences in reps, sets and weights for muscle hypertrophy, so if you’re interested in reading that, you can do so here.
Today’s blog however is going to cover the differences in between strength, hypertrophy and endurance, what they mean for you as an athlete, and how you can get the most out of your training, especially if your main goal is to build muscle and stay in shape without the risk of injury every time you max out those lifts.
Whether your main goal is to build muscle for overall health or for physique purposes, strength training (ST) is important and has many benefits. Here are just a few benefits to ST:
Improves thermoregulation which in turn can increase your metabolism
Increases cardiac output
Increases blood flow to active muscles
Increases oxygen uptake
And that’s just a some of the benefits.
Now that we know why you should strength train and work towards increasing strength and muscle, let’s discuss how to actually capitalise on it by looking at the different factors involved.
What is muscle strength?
Defined as “the ability to produce maximum force against an external resistance” (Jones P et al, 2020) is often created by working at maximum level, say somewhere between 80-100% maximum load.
Ideally, you would be aiming to lift anywhere between 1-5 reps at that weight before you failed. The rep pace should be medium to fast and your rest time in between sets should be somewhere between 3-5 minutes.
What is muscle hypertrophy?
Defined as “enlargement of total muscle mass and cross-sectional area” (Hryvniak D et al, 2021). Ideally an athlete would be lifting anywhere between 60-80% of their maximum load and aiming to hit somewhere between 8-12 reps before failure.
This is where the 8-12 rep was born in the world of bodybuilding. They aren’t magic numbers, they are just what research has seen as a threshold for muscle growth, but more on this in just a moment.
For hypertrophy purposes, athletes would usually aim to lift at a medium pace and rest somewhere between 30-120 seconds before attempting the next set.
What is muscle endurance?
Endurance is “related to the ability to perform work over an extended period of time” (Cech, 2012.)
To enter an endurance phase for either sport or rehab, athletes would look to perform 40-60% of their load aiming to execute 15 reps or more and medium pace and with only 20 seconds of rest up to a maximum of 2 minutes or rest time.
Do these structures still stand the test of time?
Yes and no. While many athletes of each discipline still aim to hit those rep ranges/percentages and still experience great results, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other effective options out there.
What scientists now know is that in order to build muscle, (and in case I still have to say this, muscle does not make you “bulky”, the presence of fat does) you can lift in any of those mentioned volumes (40%-80%) as long as you were still taking the muscle to the point of fatigue.
In other words, as long as you were lifting until you felt you could no longer do so with good form, you would still build muscle.
Why is this exciting news?
This means that you can still increase muscle as you get older without the increased risk of injury. Hurray!
So if you couldn’t hit old numbers you used to be able to do because maybe you’ve taken some time off training or you wanted to decrease the load a little, you’d still be able to build or retain muscle as long as the overall volume was high enough.
The caveat though…
Taking the muscle to failure at lighter weights and doing so all the time can and will take its toll. Side note, this is also why I stepped back from high intensity training and moved towards hypertrophy: because I was getting better results lifting heavier but lower reps, and was recovering better between training days.
Some geeky research…
During an experiment, where experienced lifters were asked to max out at between 8-12 reps and then again at 25 reps and above, the athletes all preferred to max out at a lower weight and recovered better. What’s more is that despite feeling more tired and not recovering as well with a higher rep range, the muscle hypertrophy between the two different strategies resulted in the same amount of muscle gain.
Where does recovery fit in all of this?
I can’t possibly end this blog without mentioning recovery. Creating the perfect environment for muscle growth isn’t just about finding the perfect lifting program. It’s also about understanding the process of recovery.
Without sleep, good nutrition, and stress management all you’re doing is putting your body under stress and when our bodies suffer from too much stress (even if it’s eustress: stress we enjoy) this can lead to over fatigue and muscle damage.
Finally, please remember that muscle mass is energy and energy cannot be created out of thin air so in order to build muscle you need energy aka food!
Takeaways
When it comes to building strength, lifting at a higher percentage will ultimately help you achieve this, however when it comes to muscle gain, the overall sets and reps don’t matter as much as the overall volume of work you do, and how close you take it to failure.
In other words, the harder you push (if you’re making faces and genuinely exerting a lot of effort) you will see muscle growth.
It goes without saying that a lifting program will only be one part of the puzzle since your nutrition also has to be on pointe.
Resources
Schoenfeld, B.J.; Grgic, J.; Van Every, D.W.; Plotkin, D.L. Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports 2021, 9, 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9020032
David Hryvniak, ... Siobhan M. Statuta, in Braddom's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Sixth Edition), 2021
Donna J. Cech DHS, PT, PCS, Suzanne “Tink” Martin MACT, PT, in Functional Movement Development Across the Life Span (Third Edition), 2012
Paul Jones, Paul Comfort, in A Comprehensive Guide to Sports Physiology and Injury Management, 2020
