After a long day that included a 1-hour nap on the couch, I finally headed to the gym. I didn’t feel particularly well all day, but I think in retrospect it was more emotional ill than physical. I don’t do well with long, unproductive days. There were a few folks in the gym when I arrived, doing Snatches, Deadlifts and other heavy pursuits. I set up in the power rack to attempt some heavy singles, including a PR attempt that according to my e1RM calculator, should be something I can do at an RPE 9.
I did my two workup singles and they fell right in line with what my RPE plan predicted, so I put 198.42 on the bar and tightened up my wrist wraps. I knew from the moment I unracked the weight and set it in position above my chest that I would get it. I felt solid in my position and the weight did not feel heavy at all. After a healthy pause on the chest, I smoked that 198.42 like a cheap cigar. The last time I did a 1RM attempt I managed a very wobbly 195 with what was likely not a legit pause that would have gotten me white lights at a meet.
Energized and motivated from the successful attempt, I proceed to have a beastly workout of touch and go bench, tricep work, rows and pulldowns, face pulls and even overhead press. A timely article I read while pumping gas on the way to the gym illuminated something that seems rather obvious if you’ve ever pursued muscle mass from lifting weights, but for whatever reasons has always felt too simple to me. Hypertrophy, as I wrote about a few days ago, is a byproduct of improved muscular endurance and muscular strength. So training to improve those two highly adaptive and functional qualities should be the goal as it will result in hypertrophy. Muscular endurance is developed and improved upon by doing more work, while strength is largely a neural adaptation combined with motor skill learning. The most efficient way to do more work in the gym is to add weight to the bar, but that only works for a short time as eventually, you can’t add weight to the bar and do very many reps, which dramatically reduces the amount of work you do.
Example A:
The bench press is a stalwart exercise that uses the chest, shoulder and tricep muscles, working in synergy, to get the weight off your chest and back to lockout. I performed 3 sets with 155 lbs yesterday after doing my singles, and managed 24 reps, which equates to 3,720 lbs of work. If the next time I train chest, shoulders and triceps I once again use the bench press as my exercise of choice and stick with the 155 lb load, but manage a few more reps, say 27 in total, I will have done 4,185 lbs of work. That’s quite a bit more work, even though the weight I used was the same, and because the number of reps were higher, i.e. the amount of time I spent moving the load was dramatically more than say doing singles, I was improving muscular endurance.
Example B:Â
If instead of staying with the 155-lb load, I decided to add weight because more weight equals more me eventually, and went with 165 lbs on the bar, I would likely not manage 24 reps in total over 3 sets. Let’s assume I managed only 8 reps on the first set, then 7, then 5 as fatigue set it. I will have done 3,300 lbs of work, which is less than I did the previous workout.
I have always pursued adding weight to the bar as my primary driver of hypertrophy. It is but one means to the same end. For powerlifting, the sole purpose is to lift as much as possible in three specific lifts, and that requires technical proficiency in the lift (motor skill learning), acclimating the body to perform under heavy loads (neural adaptations) and muscle tissue to contract and generate force. The more muscle, the more contraction is possible, so the pursuit of hypertrophy is of paramount importance.
I think I may have closed a chasm of knowledge. I was lost in the wilderness of eBooks and programs, following gurus and chanting their mantras. I have broken into the clearing and now see beyond the horizon. By George, I think I’ve got it.
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