This is a concept that was so ingrained in my mind since the first time I picked up a barbell that it never even occurred to me that it could be incorrect: You must add weight to the bar to continue to grow.
In my earliest days of training, I recall making ridiculous attempts at adding load to the bar, egged on by my first of many training partners over the years. I had awful technique, really no clue what I was doing, yet plates were added to the bar requiring a spot on basically every rep. I hang my head in shame at the memory.
Obviously I have better technique today, and an idea of what I’m doing in the gym. However, I’ve focused so much on adding strength over the years that I never considered if my hypertrophy outcomes were actually limited because of my efforts to add weight to the bar, which would be quite ironic.
Consider the mechanisms for hypertrophy, which I’ve written about quite often. Mechanical tension on the muscle fibers, completed with sufficient duration and intensiveness of effort to recruit high threshold motor units to activate as many muscle fibers as possible, distorting and deforming the fibers as they fatigue, creates a biochemical reaction that increases muscle protein synthesis and the body adds proteins to the fibers to restore their normal shape, making them slightly larger in the process.
A byproduct of this process is that the muscle fibers are now capable of producing more force than the smaller version of themselves were. Note that I said capable. The question is, is it necessary to use this enhanced capability to produce more force to recreate the scenario described above and continue the growth process? The answer is a resounding No.
To win the hyper trophy, one must continue this process of recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible, fatiguing them so that they distort and deform, so the body increases muscle protein synthesis and continues to add proteins to the fibers, making them ever more swole. It would stand to reason that in order to do that, we need to do more than we did the last time, since the fibers are rejuvenated with new proteins and capable of doing more work. But more work doesn’t mean more weight, it means more work. In order to recruit these high threshold motor units that control tons of muscle fibers, we need to expose the fibers to a heavy enough load that the body takes an all-hands-on-deck approach and activates all the fibers from the very beginning of the set, or continue the set until fibers start to fatigue, causing the body to keep recruiting more fibers until we’re back at the all-hands-on-deck result.
Let’s take the example of a Bench Press, which the body will recruit pectoral muscles, front deltoid muscles and triceps muscles to complete. Let us assume we completed 3 sets of 10 repetitions, with each set taken quite close to temporary muscular failure. If all goes well, this recruited a lot of muscle fibers and taxed them thoroughly. It probably recruited more pectoral and deltoid muscles than triceps, but just stay with me here. After the recovery process, say 48-72 hours for argument’s sake, the fibers are restored, renewed and a microscopic bit larger, which makes them capable of producing more force. Would doing 3 sets of 10 repetitions with the same weight we used last time produce a hypertrophic stimulus? Certainly. The fibers would still get recruited, they would get a thorough taxing, and the process would repeat. It’s possible that all the same fibers were not recruited, because the newly invigorated fibers were capable of producing the force without having to recruit all their buddies like they did the first time, but a lot of them still got distorted and deformed so that they will once again, get some hypertrophy.
What about a third time? Yes.
A fourth? Yes.
I know what you’re thinking, so here’s the answer. Eventually, 3 sets of 10 becomes easy enough for your pectoral, deltoid and triceps muscles to complete, that the majority of fibers don’t get recruited, so the amount of hypertrophic stimulus is seriously degraded. You’ll know this has happened, because when you end your set at 10 reps, you will feel nowhere near momentary muscular failure. So we should add weight right? Sure, but do we have to? No.
If you continue to use the same exact weight, but continue to take each set to the same point of proximity to temporary muscular failure, your body will have no choice but to recruit all the muscle fibers to complete the work. They will all get fatigued, they will all distort and deform, and they will all rebuild. It may take 12 reps, 13, 15 or more to get there, but the result will be the same.
From a mechanical and biochemical point of view, you can and will get larger muscles without trying to get stronger. It’s inevitable. There will be a point where the higher rep sets required to recruit all the fibers and thoroughly tax them are no longer effective, but the number is much higher than one might think. Even sets of 30 reps, taken to the same proximity to failure, produce robust hypertrophy. Studies comparing 3 sets of 10 to 7 sets of 3 produced the same muscular growth. If you’ve ever done heavy triples, you know how much heavier that is than a set of 10.
What I think works quite well, and there are many ways to construct effective hypertrophy oriented training schemes, is to select a rep range you like to lift in for each given lift, making sure it’s somewhere in the 6-20 range to be safely secure in the knowledge it’s going to get the job done, and then adding weight when you can complete your sets and feel like you weren’t even close to temporary failure. This will vary with the lift, which give you some nice variety in your training. For example, with the Bench Press we were discussing, there is some technical aspect to the lift that will start to deteriorate as you fatigue both physically and mentally, and there’s an energy component because the lift uses quite a bit of muscle to complete. Not as much as a Squat let’s say, but more than biceps curl. A nice rep range for a Bench Press might be 6-8 reps (that’s the one I like) where it’s heavy enough that your body will start recruiting lots of muscle fibers pretty early in the set, yet not so heavy that on a bad day you can’t at least hit the bottom end of the range which should still get you some stress on the majority of fibers. It won’t be too taxing energetically, i.e. you shouldn’t be huffing and puffing like you ran sprints at the end of the set, and you should be able to gauge how far you are from failure. Higher rep sets with lighter loads can be a little tricky to determine that point, because it may just be a build up of hydrogen ions causing you to perceive a burning sensation in the muscle you will equate to failure, when it really isn’t. You may be mentally tired of the set, causing you to perceive the fatigue as muscular failure being imminent, when it really isn’t.
When you can complete sets of your Bench Press with 8 reps, and you feel like you could have done more, it’s time to add some weight and continue. Now this is a slow way to progress, and there are certainly more aggressive ways, like adding weight every week to the first set at least, and dropping it for subsequent sets if you think you need to to stay in the target rep range, but the concept is the same. You are adding weight when your body tells you that you’re capable of doing so because it created newly strengthened fibers capable of doing more work, as a result of the work you have done. You are not adding weight in order to force your body to create newly strengthened fibers. That’s thinking about the process in reverse. The work you did allows you to add weight to the bar because your body now has more capable muscle fibers. Your body doesn’t have more capable muscle fibers because you added weight to the bar.
- Some tips on finding that ideal rep range for the various lifts:
The limiting factor. You want the lift to hit the right muscles. You don’t want your grip to give out for example, before your traps do if you you’re doing shrugs. I find my lower back starts distracting me when I do Barbell Rows with too much weight on the bar and my form goes to shit. Since I started using 12-15 reps, I can really focus on the movement, feel it it my traps, and take the sets closer to failure of the right muscles, vs. my lower back convincing me the set is over well before I’ve taxed those trap muscles.
Complexity. The more technically complex the lift is, the lower the reps should be in my opinion. Squats are probably the most complex lift for the average hypertrophy enthusiast, so keeping the reps low, say 6-8, allows you to perform each rep well, with good technique, without creating an injury risk that comes from higher rep sets due to form breakdown from fatigue. I’ve found an interesting dichotomy when it comes to leg training. I assumed I would prefer low rep sets for Good Mornings and Romanian Deadlifts for my hamstring work because I prefer low rep sets for my Squats. Not the case at all, and in fact I find heavier sets for hamstrings much less effective. When I try to do heavy RDL’s or GM’s, I’m more concerned with, and therefore focused on, my lower back and don’t get as much hip flexion, so my range of motion is limited. I like 12-15 rep sets for big hamstring movements.
How easy is it to add weight? Dumbbell work is the easiest example, where it’s not possible to add very small increments of weight. So a larger rep range, say 12-15 or even 12-20 might work better. If you’re doing bicep curls and can get 20 reps on the first set, and you decide to go up 5lbs because that’s all your gym has, you should be still be able to stay in the rep range. If you are doing a heavier set, like 6-8, it’s going to be very hard to go up 5 lbs after an 8-rep set and still get 6. Since I’ve been training at home in this post-COVID world, I’ve been using resistance bands and have just pushed each set as close to failure as possible without even worrying about increasing the load by increasing a band size. Eventually I’ve had to with things like pull-downs, rows, etc. which is perfect example of what this post is about. I’ve had to increase the band resistance because the reps got so high, as a result of my body adapting to the work I was doing. I didn’t increase the band resistance to force my body to adapt. I’m still doing triceps and biceps work with the same bands, seeing my reps increase every once in a while as my body allows. Note I didn’t say pushing my reps up to force my body to grow.
It’s taken me quite a bit of reading, listening and contemplating to finally rid myself of the backwards approach to hypertrophy that I had ingrained in me circa 1986. Hopefully this post will help rid you of it much sooner than I did.
Joe's Blog 