Growing Below Hypertrophy Rep Range

Everytime you ask about size and strength, you hear traditional answers "Do X sets of Y reps for size, Z sets of N reps for strength". People will barely explain why, and when they do, you'll see their reasons are vague and most of the time based on old fashioned methods.

When I posted the article on pure strength training, I was aware that most people here were more interested in size and had no reason to give up gaining mass, and I got questions regarding maximizing strength without giving up gaining mass. But now I want to talk about this "3-6 rep range is mostly for strength and too low to grow your muscles" myth. While I can't deny that traditional 8-12 does work for size, what gave me the fastest and biggest size gains was this rep range which is "too low for mass". Firstly I'd like to answer the question:
  
How Do Our Muscles Get Bigger?

Before I get to it, I want to talk about what I should have made clear in my pure strength training article: Motor unit. I wrote whole thing on how to improve motor unit skills, but never said what it was. A motor unit is the combination of muscle fibers and the motor neuron which they're attached to (And fibers get signals from their motor neuron, those signals starts a whole complicated process to accomplish a simple task, such as lifting a glass). Less fibers per motor neuron, so smaller motor units are usually found in smaller muscles, and bigger motor units are found in bigger muscles. Motor units are responsible of every muscular task (From rolling your eyes, typing or lifting a pen to heavy resistance training). Like muscle fiber types, there are also different types of motor units, which are also related to the subject many people often bring up: "Slow vs. fast twitch fibers".

Firstly there are slow twitch motor units, producing small amounts of force which can be maintained for long periods. Type I fibers are mainly used with these motor units (Standing, walking, etc). Then there is fatigue-resistant fast twitch motor units, which produce moderate amounts of force and can be maintained for a minute or two. That shows some endurance and some strength characteristics. You use a combination of type I and type IIA fibers, which is what's mostly used during hypertrophy training, and long distance sprints (400 meters). Type IIA fibers have greater potential to grow than type I and fatigue faster than type I fibers. Even motor units recruited during sets of 20 rep can be classified in this type, even though there are other subtypes. There is a reason why you can not pick your 20RM and train with that for hours before you reach failure: Because it's not pure slow twitch motor units or pure endurance training, it also uses some fast twitch motor units (Which use type IIC fibers, if nothing) and you may still get some hypertrophy, even though it's not going to be huge gains.

Finally, there is fatigable fast twitch motor units, that produce strenous amounts of force, during which type IIB fibers kick in. These type IIB fibers and fatigable fast twitch motor units are largest in the body (Some of them are life-or-death motor units which we have for emergency, therefore large), and have greatest potential to grow, but the thing is, they fatigue way too fast. If you're lucky, you'll be able to maintain this greatest amount of effort up to 15 seconds. For most of us, it's shorter than that. It's because the dominant energy systems each fiber types use are different, and fast twitch fibers use glycolisis to make ATP, so they fatigue faster than type I fibers, which use oxygen. Today we barely need to use largest motor units (Who is chased by a cheetah nowadays?) and we don't even use them at the gym most of the time, but I think it's important to train them just for evolutionary respects, even if they didn't have much potential to grow (Well, they do).

It's imperative to understand that, you can't just jump into these largest motor units without using slow twitch (type S) ones. Firstly smaller motor units will be brought into the action, then larger ones. That's one mistake many trainers seem to make: Just because largest motor units are recruited last, they sound as if last few reps will do the trick. It makes no sense at all: Last reps are hard because fast twitch fibers are fatigued already and we can not recruit them anymore, we got smaller motor units left (which use type I, type IC, type IIC, type IIAC fibers respectively) and they can not produce much force, that's why it feels harder. It has nothing to do with "recruiting more motor units in the last reps", it's totally opposite.

A quick note on lifting speed. Months ago on this forum I said that when we lift slower, we recruit less motor units so it feels harder, while lifting fast requires more force, so more motor units, and it feels easier. I got responses like "No, lifting fast is easier because you use momentum." Take standing barbell curls as example: If you bend your knees and use your quads, hip and back extension to curl the bar fast, then correct, it is the terrible form and excess momentum that results in the fast lift. But lifting fast does not mean horrible form. Think about curls again; You're standing with 70% of your maximum but you curl as if it's your 100% maximum (In other words, the effort you put is your 100%. Your body, upper arms and legs are motionless, your form is flawless). What happens when you curl it with maximum effort? It goes up fast. Because you recruit more motor units. It feels harder when you intentionally slow yourself down because you use less motor units. But when you lift fast, you still use those slow twitch fibers, as you put in more effort, other motor units come into the action. I hope you get it now what it means when it's said "Largest motor units are recruited last" (And I still believe "time under pressure" concept and doing really slow reps just for the sake of it is incomplete. If it was the case, isometrics would be the base of our hypertrophy routines).

I also disagree when people say "This muscle is slow twitch dominant so do more reps for it", "Soleus calves are mostly slow twitch so use light weight.", "Abs are different so train it more often.", "Women are slow twitch dominant so they should do less weight / more rep." Okay, you can take a look inside someone's muscles and say whether a muscle group is slow or fast twitch dominant, by checking speed of contraction, glycolitic potential, oxidative capacity of those fibers, etc but the thing is, there will be alterations in fiber make up depending on training. Results won't be the same if I do 10 super heavy sets of seated calf raises 3 times a week for four months. And such a training has not been much tested for calves, who says it wouldn't work?

My personal belief is that, if you want endurance, speed, size or strength, the way you train doesn't need to be different for different muscle groups or gender. If I want size in soleus, I'll use same principles I do for my quads. If I want endurance, then I'll use endurance basics. I won't use a whole different strategy for soleus, abs, forearms, etc.

Take home point from all this venting: Slow twitch fibers hypertrophy regardless of intensity, while fast twitch fibers hypertrophy only if you go above a certain amount of intensity (You should do so, because type II fibers have more potential to get bigger).

So the purpose of pure strength training is to teach your CNS to recruit largest motor units (which you already have) and how to recruit them faster. Keep in mind that, we can not voluntarily recruit 100% of our motor units, but we can increase the amount of non-emergency motor units we can recruit. The purpose of hypertrophy training, on the other hand, is to reconstruct new tissue, it is not about learning a skill. To make this happen, you need muscle fatigue (As people love to call, "microscopic damage"). After a stressful resistance training, mechano growth factor (MGH) is increased due to mehanical overload. MGH is followed by upregulation of IGF-1Ea, due to hormonal signals. While MGH is diminished within 24-36 hours, IGF-1Ea lasts much longer. But some studies show MGH is more effective, so some coaches claim it is better to train a muscle more frequently to cause MGH upregulation as often as possible (since it doesn't last long), but I believe more studies are necessary (Mice have been tested so far, so it is not solid proof really) and it doesn't even matter. These hormonal responses are just one thing, all of us know there is a lot more in bodybuilding. And it's not our subject; my point is that mechanical overload (Thus muscle damage) results in signals which cause a hormonal process that starts recovery. That's an important to consider while we answer the following question:


Why Doesn't Pure Strength Training Get Us Huge?

I always mention that there are elements to design a program and how they should all be considered for best results. While pure strength training gets us impressively strong, it doesn't result in much hypertrophy. It's simply because muscle fatigue is absent or minimal, so the process I mentioned above will be minimal, if there is any need at all. So what's missing in a pure strength training? Let's take a look at those components again.

Exercise selections: We use best and most functional exercises humankind has ever invented in pure strength training, and they are also known best mass builders. Obviously this is not the problem.

Intensity: The amount of weight we use in relation to our maximum is intensity. In pure strength training, it is above 80%, it is sometimes 95-100%. As I said, this intensity recruits largest motor units, and in terms of the motor units recruited, it is even better than traditional hypertrophy range 8-12, since it also trains largest (type IIB) fibers to the core. So intensity is not the problem, either.

Frequency: As long as you don't overtrain, you should train a muscle group as often as possible. And in pure strength training, we train our muscles 3-4 times a week. If frequency was the problem, it would burn us out. It definitely does not, you can not get stronger or bigger if you overtrain. But we can get beasty stronger with pure strength training, so frequency can not be the problem.

Volume: I've already said that you need to lift above a certain amount of intensity (Say 60%) to recruit large fibers effectively. And no matter which type of fibers you're mainly using, you need to perform above a certain amount of reps so that they are taxed enough to hypertrophy. In pure strength training, most athletes won't even do more than 15 reps per exercise in total. I'm not talking about 15 reps straight; It's like 3 reps of 5 sets and no more per muscle group. The number of sets can be higher than traditional hypertrophy ranges (which is usually no more than 3-4 sets per exercise) and the weight used can be much heavier, but total reps of pure strength training are so low, and that keeps volume much lower than hypertrophy training. So our number one problem: Volume is too low to tax muscles enough to add some contractile protein.

Density: Pure strength training calls 3-4 minutes of rest between exercises. For hypertrophy, it is not that ideal. We do not want to fully recover between exercises, we want some fatigue in those muscles. Besides, shorter rest intervals are linked to increase in growth hormone. Of course it doesn't mean we should rest 15 seconds between exercises. Remember, we have to use some heavy weight or maximum effort to recruit high-thresold motor units, and we can't do that without reasonable amount of rest.

Deload When You Need It

Everyone needs some deloading at times, if they're working hard enough (I hate over-generalizations, but that one is true). If you do it when you need it, you'll appreciate it. The thing is, it doesn't mean you'll "come back stronger" if you do it when you don't need it. So everytime you have a bad day, don't just say you need a deloading week. That's a possibility, but not the only thing. We change every second, it is normal to see some decreases in our performance at times, and there are other factors that may affect it. All of them should be considered.

Many people just go light when they deload, though. Unless I'm deloading because of a mechanical problem (Injury, joint problem, etc), then I won't do that. I'll use my usual weights, but cut sets half. If my session consists of 30 sets, I'll do 15, for instance. Works better to me.

Diversity for High Frequency

Another over-generalization I don't like is "You can not train a muscle group often if you're advanced". If you do a super heavy training, mainly using your ATP-PC energy system, you can train the same muscle group right the next day when it's recovering, but by using a totally different rep/set parameter, different load, emphasizing different fibers which use a different energy system. It is why we can do light cardio the day after working our legs. In fact, such a training can help recovery. Just remember: The sooner you train a muscle group, the more diversity you'll need to avoid burnout.

So, let's say you did 15 sets of 3 reps for a muscle group. If you want to train it the day after, you should go for 2 sets of 50 reps (Mostly those "endurance fibers"). That can be just the barbell with no weight or really small weight added, depending on the exercise. If you wanted to train that muscle group 2 days later, you'd go for 2 sets of 20 reps (A combination of type I and II, more on the endurance side, as I mentioned before, type II fibers are not one kind, so those largest ones you trained with 3 reps per set will mostly be still resting during such a training). Three days later, it would be about 3 sets of 12-15 reps. If you wanted to train a muscle group every 4-5 days, the second training could then be in traditional hypertrophy range 3-4 sets of 8-12 (And honestly, I wouldn't let any muscle group rest any longer than that). I'd like to explain this with a couple of examples:

Say you chose a 3-day split like Chest & Back, Legs, Shoulders & Arms. And you train 3 days on, one day off, that's approximately twice a week per muscle group. Your schedule would look like this:

Day one: Chest & Back - 15 sets of 3 for each
Day two: Legs - 30 sets of 3
Day three: Shoulders & Arms - 30 sets of 3 in total (How many sets you do for each depends on exercise selections and your personal focus - Say you do 10 sets for each muscle group to simplify it)
Day four: Off
Day five: Chest & Back - 3-4 sets of 8-12 per exercise (Ideally 2 exercises per muscle group, and it's better if you choose something you didn't do on day one)
Day six: Legs - 6-8 sets of 8-12 (That's about 2 exercises, 3-4 sets of each)
Day seven: Shoulders and arms - 3-4 sets of 8-12 per exercise (2 exercises per muscle group, ideally different selections from day three)
Day eight: Off
Repeat the cycle (On lower rep days, it's better to rely on compounds, while pure hypertrophy techniques such as dropsets are more suitable for lighter days).

Another example would be doing upper/lower body split and train 2 days on, one day off.

Day one: Upper body: 30 sets of 3
Day two: Lower body: 30 sets of 3
Day three: Off
Day four: Upper body: 3 sets of 15 reps
Day five: Lower body: 3 sets of 15 reps
Day six: Off

That's my view on periodization/frequency for hypertrophy. The more frequent you train, the more diversity you need. It doesn't work the same for pure strength training, in which there is minimal or no fatigue. But in hypertrophy training, there is both CNS and muscular fatigue, and you should train your muscles differently if you want to train them more frequently. Or you'll get excess fatigue, which will burn you out. So you can choose to train a muscle group once or three times a week, it does not matter, these super heavy hypertrophy days should be limited to one session per week for every muscle group.

Keep in mind that even if you train frequently with different rep ranges throughout the week, it won't be random changes. You should write down your weekly schedule and treat each session in its own. This is non-linear periodization and it works better than linear periodization in my opinion. Many people seem to work on different components at different times, and they lose what they gained in the previous phase. For example, you see somebody training hard to gain maximum strength for weeks, and then their linear periodization tells them to work for endurance for 3-4 weeks, and they lose some of that hard gained strength during that endurance phase. Some athletes do need something specific at certain times, but it doesn't apply to average lifters who want some strength, but also looks, sufficient endurance to complete good quality workouts and some speed at the same time. Traditional linear periodization is not just less effective for an average lifter, but it is also hard to watch your progress that way. You do a strength phase, the next phase is super high reps, how can you compare those two? "Total reps x weight = Total volume" formula is not a way to compare two entirely different workouts, you'd need some close parameters. You can compare a strength phase with another strength phase. And according to linear periodization, next strength phase can be 2 months apart, so you wait for 2 months to make a good judgement (And usually come to realize you've lost some gains). My recommendation is, just focus on different set/rep parameters on different days and keep track of each (Provided that you train your muscles frequently, it doesn't work much for 4-5 day splits which allow you to train your muscles no more than once a week). Of course you can focus on pure strength, pure size, pure speed or endurance at times when you mainly need one of them. But I'm talking about an average lifter who doesn't have a personal weakness or extreme goals.

However, keep one thing in mind: Don't focus on more than two things on the same day. If you use two different parameters in one session, make sure they're close. For example, you can use absolute strength zone (3-6 reps per set) and functional hypertrophy zone (6-8) in the same session, but going for relative strength zone which is 1-3 reps per set AND doing 20+ reps for endurance in the same session of the same day will not give you the result you want. Chances are the body will choose to get better at one over the other, and it is likely to choose less taxing one, which is not what we usually desire for.

Maybe you've realized, but I did not recommend diversity to "keep muscles guessing" without knowing why you mix it up and how you should do even. It's never just about muscles, it's about nervous system, muscles, joints, MHC structure, energy systems and many other components working as a whole. I recommended diversity for a number of reasons: to avoid excess fatigue and overtraining while going for hypertrophy, forcing the body to get better at a few non-conflicting things during the same phase, etc. Practicing the same thing frequently gets your body to adapt to it and is desirable in a pure strength training but not so much for hypertrophy. So I somewhat link diversity to frequency. On the other hand, if you choose to do 4,5 or 6 day splits or decide to work a muscle group only once a week, you can just use these sets of 3-6 only and not mixing it up much (20-30 sets for chest on one day, 20-30 for back the next day, etc). Then progression will be about the only thing you watch.

Progression is the key here. I mentioned 30 sets per session, and in sample schedules, I wrote 3 reps per set. But that's the starting point. As I mentioned earlier, the main progression is NOT to increase the weight, but reps, which I believe to be the most important progression for hypertrophy. Once you complete 6 reps in all sets (Or 7, depending on how masochist you are), then increase the weight. Of course in some exercises you'll reach 6-7 reps per set earlier than others and increase the weight quicker. But that goes for every kind of training methods (You can't add weight to your side raises as quickly as you add to your military presses).

You can also use speed progression, say you only managed to complete 30 sets of 6 in 45 minutes (Or say you do 3 exercises per session and each exercise takes 15 minutes). You can just keep everything the same until you can complete the workout in 30 minutes (10 minutes per exercise which you do ten sets), then increase the weight. Surprisingly, speed progression is not so popular but that can be really effective. So; Increasing the rep should be the final progression in heavy days, not the first thing you should try to increase.

On the other hand, if you train your muscles more frequently and incorporate lighter workouts into your routine, then the main progression on those light days should be weight progression. Try to increase the weight 1 to 5% every workout on those days. It's much easier to increase the weight on lighter days than those heavy days.

What about lifting speed? If you're used to lifting heavy, you already know that heavy weights don't move fast, no matter how hard you try. But it is the effort that matters. You'll go above 80% of your 1RM just like pure strength training, and you should use your maximum effort to push/pull the weight. I don't believe in counting the time it takes to perform a rep when you go that heavy. Lift with the maximum effort, lower in control, always have the control over the weight, or it will control you.

Conclusion

So I hope this clears up the misconception that low reps and super heavy weights don't build muscle. I think people believe so because everytime a coach suggests a strength phase, the program he gives will have really low volume. It does not mean you can not gain muscle in low rep range if you design your program on hypertrophy basics. And 8-12 reps, or moderate reps is not "hypertrophy basics", it is rather an ideal range created according to hypertrophy basics. It lets you go heavy enough to stimulate fibers which have good potential to hypertrophy, it lets you use enough volume in as little sets as possible, it is rather easier than lifting heavier, etc, but it is not the only way to go. As I said in the beggining, I got best gains in terms of size below that popular range, my recovery ability between sets increased, and I did get stronger significantly (Strength gains I had in 8-12 range can not even come close to what I gained in 3-7 range). It's not just me, many elite olympic weightlifters barely do anything besides their competitive lifts, and they can not be done more than 5 reps straight really (Try to do 4 sets of 8 snatches). They got no problem in terms of size. In fact, they got best quads I know of among natural athletes (Not small upper body either). The reason pure strength training is not good for building muscle because there is not sufficient volume and CNS adaptations can be enough for that kind of training. But when there is enough volume, you'll need bigger muscles.

Why is such a training method not popular in bodybuilding world? Like everyone else, I could only guess. Low reps while keeping the density and volume high is hard to accomplish, it takes a lot of mental and physical toughness. It's been always "intensity vs. volume" but such a routine has both high intensity and high volume, which makes it hard and "not for everyone" (It requires somewhat trained CNS, developed ATP-PC system and you need to be built for a similar routine). Furthermore, while some exercises like deadlifts are more suitable for low reps, some others such as cable crossovers look better for higher reps and these kind of isolation movements are often used in bodybuilding community, so 8-12 reps is indeed more convenient for most people (And it is less taxing on CNS). But I know low rep range also works. If something works, I don't care about how popular it is. A couple years ago I read an article in which Ronnie Coleman said he was doing 15 reps for "toning", so we know there are popular (And wrong) beliefs like that at every gym. Likewise, many people prefer to use linear periodization, over-generalize training methods, go by the book and stick to traditional methods. I like trying different ways, many of which work as much as, or even better than conventional methods. And I'm going to share them.

Well I stick to compounds no matter what I do, but there is a general belief that isolation movements are for more weight. I've done really low reps for isolations too, though, so unless keeping the correct form is not that hard, I don't see a problem doing isolations on heavy days as well (But in terms of strength and mass, compounds would be my choice). If I was to choose a day for isolation movements though, then yeah I'd prefer to leave them for light days.

And I never do deloading if I don't need it, and it's usually not more often than 6-8 weeks. If you took "15 sets for back 15 sets for chest" thing as doing half the sets, no, it's still 30 sets, which is my recommendation for every session so it's not deloading. More would be too much, especially once you start to increase reps per set unless you're genetically a freak. And 15 sets would be enough stimulation for growth anyways (As long as you keep your sessions dense), since you'd be training each muscle growth more than twice a week if you do it in 2 days on/1 day off session.

Very informative post, as always. I will have to read this a couple more times to let it sink in. I won't be using the strength building portion of your post for a while but I think there is some very valuable information in here about hypertrophy in general that can be applied to an intermediate bodybuilders workout.

Good job!

 

My god you two are geniuses...

Well, at least 4-5 reps per set is not so conflicting with 8-12 range. What I'm against is doing two extremes in one session (As I said, doing reps of 1-3 then switch it to endurance parameters, sets of 20 or more). Even though I'd also agree deadlifts are more suitable for low rep ranges, I don't put a limit to it like most people do. You can do 6,7 reps as long as you can concentrate on your form (I even did 12 reps for a while).

As long as you start with deadlifts and put maximum effort on them, it's fine. Again, in your case, it's not conflicting. And there is room for concentrating on two things per session as long as they don't oppose each other (Especially if you train each muscle group infrequently). You see some people doing more than that; Starting with 12-15 reps, then doing 7, then 4 or less, and in the end 20+ reps for a "burnout set". They look for variety but confusing the hell out of everything in their body (Including their own mind) won't be best for any goal they have. That's what I was talking about.

I hope it goes well. I was able to use these parameters for only 4 months straight, I worked out 6 times a week and even though I suggest such a heavy training only once a week per muscle group, I did it every 4-5 days for each muscle. By the end of those 4 months though (If I remember correctly), I was having too much muscle pain (I would wake up with lat pain one day, abs pain another, etc) and I had to take it slow for a while. That happened even though I have good recovery capacity, so I suggest doing it once a week per major muscle groups and take it lighter if you train the same muscle group again in that week. Most of my size gain ever was in those months though, and in the following weeks after I'd slowed down. My strength had increased at fastest rate as well (Before that I used to do traditional 8-12, sometimes 6-8). It was before I went for pure strength training, now I know strength gains from such a training are not as dramatical as pure strength training (which is not surprising, since strength is your only focus, it increases faster), but it is still pretty satisfying.

The big thing I got from this article as the lifting speed.  I read your pure strength article and you did a great job there of showing how strength training teaches a skill rather than fatigue muscle.  But anyways, back on point. 

When it comes to lifting speed, it makes sense that the faster you go (with good form), the more force you use. (F=mass*acceleration, so either you add more weight or add more acceleration to get a higher force).  I can see where you don't want to go too fast since it can put one at risk of injury, and a major reason scooby advocates slow and controlled form.  I was wondering if you did a fast up, slow down type of rep would you get a better result.  My reasoning behind this is using a fast up, you use more force, I.E. recruit more muscle fibers and bigger motor units.  But then if you go slow down, you can use the concept of "time under tension".  Does this make any sense to you?