What is the difference between hypertrophy and strength training

Strength training usually involves heavy weights with a lower training volume. This typically means you'll perform a smaller number of sets, but your lifts will be higher intensity since you'll be using heavier weight.

Also, as mentioned above, strength training focuses more on compound lifts that recruit bigger muscles as well as smaller tendons and ligaments. For example, bench press is a staple of many strength training programs, since it utilizes almost every upper body muscle including your chest, triceps, forearms, and others.

While both hypertrophy and strength training will involve performing many of the same exercises with the same kind of equipment, the goal of hypertrophy training is a little different. When your focus is on building the muscle tissue to be as large as possible, you'll want to use a higher rep range with lighter weights. Also, hypertrophy training emphasizes isolation exercises that use only one or two muscles at a time.

Some common exercises you would see on a plan focused on hypertrophy include:. Bicep curls. Quadriceps extensions. Dumbbell flyes. Hypertrophy-style training is popular in the bodybuilding community, where there is often a need to focus on muscle growth in very specific areas to ensure the physique as a whole is ready for competition.

Sets performed in these kinds of training sessions will also have high reps when compared to the kind of lower rep, compound lift training that helps cause strength gains. Because this type of training requires lighter weight but more reps and sets, it may take longer than a traditional strength training workout.

You may also have to perform a variety of different types of moves than you would on a plan focused on maximizing strength gains. A strength training workout with a barbell might call for only three or four different lifts, while a hypertrophy plan may require six or more. Scientific research indicates that certain kinds of exercises can induce hypertrophy in the muscles without a corresponding increase in strength.

Your own athletic history will determine whether you need to add in hypertrophy or strength training as part of your preparation program for selection phase. The endurance athlete needs to add in a cycle of hypertrophy and strength training into the periodization program. For the lifter, weaknesses like running, swimming and rucking also should be part of the training cycles. Maintaining a base of cardio endurance is critical, even while you are trying to build muscle.

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Your nervous system responds to proper strength training by increasing your ability to produce force, contract your muscles harder, and have stronger bones. Hypertrophy training is more commonly known as bodybuilding. Toned accurately describes the look some people are going for, and training for hypertrophy is an important strategy toward that goal.

Tone is an actual term. The stronger you are, the better tone your muscles can hold. Hypertrophy training also builds up tendons, ligaments, and small stabilizer muscles and allow you to address specific muscle groups more directly. Tendons and ligaments adapt more slowly than muscles which is why joint issues are often a concern in heavy lifting. Lighter hypertrophy training gives your joints and tendons time to catch up. So, while it is primarily associated with aesthetic goals, when programmed strategically, hypertrophy training helps reduce some injury risks in the long term.

If size complements strength, and lighter loads and higher reps can build up muscles and reduce risk of injury, then hypertrophy training remains very valuable. Hypertrophy work directly improves muscle size and helps you establish a stronger mental connection with your muscles, which is an integral part of coordination and body awareness the mind-muscle connection, as Arnold called it!

The overarching intent of bodybuilding or hypertrophy training is to increase muscle size, not strength. Many dedicated bodybuilders are very strong, but relative to a weightlifter or powerlifter they are not as strong.

And how should I decide when to do which? This is where programming comes in. Programming means making a plan, and that plan should start by addressing what you need first. What most people training for general fitness need first are better coordination and posture. Those are the two foundational qualities of strength. They also need to build muscle hypertrophy and improve cardiovascular conditioning.

Ideally, programming should cycle between building up the various qualities you need. This could be for at least six months, but the length of time you spend following this program will really depend on your ability to accomplish the purpose of the program. After that, dedicating six months to a full year to a strength training program using barbells is ideal before considering a period of training for higher athleticism speed and agility or for more size through bodybuilding again.

The best recommendation for developing high-quality general fitness and a physique that makes you happy includes:. Fatigue can happen during any period where you are training harder than you can recover from, however, neural fatigue often occurs during high volume, higher intensity loading strength programs. While there are no clear guidelines on what constitutes something being too high in volume or intensity, as individual recovery rates can vary, it is often seen when lifters train too heavy for too long or for too many reps.

Since the nervous system becomes much more involved when heavier loads are lifted, it can also be fatigued more easily at higher intensities and higher volumes. If you do overly tax your nervous system, the recovery process is much longer than taking a few days off of training, often several weeks until you feel fully recovered. Neural fatigue is often a more serious issue with more advanced lifters or lifters who also have high stressors outside the gym.

Lifting in high volumes and training hard, no matter the training program hypertrophy vs strength can result in some injuries if proper form and recovery is not prioritized. Strength training, however, can increase injury risks and overuse injuries, especially with poor recovery, high stress, and high volume strength programs, as the loading is higher than that used in hydropathy programs. One of the main differences between hypertrophy training and strength training is the total amount of work volume accumulated within a session and program.

Training volume can be calculated by multiplying sets x reps x load, and generally speaking hypertrophy training is higher in training volume due to the ability to perform more sets and reps with less loads than heavier, strength training. This is not to say that you cannot train in higher frequencies with heavier loads, however, fatigue neural and overuse injury strains, tendonitis, connective tissues becomes much more of a factor when trying to do heavier loads in higher volumes.

Both hypertrophy and strength programs will have a lifter perform sets of a given movement, however in some cases sets may be programmed during strength training programs because of the reduced number of reps. The total number of sets performed can vary greatly based on the program, and is often not a key differentiator between hypertrophy vs strength training, as reps and loading are often manipulated to a great extent. Hypertrophy rep ranges can vary greatly when compared to strength training rep ranges.

Hypertrophy can occur in a wide variety of rep ranges, as the key driver for muscle growth is often training the muscle to fatigue and getting the muscle burn, which can be done training in the , , and even rep range; as long as the muscle is taken to failure.

If the muscle is not taken to failure after reps, the loading is too light to bring about significant improvements in muscle hypertrophy. Similarly, if the lifter fatigues prior to 5 reps, muscle damage is done, but not enough overall training volume can be accomplished often due to the lifter getting generally tired before the muscle itself has been fatigued.

This is why most programs recommend you to train in the reps range to failure or very close to failure for best results if your goal is hypertrophy. If you are training more reps than that, you are certainly increasing muscle, however you may not actually be using heavy enough loads to increase your strength maximally.

When hypertrophy is the goal, you can often train close to failure as the loads are lighter and the failure is muscle failure rather than the body as a whole giving out. When looking to increase muscle size and growth, local muscle failure such as what you feel in your quads when you do a ton of seated leg extensions is the name of the game. Strength training is often more effective when you do not train to complete failure, as you run the risk of overtraining and injury as loading is much higher relative to your maximum.

During hypertrophy training programs, the goal is to train the muscle to fatigue, which can be done using a variety of loads, rep ranges, and movements. When training to failure it is often helpful to use machines and isolated movement as you can truly push the muscle to fatigue and not be limited by other muscles giving out or form breakdowns.

However, if you are looking to increase max strength, you need to train movements that allow you to train with heavier loads. Compound exercises are great for this, and the limiting factor for these will often be how heavy the load is rather than how much balance or coordination you need, or exercises that may not allow you to load up as much weight.

For example, doing back squats with a barbell is much easier to load up lbs than it is to do kettlebell goblet squats with lbs. Research suggests that if you are training for maximal strength, you should prioritize movements that have you as stable as possible that are done with movements that allow you to load up with heavier loads, whereas things like bodyweight training, kettlebells, and isolation exercises may be best for hypertrophy or endurance programs 3.

Hypertrophy programs may have shorter rest periods than strength programs because the loading is less. However research suggests that longer rest periods for hypertrophy programs may actually be more effective at allowing individuals to push to fatigue and increase muscle size, as shorter rest periods may not allow them to push as hard.