The
Mythology of Hypertrophy
Michael
Boyle
(This article is relevant to training golfers because Golf Fitness
Professionals deal with golfers “who view hypertrophy as a disease” and have a
lot of misconceptions about strength training for golf)
In
personal training, we seem to encounter two types of clients. We have the
clients (usually male) who desire hypertrophy, and we have the clients
(usually female) who view hypertrophy as a disease. In order to effectively and
honestly develop training programs for both types of clients, it is important
to revisit what we know or, more importantly, what we think we know about the
development of hypertrophy. I must confess that I’m not a hypertrophy expert. I
discovered this information by accident. I train primarily athletes and
generally don’t worry about hypertrophy to any great degree. However, as a
result of performing some eccentric emphasis strength work, I began to question
what I had always taken for granted about hypertrophy. Recently, I’ve begun to
look at some of the accepted ideas about training in general - and about
hypertrophy in particular - that many of us in the fields of strength and
conditioning and personal training seem to accept as fact. Let's take a look at
some of these myths about hypertrophy.
1) A
good controlled rep takes four seconds to complete.
In my
opinion, this is the number one problem in the myth of hypertrophy training. If
in fact a well performed repetition takes four seconds to complete, then
trainees should do eight to 12 reps for hypertrophy, correct? Let's
examine this concept a bit further. Many of today’s leading strength and
conditioning coaches are big proponents of tempo emphasis in training program
design. I recently read an article which stated that eight to 12 reps would
take 32 to 48 seconds and therefore would fall in the hypertrophy range of time
under tension (30-70 seconds).
In my experience, this is one of the most basic
misconceptions in training for hypertrophy. I performed a little informal
research with a metronome. We simply made a metronome CD (one tone per second)
and allowed it to play while our athletes trained. The purpose of this
tempo CD was to force our athletes to slow down the eccentric portion of the lift
by consciously trying to lower the bar for five seconds. The by-product of
this experiment was that I was able to watch many people lift with a loud
metronome beat in the background. What I observed surprised me.
Good controlled
lifting in my gym was at best 1-0-1 tempo. I observed this over and over
and realized that our conventionally performed eight to 12 rep sets were taking
from 16 to 24 seconds to complete. In order to produce hypertrophy, it would be
necessary to consciously slow down the reps to break the 30 second
barrier. Try it yourself. Have your client lift as she normally would and
time the set. I'll bet that 10 reps will take 10 to 20 seconds. “
How can I
then train for hypertrophy (if this is my goal)? Personally, I don’t like
deliberate slow concentric motion. This means that in order to produce
hypertrophy, we need to slow the eccentric portion of a 10 rep set down to two
seconds. This 2-0-1 tempo will just reach the 30 second mark, which is thought
to be the bottom end of the range for hypertrophy. This type of approach
(slow eccentric, fast concentric) should also produce more functional
hypertrophy than deliberately attempting to perform the concentric portion of
the rep more slowly, and it will certainly allow the use of a higher load.
2) You
need to do basic exercises with free weights to develop hypertrophy or avoid
them to prevent it.
Let's ask
ourselves a simple question: do muscles have the capability to recognize
type of resistance? Can a muscle tell the difference between a weight, a band
or a spring? I don’t believe so. One of my favorite lines of miscommunication
is, “This exercise or training method will give you long, lean muscles like a
dancer.” In my opinion, this is akin to telling people you can turn an apple
into an orange right before their eyes. You can no more make a short
stocky client have long lean muscles like a dancer than you can make someone
taller. Exercise will remove subcutaneous body fat and reduce intramuscular fat
stores, but changing the source of resistance in a resistance-based exercise
will not produce a muscle that appears different.
Muscles can’t tell the
difference between resistance generated by a piece of iron or by a piece of
rubber. We need to produce a resistance that will cause fatigue to occur at the
30 second point or later to induce hypertrophy. If weight training had to
be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy, then lat
pull-downs would be a better exercise than chin-ups for upper back development.
Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite, but the resistance in
a chin-up is “only” bodyweight. If we don’t want hypertrophy, than don’t do
light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription for female
trainees (light weights, lots of reps) leans more toward a bodybuilding, mass
producing prescription than away from it.
If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would
stay in the five to six rep range with higher loads and generate less time
under tension. I would also do less sets. The result: less time under tension,
less volume and less hypertrophy. The fact is, training is about time under
tension and the point of fatigue. I can produce hypertrophy with weights or
without.
3) Lift
light weights and do more reps.
Light
weight is an oxymoron. Why would anyone lift light weights? I often talk to
trainees, particularly females, who say something like, “I have eight
pound dumbbells, and I do the same routine three times a week.” When I ask them
why they train with such light weights, usually their response is, “I don’t want
to get too big.” Again, this is based on major misperception. Ask a natural
bodybuilder how much time and effort goes into gaining 10 pounds of quality
muscle. Most male natural bodybuilders will tell you that it takes about a
year. For a female, this could be two years. So in truth, our eight
pound dumbbell waving client need not be concerned about too much
hypertrophy. I recently trained a golfer with the same concerns. He didn’t want
to gain too much size. He thought it would hurt his swing. I had the same
response to him that I do to most female clients: “Don’t worry about it.”
The
Truth About Hypertrophy
The fact
of the matter is that hypertrophy may be the goal for some clients and
considered an unwanted byproduct of training by others. In either case, it
should not be a great concern. The reality is, hypertrophy for most,
non-anabolic using clients is very hard to come by. And one unfortunate problem
with hypertrophy training is that our concept of how to train for hypertrophy
has also been heavily influenced by steroid users.
If in
fact hypertrophy is the goal, then a conscious effort must be made to control
the eccentric portion of the exercise to increase time under tension. If a
client wants to weight train but has no desire for hypertrophy, I would perform
five to six reps at a 1-0-1 tempo. In either case, I would still avoid the
conventional three to four exercises per body part favored by the bodybuilding
crowd. I would perform one or two exercises for each movement pattern, and if
hypertrophy is the desired result, I would emphasize slower eccentric
contractions.
Another
common misconception is that single joint exercise is better for hypertrophy.
Again, if I had a client that was interested in hypertrophy, I would stay with
basic multi-joint exercises like bench presses, front squats and chin-ups. It
is amazing to watch people waste time with lateral raises and other single
joint exercises when they have not even performed an overhead pressing
movement. The bottom line is that the exercises that are the most beneficial
are often also the most difficult to do. The body doesn’t always like a good
taste of hard work. Sometimes, at least at first, it hurts.
The
public is uninformed, and often as trainers, we’re just playing along. We
talk to clients about tone and about changing muscle structure (long
dancers’ muscles). I just hope that people in the industry can begin to see
this is salesmanship and not science. Why not tell our clients the truth? When
your client says, “I don’t want to get too big,” tell him/her, “Don’t
worry. Chances are we won’t train hard enough to produce much muscle mass
anyway.”
Check out his
Coach Boyle's website, StrengthCoach.com,
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Michael Boyle is one of the most respected professional strength coach's in the world. He is the foremost expert on Strength and Conditioning, Functional Training and general fitness. He currently spends his time lecturing, teaching, training and writing. Prior to 2003, Michael directed Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, one of the first for-profit strength and conditioning companies in the world. Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning was founded to provide performance enhancement training for athletes of all levels. Athletes trained range from junior high school students to All Stars in almost every major professional sport. Check out his website at StrengthCoach.com
The articles at GolfFitnessProducts.net are for informational purposes only and are not intended to substitute for direct examination and exercise prescription by the appropriate health professional. It is strongly recommended that you do not perform any exercise program without the consent of your personal physician.
