When I first started getting into lifting, all I wanted to do was gain as much muscle as possible. On the surface, I was training to get better at baseball, but deep down, I needed the confidence that comes with getting physically bigger. So for the first 4ish years of my training career, hypertrophy was the number one focus. And I made just about every mistake in the book.
The good news: I still got bigger. When you’re a college-aged male with a chip on your shoulder, just about anything will work. The bad news: I could have got so MUCH bigger if I’d taken a more intelligent approach.
Here are 8 common do’s and don’ts that I find myself coaching people through on a regular basis.
DON’T: Train a Body Part Once a Week
DO: Train a Body Part Once it’s Recovered
Most people start their foray into hypertrophy training with typical body part splits as flaunted by your favorite pro bodybuilder. You know, chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday… you thrash that one body part into oblivion with 30+ sets to the point where you feel like you got put through a meat grinder the next day. Then, you don’t touch that muscle group for another 7 days.
There are two problems here: 1) you don’t need to destroy a muscle to that degree to make it grow, and 2) if a muscle recovers sooner, you can train it again sooner, which leads to more growth overall.
Rather than one weekly ass-whooping, train a body part with a little less volume and intensity per session, then train it again once it’s recovered (i.e., no longer sore or fatigued). For bigger muscle groups like legs and chest, that still may only be twice a week, but for smaller ones like arms, shoulders and calves, you could possibly train them 3-4 times a week and still see growth.
DON’T: Switch Exercises Every Week
DO: Stick with an Exercise Until it Stops Working
Constantly switching through exercises is a surefire way to stunt your progress. Whether it’s from boredom or because new exercises lead to more soreness (and people equate soreness with growth, another half-truth), people spoil their own gains with this mistake.
Even when I knew that “muscle confusion” was a farce, I still often switched exercises every four weeks, which is too quick. There’s no need to change an exercise if you’re still making progress. If you’re still adding weight to the bar week-by-week, still adding sets and/or reps each week and still getting mild-to-moderate soreness that subsides within a few days, keep doing that exercise. Once one or more of these factors plateaus, THEN switch to a different movement to keep the gains coming.
DON’T: Neglect Weight on the Bar
DO: Microload if Possible
Another myth is that low weight and high reps are the magic combination for hypertrophy. The fact is that progressive overload – adding weight to the bar little by little over time – is still the best recipe to get huge.
It’s true that heavy, low-rep training isn’t ideal for growth, which is why some powerlifters can stay the same size and weight class for years on end while still getting stronger. However, steadily adding weight to the bar in the 6-20 rep range (that’s a really broad range) will keep you growing.
Volume is perhaps the more important factor for growth, so adding sets and/or reps each week is more important than weight. However, the key is to microload if possible. Add 5 pounds here, another notch on the cable stack there, a little bit at a time. Five pounds a week over a 12-week training block is 60 pounds. Five pounds every OTHER week over an entire year is 130 pounds, which is a HUGE increase by anyone’s standards.
DON’T: Eat for Fat Loss
DO: Eat in a Caloric Surplus
Nutrition is more important for body composition changes than exercise, period. If you don’t eat right, you’re not going to gain muscle or lose fat, whatever your goal may be. All too often, we see people claim they want to gain muscle, but then eat as if they’re trying to get shredded. They cut their calories down way too low, reducing important fuel sources like carbs while jacking up their training volume in an attempt to build muscle without the energy or raw materials to do so. Not surprisingly, they get nowhere.
If you truly want to get huge, you have to eat in a caloric surplus (i.e., consume more calories than you burn), with enough protein to build new muscle and enough carbohydrates to provide fuel for the tough training sessions you’ll be doing. Strength House co-owner Greg Robins filmed a great video about nutrition for hypertrophy which covers all the bases. Check it out:
DON’T: Neglect Machines
DO: Use Machines Strategically
I know I fell for the lie that machines were inferior to free weights when it comes to hypertrophy. I was told that dumbbells and barbells “built up your stabilizers” and “recruit more muscle fibers” than machines. Fake news. They both work, and you should use whatever fatigues the target muscle group most effectively.
If you’re a powerlifter, barbell training should still make up the bulk of your training, even if you’re in a hypertrophy phase. And even if you’re a bodybuilder or ONLY care about muscle growth, free weights tend to have greater loading potential than machines and can be progressed heavier over time. However, some muscle groups are just plain easier to target with machines.
For example, you could train your lats with only free weights and bodyweight. Barbell rows, chin-ups, dumbbell pullovers, etc. They’ll get the job done. However, all these exercises are limited either by grip strength, positional strength or relative strength. Eventually, it’s going to be hard to make the lats fail before your grip, your biceps, your lower back, etc. Incorporating machine-based movements like lat pulldowns and cable rows let the lats be the star of the show without worrying about another muscle group failing first.
DON’T: Use “Functional Exercises”
DO: Use Exercises Where the Target Muscle Fatigues First
Similar to the last point, many “functional” exercises used in sports performance are heralded as superior for building strength and muscle that’s “useful”, whatever that means. While many of these movements might have carryover to the field or the court, they’re not going to help you gain much muscle for two reasons: 1) it’s hard to progressively add weight to these exercises, and 2) your coordination will often fail before you fatigue the target muscle group.
Let’s take the 1-leg RDL for example. It’s one of my absolute favorite exercises for athletes. It works on strength and coordination in a position that’s important for just about any athlete. However, you’re not going to add appreciable size to your hamstrings with 1-leg RDLs because you’re probably going to fall on your face before your hammies approach muscular failure. Instead, you’d be better off using simple machine hamstring curls if hypertrophy is your goal. Grumpy old-school strength coaches would grumble that there’s nothing “functional” about machine hamstring curls, but they can grumble all they want when you can’t find pants that fit because your legs are so big and they still can’t fill out their 20-year-old swishy wind pants.
DON’T: Rely Solely on Intensity Techniques
DO: Use Them Sparingly
Intensity techniques like drop sets, strip sets, cluster sets and forced reps are fun in a sick, twisted kind of way. But they often get overused by pump-chasing would-be bodybuilders. Remember, progressive overload is still the main goal, not how big a pump you get while your training partner two-finger-spots the bar off your chest screaming, “It’s all yooooooooou!”
The bulk of your hypertrophy training should be aimed at adding volume and weight slowly and steadily in the 6-20 rep range. However, every so often you can sprinkle in intensity techniques as finishers at the end of a workout. Metabolic stress – getting a huge pump and engorging the muscle with nutrient-rich blood – plays a role in hypertrophy and has its time and place.
Something like the Juarez Valley Push-Up Challenge is a brutal way to finish off your chest after a workout that consists of staple exercises like bench press and flyes:
DON’T: Choose Concentric-Only Exercises
DO: Use Exercises that Have a Loadable Eccentric-Phase
The eccentric (i.e., lowering or “negative”) phase of an exercise is where the magic happens. Controlling this phase is what often leads to the most soreness and, if you eat and sleep like it’s your job, muscle growth. So it’s important to choose exercises that have an appreciable eccentric phase and skip the movements that are in essence concentric only.
Unfortunately, many great exercises are concentric-only (or close to it) and simply aren’t that useful in a hypertrophy program. These include:
- Deadlifts from the floor
- Hip thrusts and glute bridges
- Sled pushes
- Band triceps pushdowns
- Band pull-aparts
- Step-ups
All these movements have a time and a place, but none of them require you to maintain muscular tension during an eccentric phase. You simply relax and return to the starting position before doing the next rep. Instead, swap them for:
- Romanian deadlifts
- Hamstring curls
- Squats
- Cable pushdowns
- Rows or rear delt flyes
- Split squats or lunges
Concentric-only movements could be used in a finisher situation as described in the previous point to get a nasty pump, but that’s about it. Stick with exercises that you can do with a slow, focused eccentric.
DO: Get Huge with Our New 12-Week Hypertrophy Program
The Strength House just put out three new 12-week online training programs, including a hypertrophy program that will help you build muscle, improve work capacity and set the foundation for future strength gains. It’s on sale for just $29 until December 6, so click below to grab your copy today.
