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Does Strength Training Potentiate Hypertrophy?

Study Reference: Carvalho et. al. (2021) is stronger better? Influence of a strength phase followed by a hypertrophy phase on muscular adaptations in resistance trained men. RES SPORTS MED

 

Study Details:

 

  • Men with an average training age of 4-5 years in the gym performed 4 sets of squats and leg press training 3x per week for 8 weeks

 

  • One group lifted in the 8-12 rep range throughout the entire 8 week programme (hypertrophy only training)

 

  • The other group lifted in the 1-3 rep range for the first 3 weeks, before lifting in the 8-12 rep range for the remaining 5 weeks (strength and hypertrophy training)

 

  • After 3 weeks, the hypertrophy group saw greater quad growth compared to the strength + hypertrophy group- as expected.

 

  • However, at the end of the 8 weeks, the strength + hypertrophy group saw superior growth compared to the hypertrophy only group.

 

Real world Applications:

 

  • The study supports the idea that, if you want to maximise muscle growth, then including a short strength phase prior to a hypertrophy phase may be beneficial.

 

  • However, there are plenty of other studies that show that a strength phase prior to a hypertrophy block shows no additional benefits. Therefore, it’s important to note that more research is required before this becomes reliable.

 

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The 4 Pillars of Nutrition: Calories, Macronutrients, Food Quality, Adherence.

If you don’t know of any great sources of information, learning about nutrition can be a minefield. On one hand, you have ultra-restrictive fad diets, such as ketogenic, juice cleanses and carnivore. On the other hand, you have Instagram fitness influencers telling you ‘ignore everything, just create a calorie deficit’ (which, even if it was enough to reach your goal, is hardly helpful advice in learning how to go about achieving that). Therefore, to try and condense nutritional advice into one article, without over-simplifying it to the point of misinformation, I have selected 4 pillars of nutrition. If these needs are met, then you have set up a nutritional protocol suitable for your goal.

 

Calories:

As mentioned above, there are plenty of people which believe it is as simple as calories in vs calories out. Although it is essential to know how many calories to intake to meet your goals, there is also plenty of negatives if you ignore every other aspect of nutrition. If you eat more calories than your calorie maintenance, then you have created a calorie surplus and will put on weight. If you eat less calories than your calorie maintenance, then you have created a calorie deficit and will lose weight. This provides a great starting point when creating any nutritional protocol.

 

However, only considering caloric intake does not account for macronutrients. If your diet lacks protein, then you will add less muscle than you could be during a calorie surplus and losing more muscle than you could be during a calorie deficit. It also does not account for food quality, possibly resulting in deficiencies in certain micronutrients. It also does not take into account adherence, often people adopt extremely low-calorie diets which they cannot stick to in the long term.

 

Macronutrients:

The 3 macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein, and fats. Adequate protein intake is required to maximise muscle retention in a calorie deficit and muscle gain (hypertrophy) in a calorie surplus. Protein requirements will change between training goals, however having an intake above 1.6g per kg of bodyweight will suffice for most goals.

 

Glycogen is the body’s chosen source of energy. Having adequate carbohydrate intake in our diet will keep glycogen stores full, resulting in higher quality of training. Fats have assist with many functions in the body and is also another source of energy, as well as the absorption of nutrients. Keeping fats at approximately 30% of total caloric intake should ensure you are in taking all that you need.

 

If you succeed in selecting the correct calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown, you will start to make significant progress towards body composition goals. The downside to only focussing on calories and macronutrients is that food quality can still suffer. Also, you may still set up a diet which is not adhereable for you.

 

Food Quality:

Broadly speaking, food quality refers to how nutrient dense the food is. For example, vegetables have a vast number of micronutrients in each and every serving. Therefore, vegetables would be classed as a high-quality food. On the contrary, alcohol has virtually no nutrients in each serving, as well as containing 7kcal per gram (almost double the calories than protein and carbohydrates, which have 4kcal per gram). Therefore, alcohol would be classified as a low-quality food.

 

Food quality is important, as people can still hit their macronutrients and calorie target whilst consuming several takeaways and overconsuming alcohol. The issue with this, is that they can end up with deficiencies in several vitamins and minerals. This can lead to increased chance of illness and disease. Therefore, I would recommend filling your diet with as many high-quality foods as you deem adhereable.

 

Adherence:

The last piece of the puzzle is adherence. When many people change their diets they almost never make changes which they can stick to for the rest of their life. This way, they are only setting themselves up to eventually fail. Therefore, it is important to only make changes which do not overwhelm you in anyway. A good personal trainer or nutritionist will assess the level that you should begin with and progress you as you are learning and adhering to the skills and habits that you are able to keep consistent.  If you are going to stick to a diet long term, then a level of enjoyment is paramount to success.

 

In conclusion, these 4 pillars of nutrition cover most you need to know to generally stay healthy and meet most of your goals. There will be certain exceptions for individuals with special dietary requirements, if you feel like you are one of them, then it would be best to consult with a qualified nutritionist.

 

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Benefits of a protein rich diet

When people think about high protein diets, the only thought that may come to mind are your typical huge men in the free weights section walking round with a shaker cup and a stringer top. However, the benefits of a high protein diet go way beyond aiding muscle growth. This article will explore several reasons why a high protein diet can be beneficial for everybody.

 

Firstly, having adequate protein intake will elevate muscle protein synthesis. The benefits of this do include muscle growth for those wanting hypertrophy.

However, it’s also particularly important for anyone over 35 years old. This is because once we reach 35 years old we experience sarcopenia. This can be defined as a natural loss of muscle mass by amount 1% per year. This can be combatted by adequate protein intake and regular resistance training. Starting a high protein diet and regular resistance training younger can have huge benefits in later life. Having a larger amount of muscle mass in old age can help someone keep their independence by allowing them walk without a zimmer frame, climb stairs without a stair lift, and go to the toilet unassisted by a carer. Furthermore, elevated levels of muscle protein synthesis are going to aid the recovery process of any form of physical activity. A common myth is that endurance athletes won’t massively benefit from a high protein diet. However, adequate protein intake helps recovery from all forms of exercise. This is because proteins are the building blocks of muscle tissue. Therefore, stimulating their production (muscle protein synthesis) is going to drastically enhance their recovery.

 

Another benefit of a high protein diet is for bone health. There’s a myth that high protein intake can lead to losses of calcium, and therefore bone density. However, this is not the case as high protein diets have actually been shown to increase bone density. This is going to have benefits to everyone. However, the two populations that will benefit most from this will be the elderly and athletes who participate in impact sports. The elderly is more prone to falls, this means having good bone density is going to be essential in ensuring any injury that is caused is not something which is going to be long term, and something that can contribute to a loss of independence for the rest of their life. This particularly holds true for breaks in the pelvis, as its common for elderly people to not fully recover from this, making walking painful. As a result, they only walk when they absolutely have to, drastically reducing their physical activity levels which, in turn, takes years off their life via accelerated decline of their cardiovascular health.

 

Alternatively, athletes who participate in impact sports are going to have to have bones that can withstand high levels of contact in order to stay injury free. The higher the level of competitor, the more important this will be as higher-level athletes will train more and therefore have to withstand impact more often. Furthermore, higher level athletes may also get paid for performing, meaning that any injury is going to affect their earnings throughout their career. However, if the athlete is already injured, a high protein diet can help accelerate the recovery of the injured tissue. Meaning, that a high protein diet has its place in the prevention and rehabilitation of injuries in sport. It’s also suitable for an injured athlete to replace a given amount of carbohydrates with some more protein, as they will be training less so energy demand is lower.

 

A high protein diet is also essential for anyone trying to lose body fat. Firstly, due to its effects on muscle growth/retention mentioned above, which enhances fat loss in a calorie deficit. Secondly, it provides a higher level of satiety compared with the two other macronutrients (carbohydrates and fats). This will result in less cravings for snacks between meals, making it much easier to achieve a consistent calorie deficit on a daily basis. Lastly, digesting food requires the use of calories, this is called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). Protein has a higher level of TEF compared with the two other macronutrients, providing a further benefit to help one achieve a calorie deficit.

 

Overall, I hope these reasons show you how a high protein diet can provide a whole host of benefits to anyone from any sub-section of the population, from the most sedentary of individuals right up to elite athletes. Also, from young children, right up to adults in their elderly years. The ideal way to ensure you are getting enough protein would be to base your meals around a varying your protein source. Some common examples would be eggs for breakfast, chicken for lunch and fish for tea. Each protein source is going to differ in calories so it’s important that you track protein alongside your caloric intake so that your nutrition is in line with your goals.

 

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Coach Sam Joinson

An active combat sports athlete in Mixed Martial Arts and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Sam is a personal trainer who centres his practice around helping his clients move better, so they can feel better.

 

Sam has an expertise in biomechanics and has a great coaches eye when it comes to identifying discrepancies within movements and creating interventions.

 

He took up exercise in his youth as a way of managing anxiety and improving his body confidence and has been focused on the study of biomechanics, nutrition and psychology ever since, pushing his limits to try and achieve an excellent standard of physical performance and conditioning coaching for his personal training clients.

 

A recovering Scoliotic, Sam has dealt with a wide array of injuries as a result of compromised biomechanics and has used his practice to drastically reduce his symptoms and dysfunctions through a process of elimination.

 

Sam’s approach combines traditional weight lifting, movement training, breath work and concepts from psychology, anthology and sociology to achieve a holistic and balanced approach aimed at getting the most from his clients mental and physical development.

RESULTS

10 WEEK LEAN PHASE

24 KG WEIGHT LOSS

 

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Journey of a 50kg weight loss transformation by Coach Jonny Molloy.

Celeste is a mum of 3 children. Her alarm goes off at 4:00am daily to begin her day. Her occupation is quite high stress as a highly successful manager at a supermarket. Celeste had never stepped foot in a gym in her life prior to this transformation.

 

Celeste had a consultation with Coach Jonny and discussed seeking help on improving her health and well-being, her main goal was to drive weight loss and some guidance and support on what program to focus on and how to begin her program as a complete stranger to the gym.

 

When most embark on a fitness journey a lot of the focus is on what the client needs to start doing but without the guidance and coaching of what the client needs to stop doing in order to achieve sustainable lasting results. A coach can help you navigate through all of this along your journey and provide you with the correct tools to stay on track with your goals.

 

Jonny believes that anyone can achieve life changing results as long they are willing to change and have trust in the process that their coach plans out for them.

 

Some people want to change but are you willing to change you?

 

Jonny’s coaching style strips back the shiny stuff and helps clients understand the fundamentals of what is required to lose weight and build lean muscle mass.

 

“It isn’t about what I can do for the client. The process is about what we can achieve when we work together as a team. When that clicks, anything is possible just like how Celeste has turned her life around by us working together.”

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Short vs Long rest periods for Muscle Growth

Reference: Schoenfield et. al. (2016) Longer Interset Rest Periods Enhance Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy in Resistance Trained Men.

 

Information on the study:

 

  • Trainees with at least 6 months resistance training experience were split into 2 groups

 

  • Both groups performed 7 compound lifts, for 3 sets of 8-12 reps, 3x per week, for 8 weeks

 

  • 1 group rested for 1 minute between sets, while the other rested for 3 minutes between sets

 

 

  • It was found that the longer rest group saw superior gains in all muscle groups when compared to the shorter rest group.

 

  • This supports the idea that longer rest periods are superior for hypertrophy

 

 

Application to real world:

  • With longer rest periods come longer overall sessions durations, unless you cut overall volume.
  • Overall volume has been shown to be a significant factor in muscle hypertrophy
  • Therefore, it may be worth only applying these long rest periods if you have the extra time free in your schedule to allow you to do so.
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Is scale weight an accurate way to track progress?

When people embark on a fitness journey, whether that be to lose body fat or gain muscle mass, the common tool to track their progress people use is how much the number on the scales changes over time. However, is this the most accurate way to track progress towards body composition goals? Just like most questions relating to health and fitness, the answer is- it depends.

 

The first thing to remember is that scale weight is the total weight of all the tissues in your body and not just muscle and fat. Therefore, it is not the most accurate measurement when it comes to measuring body composition. Other methods include skin fold callipers, a cheap tool which measures body fat percentage. However, despite its low cost, the skill needed to take an accurate measurement makes this a fairly inaccessible method of measuring body composition. The gold standard of body composition measurement in a DEXA Scanner. Although, this is a very expensive piece of equipment, only really seen in medical facilities due to its use in also identifying bone density and helping diagnose patients with osteoporosis. Due to other methods being inaccessible, scales are by far the most common tool used by the general population to assess progress in their body composition goals, so what can be done to ensure you are getting the most reliable and accurate changes to body fat and muscle as you can with scales?

 

Any tool is only effective when you know how to use it and scales are no different. Weighing yourself on Monday at 7am and then again on Sunday at 8pm will not give an accurate measurement for how your weight has changed over the course of the week, due to factors that will be discussed in this article. Therefore, if you are to use scales accurately, I would recommend taking daily measurements, first thing in the morning each day and then calculating the mean average each week and compare each week’s average from the last, to get a more accurate measurement of how much your weight is changing due to changes to fat or muscle tissue.

 

So, what factors can influence the weight on the scales besides from muscle and fat tissue? Firstly, there’s water retention. The amount of water our bodies hold will hold will change throughout the day, as well as day by day. Reasons for this include carbohydrate and sodium intake, which cause our bodies to hold more water- not add on fat tissue (a common misconception in, the case of carbohydrates, spread by the misinformed and keto zealots). Therefore, if your diet is more heavily carbohydrate based for a few days, then you may add some weight. However, this will be due to the added water retention from an increased intake of carbohydrates, not an added amount of fat tissue.

 

Next, there’s the amount of food you are currently digesting. First thing in the morning, is when you have the least food in your digestive system as it will have been 9-10 hours since your last meal. Therefore, food being digested cannot influence your scale weight, unlike if you weighed yourself shortly after a meal.

 

Besides from keeping these variables at bay, what else can be done to improve the reliability and accuracy of scales measuring body composition? Firstly, you could also use a measuring tape and measure your Hip to Waist Ratio. This is productive because most people hold the majority of fat around their Waist area. Therefore, if you are trying to gain muscle mass and you put yourself in a calorie surplus and put on weight, you may believe you are getting closer to your goal. However, if you take measurements are realise your Waist measurement is increasing at a faster rate than your Hips, then this indicates you are putting on fat faster than muscle mass. This information can then lead to you making productive changes to your training and/or nutrition.

 

Next, it’s important to ensure you are setting yourself up for success. One way to do this is to ensure you are consuming enough protein and tracking it. Ensuring adequate protein intake with a suitable resistance training programme and sleep will ensure that any weight loss will not be due to loss of muscle mass. Alternatively, when gaining muscle, will ensure you are adding as much muscle mass as you can in the calorie surplus you are in.

 

In conclusion, scales are far from perfect when it comes to measuring body composition goals. However, with the correct information, it can be a very useful tool to help you stay on track when pursuing your goals.

 

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How often should you change exercises?

The Study:

‘Kassiano et. al. (2022) Does Varying Resistance Exercises Promote Superior Muscle Hypertrophy And Strength Gains? A systemic review J Strength Cond Res.

 

What is the study is about?

 

It’s a review that tries to find evidence for how often exercises should change in an exercise programme in order to maximise results.

 

Results of the study:

 

  • Changing exercises too frequently seems to be less effective for muscle growth compared to sticking with the same exercises for an extended period of time.

 

  • Furthermore, there’s evidence supporting that less frequent exercise variation may promote greater long term muscle growth as a result of differences in regional hypertrophy

 

  • However, each exercise stresses specific ranges of a muscle. Therefore it might be beneficial to switch exercises every so often.

 

  • The general recommendation for how often you should change exercises looks to be in the region of every 4-6 weeks. Certain factors may change this though, such as enjoyment of a programme, linked to adherence.

 

Application to clients:

 

  • My recommendation would be to generally follow these guidelines with the exception of a couple of reasons: Firstly, if the client gets bored of certain exercises. Secondly, if the clients goals change. But if your goal is to become better at certain lifts then its likely that you will require those lifts throughout your macrocycle.

 

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Principles of Training- Periodisation

Throughout the year, someone may have one, or two main, goals. This can apply to athletes and the general population. For example, an elite athlete may target peak performance for the Olympics in the summer, whereas someone in the general population may want to achieve their most aesthetic look for a specific holiday that summer.

 

Periodisation can be defined as the planned manipulation of training variables in order to maximise training adaptations and to prevent the onset of overtraining syndrome. This is important as, for many athletes, several different adaptations need to be improved upon throughout the year, in order to achieve peak performance. Also, they cannot work on all aspects of performance simultaneously, as they can only train for a finite number of hours per week and focussing on too many things in this time will not provide the adequate stimulus for improvement. Therefore, athletes and their coaches will prioritise different adaptations, in a set order, in order to achieve the best condition possible.

 

To give an example of this, let’s look at an endurance runner who is targeting a 5km race in summer. This structure can be applied to both recreational runners and elite runners, the difference between elite and recreational will come in training volume, as oppose to how they periodise their training.

 

If the race is in July, the runner will want to build their aerobic base between September and December. The aerobic base is built first for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is comprised of low intensity running only, with some strength and conditioning work. This low intensity running is much easier to build up after the off-season, as hard running would result in overtraining and potentially injuries. Also, the aerobic base will help recovery time during and between hard running sessions in later phases, helping keep those sessions of a higher quality throughout each session and throughout the season.

 

Between January and June, they will slowly introduce harder running intervals, gradually getting more difficult as time goes on. Every coach has a different philosophy but typically, 2 hard workouts will be introduced each week. These will initially be at around lactate threshold speed. This helps the body increase the speed it can run at before lactate starts to accumulate and cause pain and fatigue. Then, even later on, towards May and June, hard interval workouts above race pace and above the lactic threshold will be introduced. These will help the athlete mentally and physically tolerate the feeling of lactic acid better. Ultimately helping them in the closing stages of the 5km race.

 

A couple weeks prior to the race the athlete will taper. This is where training volume is halved in order to reduce fatigue so the athlete is fresh for the race. Training isn’t ceased all together, as aerobic training adaptations can reverse in as little as two weeks. It would also be quite a shock to the system mentally to not run for two weeks and then try and run your fastest ever race. Nutrition will also be manipulated accordingly due to the lower calorie expenditure during the taper.

 

For a more general population client who only wants to look aesthetic, periodisation of training is less important. This is because training for muscle gain (hypertrophy) and muscle retention looks exactly the same. However, what we can periodise is the nutrition.

 

For example, if the holiday is one year away and the client is already in okay shape (up to 17% body fat approximately). Then we can bulk for the first 8 months whereby they are in a moderate calorie surplus (Maintenance calories+ up to 500kcal per day) with adequate protein (2.2g per kg of bodyweight). Along with their training and sleep, this is an optimal environment for muscle growth. However not all of this added weight will be muscle tissue, some fat tissue will be added.

 

Therefore, for the final 3 months, they can adopt a moderate calorie deficit (Maintenance calories – up to 500kcal), still with the same protein intake and adequate sleep. Training may need to be adjusted. This is because the calorie deficit may leave the person with slightly less energy compared to when they were in a calorie surplus. Therefore, other principles of training such as progressive overload, may not continue to progress at the same rate. However, this is okay when someone has aesthetic goals as this is an optimal environment for fat loss.

 

Overall, it’s important to identify exactly what adaptations need to occur for you to achieve your training goals and then to be able to focus on them in the right order, to attain the results you want, at the time you want as well.

 

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Principles of Training – Individualisation

Each and every one of us is physically and mentally different. This is why, when it comes to training, everyone’s approach needs to be bespoke to them, if it’s going to be optimal.

 

One of these factors will be their starting point, in terms of ability, in their fitness journey. For example, if two people come to a personal trainer saying they wish to build better whole-body strength, then both will be assessed to see where their starting point is at. If it becomes clear one athlete has a proportionately stronger upper body than their lower body, and the other person vice versa then despite the same goal, their programmes will look different. The first person will need a more lower body focussed approach whereas the other person would need the opposite, this is an example of applying the principle of individualisation.

 

Another key factor to consider is lifestyle variations. Everyone has a life outside of the gym, all of which will include factors which influence their performance inside the gym. Therefore, this needs to be considered when programming. To give another example, imagine someone wants to become generally fitter all round. If they’re a labourer then you need to consider that their job is very taxing, therefore workload needs to be managed more carefully as to avoid overtraining and injury.

 

 

Next, there’s anatomical variants between each individual which can affect performance in the gym. For example, someone with a larger rib cage convexity, steeper sternum angle and short limbs is going to have a better chance at being better at the Bench Press compared to someone with a smaller ribcage, flatter sternum angle and long limbs, due to the first person having a shorter range of motion to achieve a full repetition and the line of pull on the pecs from insertion to origin. Another way in which anatomical differences influence training, can be down to active range. Everyone’s active range for a given movement is different. A common example would be overhead mobility. If someone cannot lift their hands directly above their heads (180 degrees of shoulder flexion) then trying to perform an overhead press is going to take them out of their active range and they will lean back to achieve the overhead position. This person will be putting a lot of stress on joint structures outside of this range and also increase the risk of injury when lifting outside of it. Therefore, consider this individual difference and give them an exercise that challenges them in their active range, for instance an incline press, set to a height whereby they are working in the active range that they can achieve.

 

Next, there’s two factors that link together. These are tolerance to training loads and responsiveness to training load. One’s tolerance to training load is going to help you in the initial phase of deciding things like how frequently they should train and how demanding each session should be. Their responsiveness to training will link closely with progressive overload. So, someone who responds very quickly to training will need to increase their training load more frequently than a slow responder. It’s important however that progressive overload is applied correctly to both people to prevent any from overtraining or undertraining.

 

Finally, the psychology behind training must also be taken into consideration. As with most things, intrinsic motivation is the key to long term adherence and this is achieved when someone feels competent, so the training programme must not feel too difficult for the participant. They also need relatedness, this comes from good relationships attached with the activity. Therefore, having great rapport with your PT, or attending the gym with a friend is a great idea. It’s also a reason why exercise groups with a more ‘community feel’ are more popular, the biggest example of this being the rapid growth of CrossFit over the past 10-15 years. Also, the participant must feel like they have autonomy, this can come via a number of ways such as having the freedom to train when they want, as well as being able to have a say in what they do during sessions (if they want that).

 

Overall, there’s many factors here to consider, it’s important to manage them all carefully, in order to ensure you are getting the most out of your training.