Specific strength qualities for unlocking gymnastics skills. Part 2: Hypertrophy
Do you want to build lean muscle, shred body fat, tone up, and increase strength while working on your gymnastic skills?
If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to part two of the specific strength qualities for unlocking gymnastic skills series
In my previous post on relative strength, I introduce four different strength qualities that we can focus on in our training. They are:
Relative Strength - All about training the neurological system to increase force production and output.
Functional Hypertrophy - This is about building strength and size. I plan to talk more about this in my next post.
Hypertrophy - All about building size and the topic for today
Strength Endurance - Improving aerobic fitness and muscle endurance. I'll talk about this in a future post.
Today's discussion is about hypertrophy strength.
Hypertrophy training involves the growth of lean muscle mass, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will end up looking like a bodybuilder. Unfortunately, many people steer clear of hypertrophy training because they associate it with the idea of becoming massive.
However, hypertrophy training is not solely about getting jacked. It is used to increase lean muscle mass, reduce body fat, improve health markers, enhance aerobic fitness, and strengthen muscles, joints, and connective tissues.
The amount of lean muscle you have is connected to your overall health and lifespan. As the saying goes, "Strong people are harder to kill."
Hypertrophy training involves three primary factors for building muscle: metabolic stress, mechanical tension, and muscle damage.
All three factors can be achieved by performing higher volumes of work at moderate loads.
A typical hypertrophy workout often includes 3-6 sets of 8-15 reps performed at 60-80% intensity and each set lasting for 40+ seconds of time under tension.
If you're new to training, some of those numbers and parameters may seem confusing or a little overwhelming. So, let’s clear them up.
To clarify, when we refer to intensity, we mean the percentage of weight lifted compared to your one repetition max (1RM). High-intensity training involves lifting heavy loads.
Hypertrophy training involves lifting moderate loads, we’re talking 60-80% of your 1RM. You don’t need to be lifting heavy weights to build lean muscle mass. More on this later.
Volume, on the other hand, refers to the number of repetitions performed in a workout.
Hypertrophy training requires high volumes of work; lots and lots of repetitions.
It's important to note this because the mainstream fitness industry promotes high-volume workouts as "high-intensity workouts," which is incorrect.
Most HIT classes and not high-intensity at all.
When designing a hypertrophy training phase, the first step is to determine the number of repetitions. Many people start with exercise selection, but this is a mistake. When training for strength, we must design the program around the strength quality we want to achieve.
It helps to know what your strength goals are.
This brings us back to the relationship between repetitions, percentages, and training effects.
The optimal number of repetitions for hypertrophy falls within the 9-12 range at 70-76% intensity, as shown in this table, which provides basic guidelines for reps, intensity, and training effect. However, these numbers can vary depending on the individual's age, exercise selection, sport, goals, and other factors.
Don't become too fixated on these numbers; use them as a guide.
To achieve the best hypertrophy gains, it is recommended to aim for the 9-12 rep range.
However, functional hypertrophy and strength endurance ranges can also lead to hypertrophy response.
As I mentioned above, a typical hypertrophy workout involves moderate loads at 60-80% intensity, with 3-6 sets of 8-15 reps. Although hypertrophy gains can occur at lower or higher reps, the optimal range is where the most significant results are often seen.
With these guidelines in mind, we can further explore hypertrophy parameters.
To focus on pure hypertrophy, the goal is to maintain moderate intensity with high volumes, using a 9-12 rep range and 3-6 sets of each exercise.
Ideally, 6-12 exercises per workout should be performed, with 36-54 reps per exercise and 216-324 repetitions per workout.
That's a lot volume. And that's exactly the point.
We need to focus on the volume of work.
Don't let your ego get the better of you here and start chasing the weight or, in bodyweight training chasing movements that are too advanced for you during this hypertrophy phase of training.
When training for hypertrophy, it’s critical to consider the total time under tension or set duration for hypertrophy, which must be between 40-70 seconds.
We can achieve this with a concentric tempo of 1-10 seconds and an eccentric tempo of 1-10 seconds.
Personally, I prefer to use an explosive concentric phase, lifting the weight as fast as possible while slowing down the eccentric phase.
The eccentric part of the lift is one of the most powerful tools available for stimulating muscle growth because it causes significant muscle damage. When I say damage, I mean micro muscle tears which often result in Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). This stimulates muscle growth and repair, which is the whole point of hypertrophy training.
The simplest way to emphasise the eccentric portion of the lift is to slow it down. That's where understanding and applying TEMPO is critical.
If you're unsure about tempo, I talk about it in the "How to ready the training program."
As an example, we could do ten repetitions with a 4-second eccentric on each repetition. That's a total of 40sec of time under tensions in each set.
Or we could do four repetitions with a 10-second eccentric phase on each rep. That's also a total of 40sec of time under tensions in each set.
Yes, four reps aren’t in the rep ranges of the hypertrophy parameters, but the time under tension of 40 seconds is. If we use a moderate intensity for 4reps with a 10-second eccentric phase, the training effect will be hypertrophy.
Remember that the relationship between repetitions, intensity and training effect gives us guidelines for building certain strength qualities.
One of Charles Poliquin's strength training principles is "The number of reps done for a given time under tension dictates the training effect."
The training effect will be hypertrophy as long as the time under tension is in the 40-70sec range.
This is important because we often see Callisthenics/Gymnastics athletes doing reps as fast as possible and with minimal time under tension.
Doing ten push-ups as fast as possible differs from doing ten with a 4-second eccentric on each rep, and the latter delivers far more hypertrophy gains.
Don't let your ego get the better of you here by trying pump out the reps as fast as possible. Slow down, stick to the tempo and reap the rewards.
A common way to elicit hypertrophy gains is to increase the eccentric time. One of my favourite workouts is 40-second eccentric weighted chin-ups or weighted dips.
A1. Chin-up, Eccentric 4 x [1reps with 40sec eccentric time], rest :90
A2. Dip, Eccentric 4 x [1reps with 40sec eccentric time], rest :90
This is a great way to strengthen the upper body’s connective tissues and build muscle. The 40 seconds of time under tension puts us in the hypertrophy range, even though we're only doing one repetition.
Hypertrophy training targets the muscular system.
Now might be a good time to point out that hypertrophy training can be used to decrease the chances of injury and for injury rehab.
The idea is to use moderate loads for high volumes of work. As I mentioned above, this causes muscle damage which then leads to growth and repair. Hypertrophy training stimulates the growth and repair of the muscular system.
It's not the magic solution to all injuries, but when used correctly it can be an effective tool for injury rehab.
My advice is alway not to push through pain. It's best to find movements that allow you to train the injured muscles, connective tissues, or joints through as much range as possible without causing too much pain.
Injury prevention and rehab it a huge topic that I'm not going to have time to cover in this post. But, some good old hypertrophy training can often be a good place to start.
Hypertrophy Training Methods.
We can train hypertrophy strength in many different ways, and it’s a good idea to try other methods during different phases of your training. I don't recommend combining too many techniques within a training phase.
What’s the rush?
Slow down and stick with one method to see how it works. If you mix too many methods, how do you know what works and what doesn't?
Some other favourite hypertrophy methods are the pre-exhaustion technique, forced reps, drop sets, or even giant sets.
How can we apply hypertrophy training to GST?
Often people wonder if bodyweight training is an effective way to build lean muscle or if they should be lifting weights.
Either can work.
But, if you're using bodyweight movements, you need to choose bodyweight movements that you can execute for 9-12 reps and work for 40+ seconds of time under tension in each set.
For example, you will not choose ring dips as a hypertrophy set if you can only do five reps and stay on the rings for 20 seconds. You'd be better off doing dips on p-bars or push-ups.
If you cannot do 9-12 push-ups with 40+ seconds of time under tension, you may need to do incline push-ups as an angle where you can strict to the hypertrophy parameters.
Remember, it's not the exercise that dictates the hypertrophy response. The specific volume, intensity, time under tension and rest periods - the training parameters - dictate the hypertrophy response.
With weight training, it is easier to manage the intensity of an exercise because we have more control over the weight being used. With bodyweight training, it can be more complicated as we need to know how to progress and scale bodyweight movements depending on our individual strength levels.
Incline push-ups are an excellent upper-body horizontal pressing exercise, but sometimes progress can feel slow. This is where weighted movements such as dumbbells and barbell bench press can be beneficial.
Progress on the bench press can feel faster because we physically see a slight increase in weight happening. Increasing strength on the bench press can carry over to bodyweight movements like push-ups, dips and even handstands push-ups.
I'm not saying we should replace all bodyweight exercises with weighted movements. But, we must choose our battles and choose the most effective tools to save time and deliver efficient results.
If your goal it to unlock gymnastic skill you can use weighed movements to help build transferable strength, but you also going to need to work on the flexibility and skill development.
Gymnastic skill seekers need to be strong, but they also need to have flexibility and the skill to unlock gymnastic movements.
So, can you build lean muscle and drop body fat with gymnastics strength training? Of course, you can.
To accomplish this you must follow a training program that allows you to stick to the hypertrophy training parameters.
You need to scale the bodyweight exercises to a level that allows you to perform for high volumes of reps with long set durations.
If you don't have the strength to do this yet, you can use weighted movements like bench press, dumbbell rows, feet assisted chin-ups, or even biceps curls and triceps extensions.
By sticking to the hypertrophy parameters you can gradually increase lean muscle-mass and drop body fat. This is great news for gymnastic skill seeker because:
Muscles help us produce force. The more lean muscle you have the greater the potential for strength gains.
The less body fat you have the easier it will be to master your bodyweight and unlock gymnastic skills.
Muscle is metabolic, it cost energy to have lean muscle. The more muscle you have, the faster you metabolism will run. This means you get to eat more food to fuel you workouts and improve your overall health and performance.
What might a hypertrophy program look like?
Here's an example of a bent-arm strength hypertrophy program for an intermediate gymnastic skill seeker working towards handstand push-ups and increasing pull-up strength:
A1. Pull-up 4 x [10-12], 30x1, rest :75
A2. Inverted Press on P-bars 4 x [10-12], 30x1, rest :75
B1. Ring Row, Neutral Grip 3 x [10-12], 30x1, rest :60
B2. Push-up, Perfect 3 x [10-12], 40x0, rest :60
C1. Biceps Curl, Standing Hammer, Dumbbells 3 x [8-10], 50x0, rest :60
C2. Triceps Extensions, Decline Bench, Dumbbells 3 x [8-10], 32x0, rest :60
D1. Lateral Raises, Seated, Poliquin, Dumbbells 3 x [12-15], 30x0, rest :60
D2. Reverse Flies, Standing 3 x [12-15], 30x0, rest :60
This is a pretty simple antagonist- antagonist super set example that follows most of the optimal hypertrophy parameters. In a couple of the exercises the rep ranges fall outside the parameters, but the tempo caters for this and the total time under tension is always above 40 seconds.
If you're looking for more hypertrophy ideas you can check out hypertrophy methods like pre-exhaustion technique, forced reps, drop sets, or even giant sets.
If your an adult gymnastic skill seeker looking to build a strong foundation of bodyweight strength you need to check out the Building Bodyweight Strength (BBWS) Skill Based Program.
This program is designed to help you build the strength to unlock strict chin-ups and perfect push-ups.
Everyone can build the strength to do perfect push-ups and get their first chin-up. All you need is a sustainable strength-based training program to follow.
I hope you found this post helpful and it's give you some ideas around program design for bodyweight training and hypertrophy gains.
Until next time.
Happy Training.
