Hypertrophy Training Basics

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When it comes to building a physique that performs as impressively as it looks, it’s pivotal to add novelty and variety into your training in order to yield the type of results that we are all looking for. The same old stuff will only work for so long until you plateau or burn out.

Simply put, people want to get jacked, build muscle, get lean and stay injury free simultaneously. While old school coaches will tell you that achieving this holy grail of training is damn near impossible, I’m here to tell you it’s not.

You just may be overlooking one key aspect of muscle growth and injury prevention that has been shunned and looked down upon in the strength and conditioning industry for decades.

Here’s exactly how strategically eliciting a skin-tearing pump with ultra high set and rep schemes with cumulative stress will revolutionize the way you look, feel and function. That is if you can take the brutality that comes along with this style of training.

We’ve all heard about the standard set and rep range recommendations that are supposed to be a sure fire way to add lean slabs of muscle onto even the most frail of frames. But you know what? Dogmatically programming archaic and arbitrary set and rep ranges between 5-15 because your collegiate strength and conditioning text book from 1986 told you to is far from the most effective way to add functional mass.

I still remember mundanely sitting through graduate exercise physiology class and memorizing muscle physiology charts that set foundational parameters for power, strength, hypertrophy and muscular endurance. They looked something like this.

Power: 1-3 Reps
Strength: 4-8 Reps
Hypertrophy: 8-15 Reps
Endurance: 15-25 Reps

Well, what happens if you surpass 25 reps, and dare I say alter other variables of strength training like time under tension, repetition tempo and rhythms and rest periods?

While these parameters still hold true for the most part, recent developments in the field have begun to show the large amount of carryover that transcend these traditional schemes. What we taught to to be true about parameter prescription for resistance training and loading may not be as black and while as we once thought.

It’s a new day and age, and today’s athletes are developing physiques that actually enhance athletic endeavors better than ever before. And lets just say that many of these athletes, lifters and regular people changing their bodies aren’t only abiding by this strict set of rep rules.

From CrossFit athletes that look like they could step on stage and complete at Mr. Olympia to field and court sport athletes challenging the physical status quo as we know it, they all have something in common; advanced and eclectic strategies to building functional muscle.

Though foundational strength and hypertrophy schemes should be no means be discounted in the overall programming schemes for athletes and lifters alike, one of the single most overlooked aspects of building functional and resilient muscle mass is by tapping into the metabolic stress effect.

That’s right, what was once thought to be old is once again new. And chasing the pump just may be the single training method that you’re missing out on to finally add lean mass to your frame while fending off injuries in the process.

To get the most out of programming for the pump, it’s important to first differentiate the types of muscles and regions that will respond favorably to this style of training and those which are still better suited to be trained in the power, strength and traditional hypertrophy ranges.

When programming metabolic stress into a well-rounded athletic development and physique-focused program, we must match tissues that act as primary stabilizers instead of primary dynamic movers with met-stress and not start force-feeding ultra high rep ranges into tissues that were anatomically designed to be explosive and phasic.

We also want to take into account chronically beat up regions of the body that have a hard time staying injury free with repeated heavy loading, especially with rigidly programmed loading tools like the barbell.

While this process of classifying specific muscles can become tedious and is usually not necessary even for the most complex programming, we can use a few key rules to quickly and effectively train muscular regions that will respond favorably to metabolic stress.

First, posterior chain muscles (located on the back side of the body) are usually more tonic (stabilizing) than phasic (dynamic movers). Think of prime muscular regions like the backs of the shoulders, scapular stabilizers, spinal erectors, glutes and lateral hip group as the big stabilizing muscles of the body that we want to start tapping into with metabolic stress that most coaches and athletes are missing the boat on.

An example of this would be my always awesomely painful double banded hip thrust finisher that will light a fire under your butt:

Once we have the basics down on the stability aspect of major posterior chain muscles, we can move into more specific muscular regions that also respond well to metabolic stress. These consist of the upper arms (biceps and triceps), the forearms, and of course, the lower leg complex aka the calves.

Since arms are arguably the second most polarizing body part closely behind abs for men, it still shocks me when I see ugly heavy swinging dumbbell curls and back breaking pushdowns that do nothing for the body except for predisposing elbow and shoulder injuries.

Try to go lighter, and squeeze every single rep hard when it comes to arm training. And of course, be smart with your angles like this biceps curl variation only using 12.5 pounds but still achieving a skin tearing pump:

And with the constant drama that surrounds the struggle of calf hypertrophy and training in general, matching these tissues with their postural requirements and fiber types will save a lot of sweat pant money if simple metabolic stress based sets were added into a routine instead of bitching about genetics.

From a joint integrity standpoint, two additional regions that respond well to metabolic stress are the shoulders and abs. Due to the postural and stability demands of these muscles, they can be hammered with high volumes and a cumulative stress effect that we can tap into with multiple sets programmed close to failure with shorter rest periods between 20-45 seconds.

Are we starting to realize that many “hard gainer” regions of the body that frustrate lifters can be quickly improved with metabolic stress? Lets put an end to the lame excuses and move onto how to perfectly program some pump work.

Training of these regions should be programmed in higher rep ranges, increased time under tension and a more constant tension type execution to once again expedite blood flow into these local tissues without adding increased stress to the joints.

If you are programming strictly based on set and rep schemes, a standard place to start would be 2-3 hard working sets of 25-40 reps. Yes, you read that correctly, and those last few reps will become more of a mind over muscle matter. Additionally, adding multiple “ramp up” sets where you keep the same amount of reps per set but climb in weight over the course of 2-4 additional warm up sets can add to the cumulative volume placed into specific tissues and exercises while keeping the overall joint stress lower as compared to heavier loaded sets.

So what does 50 reps look like? Well, you’re in luck as you can watch me battle through a shoulder friendly banded face pull finisher set for 50 reps:

Since eliciting the pump has also been tied to total time under tension during a movement, we can shoot for 45-70 seconds per set for a movement concentrating on keeping tension through the active muscles in both the eccentric lowering and concentric raising portions of the lift. If this seems like a long ass set, it is. The key here is to focus in on the quality of each contraction and concentrate on keeping tension through the tissues at all times. This again is a skill that is developed and mastered over time.

Finally, execution style of reps should be pristine and close to perfect. Focusing on tapping into the mind muscle connection and volitionally contracting the muscles as hard as you can on the concentric, peaking each contraction by squeezing the muscle as hard as you can at the top of a rep for a second and lowering under control is pivotal. This mind muscle connection will not only increase motor unit recruitment over time as your skill develops, but also be transferable into your strength and power movements by linking up lagging regions of muscles and integrating them back into compound movements.

With proper execution of this style of rep in conjunction with high rep ranges and increased time under tension, you’ll feel the type of painful metabolic stress that this method is all about. As you become accustomed to this type of stress, yes you will become more desensitized to this response. But lets be honest, if you are pushing your limits and executing properly, every set is going to be a battle, and that’s exactly what we want.

There are two main aspects of a training day where metabolic-stress based movement fit perfectly; the power primer and a metabolic finisher. Lets review both here.

Starting off your training day with a first movement focused on priming the posterior chain with high relative intensities is the perfect way to expedite local blood flow into the tissues, continue the warm up process, and even lubricate the active joints with some more synovial fluid and muscles with a hormonal cascade.

For a lower body emphasis-training day, priming the posterior chain with glute and hamstring emphasized movements like the glute bridge or hamstring curl variations is preferred. Upper body days where you’ll be benching or pulling predominantly can be primed with posterior shoulder work like face pulls, pull aparts or straight-arm pulldowns.

Remember, don’t be closed minded with your approach. Figure out a muscle region or movement pattern that you want to prime and hit it with some serious metabolic stress first thing in a training day, it’s as simple as that. Lets move on to finishers.

One of my favorite ways to add a challenge onto the back end of a training day is to program one final loaded movement in the metabolic set and rep ranges. This allows the athletes to go balls out on the last few sets in order to achieve the type metabolic environment for the tissues that elicits growth factor and also tests testicular fortitude.

When using metabolic stress as a finisher, it’s important to place yourself into a spine and posturally friendly position so the technique and form on the rep execution doesn’t turn into a compensatory spine and joint killer. So simplify down the setups, stabilize the spine passively whenever possible, and place an emphasis on the muscular movement of the exercise and not the stability requirement of the rest of the body.

An example of this would be choosing a chest supported dumbbell row variation instead of a bent over dumbbell row in order to stabilize the core and spine and place stress through the moving muscles (the lats/rhomboids) to a greater degree instead of the stabilizers (the spinal erectors/hamstrings/glutes).

Matching some tough last metabolic stress based sets with a post-set stretch can also be a way to really target a nasty pump while sparing the joints. Stretching the pecs, lats after the last set for the upper body or the quads or calves on the lower body can bring the amount of cumulative stress through the roof while also creating an occlusion effect in the tissues. Simply put, the met-stress set will pump the blood in, and the end stretch will keep it there and accumulate metabolites. Shoot for safe joint friendly positions on the stretch for 20-60 seconds at a time. And yes, this will be extremely painful.

It’s again worth reiterating that foundational strength is the single best way to become resilient against injuries for the long term, but only focusing on strength and heavy loading has it’s orthopedic downside as well.

By programming higher rep ranges and slower and more concentrated executed reps, overall load of many movements will be decreased, hence decreasing stress placed on non-contractile structures of the body like the joints and ligaments.

Interestingly enough, tendon density and strength can also be enhanced when tapping into the metabolic stress scheme, which is another added advantage to programming this type of training into your routine. With many muscular injuries happening at the portion of the muscle where the contractile units meet the tendon, metabolic stress can help prevent these injuries from happening.

Finally, learning how to control precise and uncompensated muscular contractions under metabolic duress is a skill that is highly protective in nature. Most people let their form fall to shit as soon as the burn comes, but learning to mentally forge forward and embracing the suck without altering movement patterns is a competitive and defensive advantage.

Think of this as re-setting your default movement pattern to be improved under challenge instead of breaking down and putting your body in a poor position to function and stay healthy. More quality reps under highly challenging metabolic environments is the name of the game for muscle growth and injury prevention, and there you go, at the end of the day it’s all achieved with the same method.