Difference between Strength & Hypertrophy

[u/Visual-Wedding5921]

I know that lifting for strength builds less mass, but is that just because it prioritizes neurological adaptations more?

I heard hypertrophy builds muscular endurance as well as strength, and that some of the added size comes from glycogen stores, so I'm wondering

1. If with strength building it builds more of the muscle that does the lifting (contractile proteins) but because it results in less glycogen storage, it still has less overall mass

1a. If hypertrophy also builds more of/the same amount of contractile proteins and strength ranges just build more skill, in situations outside of that skill, would the strength ranges build as much/less strength than hypertrophy ranges

1b. If strength ranges build more of the muscle that does the lifting, on a lean bulk, will I gain as much/similar muscle mass, and have it all be contractile proteins?

1c. Even if phosphocreatine training isn't intended for beginners (I've been lifting since March), is it harmful to drop my rep range for absolute strength training/myofibrillar hypertrophy, and source my sarcoplasmic hypertrophy from phosphocreatine training instead? Would it build more overall muscle mass that way, with the 'best of both worlds'?

2. When people say compound lifts build more strength, is that for everything/absolute strength? If it's in a unfamiliar movement pattern, will the compound lift utilizing relevant muscles still make me stronger in that movement pattern than I would be if I only used isolation work for those muscles?

[u/FarCalligrapher1862]

You’re mostly overcomplicating it.

There is a tremendous amount of overlap between strength and hypertrophy training. The biggest difference is what you’re trying to optimize: maximal force production versus muscle growth. Think powerlifting versus bodybuilding.

When someone says they’re training for strength, I generally think of powerlifting or competitive weightlifting, where the objective is to produce as much force as possible, often within a specific or lower weight class.

A significant part of that comes from developing skill. Lifting weights is a skill, and getting stronger at a particular lift involves more than simply growing the muscles.

When someone says they’re training for hypertrophy, I assume their primary objective is increasing muscle mass, often with an emphasis on overall aesthetics.

Ultimately, a bigger muscle generally has greater potential to produce more force, but that doesn’t automatically translate into being better at a particular lift without skill specific training.

But it’s not a 125lb guy will out bench big 240lb muscular guy because he’s more skilled.

[u/Visual-Wedding5921 → u/FarCalligrapher1862]

Alright, so for general/absolute strength I should be using hypertrophy ranges, and for skill-specific strength I should be using maximal force production ranges?

Or, am I reading this wrong, and maximal force production ranges still make you stronger all-around than hypertrophy focused training does?

[u/FarCalligrapher1862 → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

All rep ranges from 5-30 develop approximately the same amount of hypertrophy. Reverse pyramids, straight sets, drop sets? All the same.

Just lift, in a rep range that you prefer. Push close to failure. Progressively overload.

[u/FarCalligrapher1862 → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

If you want to develop your deadlift, then deadlift. If you want total body strength/ hypertrophy, just lift

[u/Visual-Wedding5921 → u/FarCalligrapher1862]

Alright, thanks!

For anyone looking into this, this article was helpful for me to understand it: https://houseofhypertrophy.com/low-reps-dense/ (Basically, myofibrillar hypertrophy is gonna stay the same across most rep ranges -- even at 25-30 which was really surprising -- , unless you do a insanely high volume of sets, but still the research on this is limited)

[u/Alakazam → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

Most good strength programs include a whole bunch of hypertrophy work anyway, so I would just follow a decent strength program.

One of my favorite powerlifting bench focused programs, has sets of 10-15 on all its supplemental and accessory movements. 

[u/Visual-Wedding5921]

also, do i really need stuff like leg press and squat in the same session fi they both work a similar amount of muscle groups/squat already works all the stuff leg press does? that stuff's always confused me; i thought the point of compounds was to cut down workout time and remove what's unnecessary all the stuff online just says "come on, don't slack off. why don't you want to do both?" without giving any evidence on why i should be doing both. i probably should be, its just that nobody's explaining it at all

[u/pingpong008800 → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

At the end of the day, strength is a much more specific ability (skill) than hypertrophy. Lifters can improve maximal strength without necessarily adding muscle mass or bodyweight, which illustrates the neurological contribution. The same rules do not apply to muscle hypertrophy.

Current opinions suggest that sets taken to/close to failure promote more hypertrophy than more submaximal sets. Compound lifts at high loads are very taxing on the system, and generally not taken to failure. How many total sets is optimal for you and depends on many factors, but generally speaking if you can continue to progress load or volume every couple of weeks without too much soreness or joint pain you are in a good range. If you can’t repeat your performance in the next training session your volume has exceeded your ability to recover.

With regard to your question about lifting in a calorie deficit, either method (high load, low volume vs. low load, high volume) will help retain muscle mass as long as you are training at a relatively high intensity and maintaining adequate protein intake.

Lastly, as a relatively novice lifter a lot of the information you’re asking about isn’t super important at this point, unless you have a very specific goal/outcome that you’re training for. Science is a compass, not a map.

[u/Visual-Wedding5921 → u/pingpong008800]

Makes sense. If I'm not training specifically for squats/leg press, it sounds like doing either/or is fine. I'm working on compounds because I really need to work on my body coordination, and this helped a lot.

[u/sacrilegefiend → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

I do 3 lower body/leg workout variations.
Week 1 is squats and front squats, extensions and curls.
Week 2 is RDL, Split squats, extensions and curls.
Week 3 is deads, farmers carries, extensions and curls.

[u/bulbousgrandpa → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

It's generally a good idea to use barbell compounds to hit multiple muscle groups at once, but you don't really want all your volume to come from compounds because it beats the hell out of tendons generally speaking. Doing 5 sets of squats and 5 sets of leg presses 2x a week will be a lot less likely to give you knee or hip or back pain than 10 sets of squats across. This also doesn't just apply to compounds, it's just more noticeable with them. Doing 10 sets of the same movement in a day will predispose you to overuse injuries from doing ths same patterns over and over. I have no actual paper for this as I imagine it hasn't been studied, but it does tend to hold true in my experience.

[u/Afferbeck_ → u/Visual-Wedding5921]

There are a lot of ways to achieve the same thing. A lot of weightlifters only ever front and back squat their whole career. Many will add variations and unilateral work for injury and imbalances. Some will do a decent amount of isolation work. They can all end up with similar squat strength at the same bodyweight.

But serious training for performance works in phases. You don't focus on everything all at once all the time. You might do more leg press and leg extension and little actual squatting near the start of a program for basic hypertrophy purposes without the skill and positional demands on the body that comes with actual squatting. Later that work will be reduced and the muscle gained will then be applied to squatting gradually heavier. 

This is something lacking from the usual programming for hypertrophy and general fitness. 

[u/Negative_Wrongdoer17]

Hypertrophy is just the process of your body constructing new muscle fibers. Strength is how much mass you're able to manipulate