Looking to increase your strength and power without increasing your size? I’ve got you covered.
Maybe you compete in a sport with set weight classes (e.g. boxing, mma, weightlifting, pwoerlifting) or perhaps you take part in sports like gymnastics or rock climbing that benefit greatly from superior strength-to-weight ratios. Either way, we’ve got you.
In this article, you’ll discover how to enhance your strength without significant muscle hypertrophy, so whether you are aiming to succeed in a given weight class or stay powerful without adding kilos of fuel hungry muscle to your frame, this article aims to give you the knowledge to adjust your training plan accordingly.
The Benefits of Strength Without Size
Training for strength without significant muscle hypertrophy will offer you several advantages, particularly if you need to maximize your performance while maintaining a specific weight class.
Arguably the most important benefit you gain by increasing strength and not size is an overall improved “relative strength”, which is the amount of force you can exert relative to your body weight.
This is crucial in sports like gymnastics and climbing, where lifting or controlling your body weight efficiently can make a significant difference in performance as well as in contact sports like wrestling/judo, boxing or MMA which require direct physical competition with another athlete with a similar if not identical body weight.
Strength training without hypertrophy will lead to an increase to your neuromuscular efficiency. This means you will have better coordination and recruitment of muscle fibres, which translates to more effective and explosive movements.
This efficiency is particularly beneficial if you compete in sports requiring quick, powerful bursts of activity, such as sprinting or basketball.
Finally being able to exert more force at lower body weights will mean less stress on your joints and connective tissues, promoting better overall joint health and decreasing injury risk.
Understanding Strength vs Hypertrophy
Strength and hypertrophy, though related, are completely separate ways that your body adapts to a training stimulus. Strength refers to the ability of your muscles to generate force. Whereas hypertrophy is the increase in your muscle size through muscle fibre growth.
Of course, with any resistance training regardless of rep ranges and training methods there will be a certain amount of both strength and size gains but understanding the difference between the two most common training methods will allow you to focus more on your goal.
Strength training focuses on improving how your nervous system controls your muscles. This involves lifting heavy weights for fewer repetitions with longer rest periods. Strength training aims to enhance your muscles’ ability to generate force without specifically going out of your way to increase your size.
Hypertrophy training aims to grow muscle size by increasing the volume of work your muscles do. This typically means using moderate weights and doing more repetitions, (for more on hypertrophy check out this article)
The Role of Nutrition in Strength Gains
Nutrition plays a crucial role in achieving strength gains without significant increases in muscle size. Key components of this process include maintaining an appropriate calorie intake and ensuring adequate protein consumption.
Caloric Intake
To gain strength without increasing size, it is essential to be in a calorie maintenance or a slight deficit. Consuming a calorie surplus is required for muscle hypertrophy, as it provides the excess energy your body needs to promote muscle growth. Maintaining a calorie maintenance (TDEE = calories consumed) supports strength gains without muscle size increase.
Protein Intake
Protein is vital for promoting the repair and growth of your muscles. Adequate protein intake supports your muscle recovery and those performance dependant strength gains, even without a calorie surplus.
Consuming around 1.6-2.2g grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight per day can help you maximize the strength gains you make from resistance training without significant muscle hypertrophy.
Optimizing Your Training Program
In order to maximise your strength gains while minimising overall muscle growth, your program should focus on high-weight, low-volume workouts, emphasizing compound movements.
Intensity and Volume: Studies indicate that if you train with heavier weights (80-90% of 1RM) with fewer sets and repetitions your sessions will be more effective for increasing your strength without significantly increasing your muscle size.
Exercise Selection: When deciding on what exercises you want to use aim to focus on multi-joint exercises like squat, deadlift and bench press. These compound movements engage multiple muscle groups and stimulate greater neuromuscular adaptations which help promote strength while not necessarily increasing muscle size.
Training Frequency: Training each muscle group 2-3 times per week is beneficial for strength gains. Frequency helps in maintaining a high level of neuromuscular activation, which is essential for improving strength.
| EXERCISE | SETS | REPS + INTENSITY |
| Back Squat | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Bulgarian Split Squat | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Bench Press | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Incline DB Press | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Bent Over Row | 3-5 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| EXERCISE | SETS | REPS + INTENSITY |
| Deadlift | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Hip Thrusts | 3 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
| Pull-Ups | 3-5 | 3-7 (added weight) |
| Lateral Pull Down | 3-7 – 85-90% 1RM | |
| Overhead Press | 3-5 | 3-5 – 85-90% 1RM |
*This is quite an intensive training plan and would be recommended for someone who trains 2-3 times a week, any more designated training days and further training splits would be recommended*
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I avoid Hypertrophy?
With any resistance training there will be some degree of hypertrophy however In order to avoid hypertrophy as best you can while still receiving performance gains you need to train high weight, low volume sessions, focussing on compound movements while making sure to eat a high protein diet where your calories consumed match your total daily expenditure (TDEE)
Why do I look strong but feel weak?
If you feel as though you look stronger than you are it’s possible that you are training in the hypertrophy ranges and using isolated exercises as opposed to compound movements. Try decreasing your reps and increasing your weights and moving from exercises like leg extension to exercises like barbell squats to focus less on looking strong and more on being strong.
How can I improve my strength to weight ratio?
You can do this by either increasing your strength and staying the same weight or maintaining your strength and decreasing your weight. Most athletes that compete in set weight sports like boxing or wrestling will do both, they will increase strength at a their “standard weight” then decrease weight while aiming to hold onto those gains as they approach the “weigh in” and competition day.
How does periodisation benefit a strength training program?
A periodised training plan if structured correctly will absolutely be beneficial to your long term strength development, It helps prevent plateaus, reduces the risk of overtraining, and improves long-term progress.
What is TDEE?
TDEE stands for “Total Daily Energy Expenditure” it is the number of calories that your body uses throughout the entire day, this includes your BMR, all exercise as well as the thermogenic effect of the food you consume. If you match this number exactly with the calories consume you are considered to be in a “calorie maintenance” and will neither gain or lose weight.
How do I get leaner while lifting weights?
In order to get leaner (decrease body fat) while lifting weights, you will need to eat in a calorie deficit OR eat in a calorie maintenance and increase your protein intake to allow for “body recomposition”.
What Next?
That’s it for today…
If you want a bit more access to our head coach, Alex, then we actually have a coaching community for athletes and lifters, that you can join to improve your performance and achieve new personal bests in your lifts, using the exact same systems he’s used to coach 160+ athletes, pro teams and talent pathways.
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Hope to see you in there
’til next time
Jacob Garner
References
- Jalilvand, Farzad1,2; Banoocy, Norbert K.3; Rumpf, Michael C.4,5; Lockie, Robert G.6. Relationship Between Body Mass, Peak Power, and Power-to-Body Mass Ratio on Sprint Velocity and Momentum in High-School Football Players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 33(7):p 1871-1877, July 2019. | DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000002808
- Jäger, R., Kerksick, C.M., Campbell, B.I. et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 14, 20 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-017-0177-8
- Kraemer WJ, Ratamess NA. Fundamentals of resistance training: progression and exercise prescription. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004 Apr;36(4):674-88. doi: 10.1249/01.mss.0000121945.36635.61. PMID: 15064596.
- Mangine, G. T., Hoffman, J. R., et al. (2015). Resistance training intensity and volume affect changes in rate of force development in resistance-trained men. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 115(11), 2427-2437.
- Mao, J. et al. (2023) ‘Effect of resistance training programs differing in set structure on muscular hypertrophy and performance in untrained young men’, Frontiers in Physiology, 14. doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1301535.
- Schoenfeld, B. J. (2010). The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(10), 2857-2872.
