My thinking has changed a lot over the years as I’ve learnt more about training for size and strength, so I wanted to share 3 of the biggest hypertrophy myths, plus some actual strategies you can use to build muscle size.
If you’re new here, I’ve spent the last 10+ years as a professional strength and conditioning coach, I make my living by providing an online coaching service where I guarantee athletes and lifters measurable improvements in their performance (or they don’t pay) so I literally put my money where my mouth is when it comes to topics like this.
Let’s jump into it…
Myth 1: There’s a magic hypertrophy rep range
So this is one of the biggest and most common myths I see all across the internet. I bet you’ve seen it before as well right:
- 8-12 reps is the best range for building muscle
- 10-15 reps is optimum
- 5-10 reps is for mass
All of which assumes two things…
- If you go less than 5 reps you won’t build muscle – which is completely false (it’s just inefficient)
- If you go more than 15 reps you’re just training muscular endurance and won’t build muscle
Both of these assumptions are totally incorrect.
“Listen up, there is now robust literature, and thousands of case studies showing that muscle can be built equally well at anything from 5-30 reps per set“
Me, Coach Alex, Right Now
And look, I used to think this way too, because it’s all over the internet and all over muscle and fitness magazines. But it’s time for a more nuanced, common-sense approach.
Let me ask you this, if you do 5 sets of 20-30 reps of bicep curls and take each set at least 3 reps from failure, and you get:
- An insane pump
- A huge build up of metabolites (an intense burning sensation)
- Localised disruption for hours afterwards
- Soreness the next day
Are you really gonna tell me that you won’t build muscle? Of course not (unless you’re insane, right?!)
So now when I write hypertrophy programmes for my athletes, we’ll use much broader rep ranges, and the exact rep ranges we’ll use will depend on the athletes:
- Goals
- Personal preference
- Individual experience (what gives them the best pump, disruption and soreness)
- The muscle group being trained
- The type of exercise we’re using
Myth 2: Compound Barbell Movements are Essential
My training and coaching background is olympic weightlifting, powerlifting and strength and conditioning. So it’s only natural that I had a real bias towards big barbell movements when it came to hypertrophy training too. I thought that if I used:
- squats
- deadlifts
- bench presses
- overhead presses
- pull-ups
- rows
That I would build a great physique. In theory this made sense, but in practice there are a few issues:
- Everyone responds differently to different exercises (people are built pretty differently)
- Big compound lifts alone aren’t enough to maximally develop biceps, triceps, side delts etc, and a bunch of other muscles that actually make you look aesthetic.
- The big compound lifts are really fatiguing, especially when you’re decently strong at them
To provide a couple of examples, I was never a naturally strong guy (I’ve coached people WAY stronger than me) but I was regularly squatting 150kg for 5×5 and benching 120kg for 5×5. You would have thought that would be enough to build me some half decent legs and chest right? Nope!
All I was doing was getting incredibly fatigued, but never honestly feeling the muscles work, especially not in the deep stretch position that is ideal for hypertrophy.
But when I swapped squats for hack squats, leg presses etc my quads grew, a LOT. And when I swapped bench for db bench and flyes, my chest grew, also by a LOT. Plus I was significantly less tired.
And this has been the case for a good number of my coached athletes as well.
The moral of the story is this…
“It’s not that compound barbell exercises are bad for hypertrophy (in fact they can be great) but there’s nothing magical about them either, and for some people, alternative exercises might provide BETTER results”
Me, Alex, Right now
Myth 3: Hypertrophy Rest Times Should Be 1-2 Minutes
The last myth I want to touch on today is the idea that rest times for hypertrophy should be 1-2 minutes. We’ve all heard this, and on paper it sounds reasonable. But let me ask you a question?
Do you think that you need the same amount of rest time after a heavy set of squats as you do after a set of bicep curls?
Cf course not, right?! Squats use more muscles, involve way more axial (spinal) load, elevate your heartrate and breathing way more, and take way more mental effort.
Most folks that I coach could pretty easily manage 5 hard sets of biceps in 10 minutes if needed. Obviously their reps would drop off, but it would look something like 15 reps, 12 reps, 11 reps, 9 reps, 6 reps.
Whereas I don’t think any of my athletes (or myself) could genuinely attempt 5 hard sets of squats in 10 minutes. Probably not even 3 sets. If we tried, the rep drop off would be ridiculous and look something like 15 reps, 7 reps, 3 reps, gives up. The quality of each set would be terrible.
So what’s a better approach?
Well, nowadays I use a simple, common sense based approach to rest times…
“Perform your next set when you genuinely feel ready to properly attack it with intensity and focus, and have your target muscle be the limiting factor”
That tends to mean that:
- Your heartrate is back closer to normal (or at least acceptable)
- Your breathing is back closer to normal
- Your supporting muscles are recovered
Putting it all Together – What is true about hypertrophy?
Once you cut through the various myths about bodybuilding and hypertrophy, you’re left with a pretty cool situation.
- You can use 5-30 reps, so long as you train with 3 reps of failure
- You can use a wide variety of exercises based on individual factors
- You can rest as long or as little as needed
Which means there are LOADS of different, and equally effective, ways to train in order to build muscle.
Gathering Data is Key
In my experience from years of coaching, the most important thing is in learning how your body responds to specific exercises, set amounts, rep ranges, rest times etc. Obviously I’m biased, because it’s what I do, but this process is quicker with a coach to guide you (that’s kind of just the reality of life right? We tend to learn things better with guidance from people who specialise in things)
But if that’s not an option for you, then I highly recommend keeping detailed training logs with as much info as possible, and using that info to adjust over time.
Next Steps
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To Your Performance!
Alex Parry
