Strength training is a type of physical exercise designed to improve muscle strength. While this is to some degree either the goal or the purpose of most resistance training we will specify it a bit more. Strength usually refers to general strength in the 3-6 rep range and maximal strength in the 1-3 rep range.
Hypertrophy refers to the increase in the size of muscle fibers as a result of strength training. When you engage in strength training, your muscles produce mechanical tension. The muscle responds to this stimulus, by increasing its size and in some cases the number of muscle fibers. This allows the muscles to handle the demands placed on them. This process of muscle growth is known as hypertrophy.
In most traditional periodizations these attributes are trained in distinct phases or blocks. Usually, a hypertrophy phase leads to a strength phase, which then leads to an absolute strength also known as a peaking phase. The reasoning for this type of periodization is the idea that each phase will potentiate the next one. The added amount of muscle mass from the hypertrophy phase will be taught how to produce force in the strength phase. Then finally in the peaking phase, the skill of singles is practiced and the strength built in the prior phase is displayed.
In this article, we will talk about another type of periodization called concurrent periodization. Noteworthy is that this is the type of periodization or no-periodization used in the conjugate method by the people at Westside, though they may call it something different.
The focus of concurrent periodization is to train all the modalities an athlete needs at the same time. In this case, it would be hypertrophy, strength, and maximal strength. The reasoning for this is to never get too far away from sport-specific practice, the singles. While still building other capabilities. What changes might be the amount of each modality in the training phase.
Far for competition, it might be 60% hypertrophy training, 30% strength, and 10% maximal strength. Then as we get closer to the competition we move closer to specific training and finally, we might end with something like 20% hypertrophy, 20% strength, and 60% maximal strength or whatever combination fits the athlete the best.
How do you train for strength?
Training for strength and maximal strength requires most people to train in the 3-6 rep range and 1-3 rep range. The first one mainly focuses on creating new strength adaptations, while the second range mainly focuses on displaying those adaptations and training the skill of lifting heavy weight. That is at least the current paradigm in powerlifting lore.
The thing about building strength is that you have to lift heavy weight to do it. This is due to the SAID (specific adaptation to imposed demand) principle. You get good at what you do. This means that this type of training mainly needs to be above 60-70% of your 1 rep max. Usually, that means the strength training is in the 70-85% range and the maximal strength work is at 85%+.
However, what this also means is that you have to be relatively fresh for your training. You can get stronger with relatively little training. To lift heavy weight you simply have to be adequately rested, both between sets and training sessions. On top of this strength training is a very fatigue-demanding activity.
As it turns out this is also one of the problems with training for strength and hypertrophy at the same time. But we will get back to that later.
How do you train for hypertrophy?
Hypertrophy training is training with the main goal of building as much muscle mass as possible. Unlike strength training, this can be achieved efficiently by a broad range of rep ranges 5-30 reps and intensity ranges of 30-85% of your one rep max. The general effort threshold is that a set should be 4-0 reps for failure.
Intensities above 85% also cause a hypertrophy stimulus. But is in general too taxing to cause efficient gains to occur. On top of this strength are movement patterns specific. This means that practicing the squat will make you a strong squatter, but this strength might not efficiently carry over to other movements if they are too different.
Hypertrophy on the other hand is specific to muscles instead of movement patterns and an athlete is free to use whatever movement pattern fits that specific athlete the best. Some never evidence even suggests the different movement patterns might cause specific regional hypertrophy and an athlete might have to use a wide variety of movements to maximize results.
Can you train for both strength and hypertrophy at the same time?
Concurrent periodization is a very popular way of training. It does carry some benefits. Mainly you never get too far away from the goal. In a linear block periodized program it can sometimes be hard to see the end goal.
When you are 6 months away from a competition doing hypertrophy training, how do you know if your current training is benefitting your end goal? The truth is you don't.
You could test your maxes and go for a heavy single. But not only is it counterproductive, but it also won't give you any useful information. Mainly because your skill at lifting maximally heavyweight has decayed so much.
You will simply have to wait until your next phase to see if your training carries over. This not only takes quite a bit of faith and courage but the feedback loop until you can change anything is also very long.
In a concurrent program, you do not have this problem. Since you always keep some type of competition training in your program or at least similar training. You will always have some work you can use as a metric for progress.
This also means that the feedback loop will be much shorter. While you still might not be able to change training from week to week it will be possible to adapt the training from block to block.
This also means that it is much easier to gather useful personal data about how the athlete responds to training and thus tailor the programming to the individual athlete.
This can especially be advantageous for athletes whose response to training is outside the norm. While most people respond favorably or even optimally to the traditional hypertrophy-strength-peaking paradigm.
Some people Will be outliers and might not handle high intensities very well. These people will have more to gain than the average trainee from this type of short feedback loop.
How to create a concurrently periodized program
There are many ways one can construct a concurrent training program. For people who come from a hypertrophy perspective some type of body part split is usually the norm. Here a common one could be an upper-lower split.
However, in this part, I will introduce a microcycle template more common to strength training. This model is usually called Heavy Light Medium (HLM). The idea behind this program structure is that there is a heavy workout where training is pushed hard. Usually, this contains the most taxing exercises such as competition deadlifts or squats.
This is followed by a lighter recovery session. This session either has less taxing exercises, a lighter load, or less volume, etc. This is finally followed by a medium session which naturally falls between the two.
For people who can tolerate large about of training or people who like to do less volume per exercise, this template can be extended to 4 days a week. Here we just have a heavy light and medium exercise for each lift instead and of course double for pressing. But one could reasonably change half of the bench volume for pressing rather. If powerlifting isn't the goal.
Now let's talk about what can fit in the different slots.
Comp lift: these lifts are obvious. This is where you put your competition lift usually you use a belt if you do so in competition. This will be your most taxing training. These slots are relatively and the most fatigue expensive.
Secondary lifts: The main purpose of these slots should be to put a movement that trains the competition lift. Usually, they focus on the weak point of the movement. This could be squats with pauses at the bottom or deficit deadlifts.
Accessory lifts: These are lifts that are mainly focused on causing hypertrophy in weak muscles. If your quad strength is the problem in your squat this could be quad focus etc. These movements usually vary more from competition lifts, since they are specific to hypertrophy and not to the movement we are practicing. This both means higher reps, but also more varied exercise selection.
Downsides of training concurrently
Concurrent periodization is not without problems, however. While keeping sport-specific skills fresh might have its advantages. Training for hypertrophy and strength are both adaptions that can be very fatigue-demanding for the more trained athlete.
Even though the two types of training might look very similar on the surface when it comes down to it they aren't. Strength training requires the athlete to lift heavy weight and thus requires fatigue to be somewhat low.
While training for hypertrophy mainly requires that one exhaust the muscles which can be caused a fatigued state. For stronger lifters doing lower rep sets might also cause excessive fatigue compared to the hypertrophic stimuli they cause. This means that choosing less load-heavy exercises might allow the athlete to do more training with better results.
Due to these differences splitting training up into phases focused on either attribute might also have its advantage. Another possibility is to only do maintenance doses of the training that isn't the focus in the current block.
Conclusion
Strength training is a type of physical exercise that focuses on increasing muscle strength and size, also known as hypertrophy. There are different types of periodization for strength training: traditional linear periodization, which involves distinct phases for hypertrophy, strength, and maximal strength training; and concurrent periodization, which involves training for all three modalities at the same time, with the balance between them adjusting as the competition date approaches.
Strength training typically involves lifting weights in the 3-6 rep range for general strength and 1-3 rep range for maximal strength, at intensities of 70-85% and 85%+ of one's one rep max, respectively. Hypertrophy training involves a wider range of rep ranges and intensities, from 5-30 reps and 30-85% of one's one-rep max, respectively, to reach failure at 4-0 reps per set. To train for both strength and hypertrophy at the same time, it is recommended to focus on strength training first, with hypertrophy training as a secondary goal, and to prioritize recovery to avoid overtraining.
About Rasmus Skriver
Powerlifter and coach with more than 7 years in the game.