Strength dudes - your help is needed!

[WayneRooney]

Hey everyone,

If gaining muscle is as important to me as strength, what would you recommend in terms of supplementary exercises?

Is volume important? Obviously I will be doing the squat, bench press, deadlift, press and powerclean. But what would you guys suggest in terms of extra work?

I enjoy chin-ups, biceps curls and tricep dips. Do most of you guys do some type of extra work in addition to the basic SS template?

Also, what kind of rep ranges would you suggest for hypertrophy?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

[gman]

I recommend reading the book to see why you really don't need a lot of supplemental exercises on this program.

[WayneRooney]

Gman, I see what you're saying. However, my lifts are still going up, I feel like I have more left in the tank and I want to stay in the gym a bit longer. I enjoy these other exercises and wondered if I would have more success with mass gain if I threw a few other exercises into the mix.

I understand what you mean about reading the book. I didn't really get the book and DVD to become a strength athlete; I got them so I could find out how to do the lifts correctly as part of my bodybuilding training.

[matclone]

Wayne, why are you asking how to bodybuild on a strength forum? What makes you think anyone of us know how to bodybuild? From what I know, you gain muscle by lifting weights.

As far as the rep ranges go, it's in the book (PPST Vols 1 or 2).

As far as supplementary work goes, why don't you experiment?

[Rorschach]

I understand what you mean about reading the book. I didn't really get the book and DVD to become a strength athlete; I got them so I could find out how to do the lifts correctly as part of my bodybuilding training.

Fair enough, and that's a good idea. However, like people have said, few if any of us are bodybuilders. I'm not telling you to piss off to a BB forum, but you'd have more luck getting BBing specific information there than in a strength training forum. It'll be buried under a lot of crap and supplements ads, but it'll be there.

[banthafodder]

Lots of volume, lighter weights (8-12 reps). The problem is, most people who are going after size will start doing so too early. At the very least, finish your linear progression, because:

1. While you're still capable of doing linear progression, your strength will increase very quickly. This translates to a much higher 8-12 rep weight on any movement you care to perform.
2. Doing too much of anything extra during linear progression will end up interfering with your strength acquisition and will only slow you down.
3. Once you're linear-progression-is-done strong, size workouts will be much more effective precisely because you'll be that strong; they'll be more effective than if you'd done a hybrid strength+size program the whole time.

I was going to go into a whole discussion about graphing the relationships and whatnot, but I'll refrain. The point is, even if your goal is purely physique-oriented, you still want to finish linear progression on strength exercises because the bodybuilding work you do once it's done will be so much more effective that it's very much worth holding back and focusing on strength for the first 3-9 months (even up to a year).

It's boring, and people in general don't want to believe it, but you can't really speed it up. Tweaking it just makes it less effective.

[mstrofbass]

Gman, I see what you're saying. However, my lifts are still going up, I feel like I have more left in the tank and I want to stay in the gym a bit longer. I enjoy these other exercises and wondered if I would have more success with mass gain if I threw a few other exercises into the mix.

You would probably have more short term mass gains, but you're likely to stall out a lot sooner on your linear progression, which could, long term, have a negative impact on your mass gains.

[Ryan Long]

However, my lifts are still going up, I feel like I have more left in the tank and I want to stay in the gym a bit longer.

More is not better, better is better. I'm not sure you or we could add to Rip's program to make it better, only different. Different is not necessarily better. If you're still getting linear progression gains then keep eating and lifting hard. Once you stall and reset a couple of times you can consider playing around with the program.

[gman]

Gman, I see what you're saying. However, my lifts are still going up, I feel like I have more left in the tank and I want to stay in the gym a bit longer. I enjoy these other exercises and wondered if I would have more success with mass gain if I threw a few other exercises into the mix.

I understand what you mean about reading the book. I didn't really get the book and DVD to become a strength athlete; I got them so I could find out how to do the lifts correctly as part of my bodybuilding training.

My thought would be that if you still have more left in the tank, you can take larger increases in weight. However, as someone already posted, you are more likely to stall earlier. Instead of adding other stuff, go up in weight and see what happens.

[gzt]

Well... what are you up to right now? What's your training history like? Frankly, once your squats are in the 400s and your bench around 300, hypertrophy gets easy. If you're squatting 275, the prescription is simple: get your squat higher, then come back for a chat. That and, well, I don't know, maybe throwing in some rows or curls every once in a while at the end of a workout until you're moving the big weights.