The Only Emphasis Is Strength | Mark Rippetoe

[stef]

The YouTube comments are fairly consistently indicative of a broad misunderstanding of what we do on this website and at the Aasgaard Company. I'll take this opportunity to clear up a few things. They can be summarize easily: we are only concerned with your strength.

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[tompaynter]

Rip's article asserts, "...the best way to waste a bunch of time getting neither stronger nor more muscular is to train for 'hypertrophy,' the new 21st-century word used to market template training services that use light weights to the huge number of guys who don't understand this. The appearance of your calves, quads, delts, bis, tris, and abs is always improved by getting your press to 200, your bench to 300, your squat to 400, and your deadlift to 500, as fast as possible."

Here are quotes from a couple of other SS articles:

"If the lifter attempts to keep rest times short and do each descending set [of 5X5] in a state of incomplete recovery this can be an excellent way to improve work capacity and promote hypertrophy." 5 Ways to 5 x 5 | Andy Baker

"The accessory work staves off boredom while adding a little hypertrophy to the arms and back.... The most common accessory exercises I use are lying tricep extensions (LTE), tricep pushdowns, lat pulldown (wide and close grip), glute/ham raise, T-bar row, barbell row, and leg press. If the lifter can do chin-ups or dips, that’s even better."

(I realize that Rip doesn't say that the best way to improve the appearance of muscles is to get to 200/300/400/500. He just says that if you do that, appearance of muscularity will improve.)

My question is this: I thought SS's philosophy was that getting stronger is the fastest way to get bigger, at least through the NLP. (Most people don't hit 200/300/400/500 at the end of the NLP I don't think.) After the lifter has that base of strength, though, goals could diverge, and if a lifter wants to train primarily for hypertrophy and appearance, there are ways to do that within the overall SS system. I'd also point to PPST, which acknowledges that isolation movements and shorter rest periods can be effective for hypertrophy (pg. 39, 67).

It's odd to have on the one hand these glancing references to methodologies for hypertrophy other than getting your big lifts up, and on the other hand proclamations that either such methods aren't effective, or that SS isn't interested in them. It sometimes strikes me as, Yes there is a secret science to hypertrophy, No we won't tell you about it.

Suppose we have a lifter who has finished his NLP and has not reached 200/300/400/500, and is most concerned with hypertrophy/appearance of muscularity. One training program would be aimed at hitting those numbers ASAP. A different training program would hit those numbers more slowly, but include some accessory work and some sets done with shorter rest periods. Which will achieve more hypertrophy/muscularity faster? What are the best SS resources-if any-for learning what program #2 would look like?

[Matt James]

NLP is probably more effective at hypertrophy in the short term than any other program, and it's likewise the most effective for pure strength. After that? As a post novice it gets harder to add pounds to the bar, and maybe pounds on the scale too.

Andy Baker has a number of program templates that focus on hypertrophy or blend strength and hypertrophy if that's what you're looking for.

[tompaynter]

Forgot the link for the second article quoted, about accessory work. It's from Two Lifts a Day for the Post-Novice Master | Scott Acosta

[CommanderFun]

I'm no expert, but I certainly have anecdotes from strength training for a fair bit in the presence of "hypertrophy" focused people in gyms. I don't know what it is, but there does seem to be a phenomenon of guys with pumped-up muscles who just do not lift very much weight. The other day I watched a man with enormously bulging muscles in a tank top deadlifting 225 pounds as a work weight. I have seen him doing this amazing feat many times before as well (he never brings that weight up). My 5 foot tall tiny built girlfriend may in fact be working with that weight on her deadlifts by the end of the year if current progress keeps up. I'm left wondering how the hell they got those big muscles in the first place. I'm forced to conclude it was either recreational PED use or there is something to that "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy" that exercise science still seems to struggle to nail down.

Now, maybe one day I'll try a more "hypertrophy" focused program. And have experiences to relate about its efficacy. But I've decided to center on the 200/300/400/500 goal first. Aasgard material doesn't talk much in depth about "hypertrophy", because, as is stressed in the article you quoted, the focus is strength. The grey book goes into the phenomenology a little bit for the sake of completeness, but you won't find a program centered on it. The instances where coaches talk about adding things at the end for "hypertrophy", they are mainly just like cookies after dinner to keep clients interested in training, they usually say so themselves. Probably it's partly because getting a big pump makes them feel better about the workout, and partly because it's been hopelessly drilled into our heads that this high volume pumpy stuff is super important for getting big and strong, and no one can really get rid of it entirely from their mind.

[SouthernLifter]

Mark Rippetoe: You are the fucking boss. You are my idol.

Thank you very match for your teachings.

[Nicholas Laureys]

Mad shout-out to David Rowe who I think was the inspiration for Rip's "wheelhouse" metaphor here.

[Steve R]

Bodybuilding guidance is widely available. Most of it is crap but some of it is quite good.

Getting strong as quickly as possible is what the SS method is about. People, guys mostly, are easily distracted from the process of getting strong by all kinds of accessory exercises purported to achieve all kinds of things. Many coaches see this as a potential problem that can interfere with the training of guys who aren't as far along as they think they are. When those same guys are much farther along they may have the self knowledge and the discrimination to get specialty training help that will be effective in meeting personal goals.

[Kostas Theodorakis]

Hypertrophy can be much easier to achieve if you're strong....
Who will be bigger? Someone who pumps his muscles with 80 kg squats or with 160 kgs? Same with every other exercise/"muscle group".
This is just common sense in my opinion.

[Eric Schexnayder]

Tom, you ought to talk to Andy Baker if you want information about SS and bodybuilding stuff all rolled into one.