What Causes Hypertrophy?
Is it a bad idea to try and do low rep (5-8 reps per set) mixed in with high rep (12-20) training? Is this a counter-productive idea? Is is better to do low rep training for a 6-8 week interval and then switch to high rep training for an interval? I don’t think it’s a bad idea to mix things up for about 4 weeks. That way, you get both strength and mass. However, I believe that you will get better results by doing 3 weeks of higher volume (“pumping”) type of training and then 3 weeks of strength work. The reason for that is that the body does a better job at responding to a stress if we only concentrate in getting on response at a time (muscle size for 3 weeks and strength for the other 3). My questions come out of a recent experiment of my own where I went after strength exclusively do low rep, heavy weight training in the power lifts, squats, bench presses and deadlifts. My strength has increased 4-fold (400+ deadlift) but I’ve only gained 10 pounds lean body mass each of the last two
