Why you need to avoid bodybuilding routines for strength:
Depending on your goals (size, or strength) there are different approaches which will give you more of what you desire, and in this short article I’m going to tell you the key fundamental differences between training for size, or strength, which will eventually lead to very different outcomes for you.
Isn’t all weight training strength training?
Technically, yes. I mean, let’s be honest – if you are lifting heavy weights, even if you train like a bona fide competition bodybuilder (where only size matters), you will still be gaining a lot of strength, and wind up far stronger than most other people you are likely to meet in every day life.
But… bodybuilding style training is not optimal for strength training. It’s like comparing the explosive, short-lived all-out aggression of the 100 metre sprinter, with the endurance of a marathon runner. Both are strong in their own right, but they are both very different types of strength.
In many sports, both types of strength are useful, but if you are a pitcher in baseball looking to pitch faster, or a boxer looking to add more power to a punch, the only type of training that will get you that kind of strength is strength training. Not bodybuilding.
So, what’s the difference in training practices?
Nutrition wise, there isn’t any difference between bodybuilding training and strength training. You need to eat like a horse for both. But, the actual training practices are where the real differences come in.
A bodybuilders goal is to fatigue the muscle fibres as much as possible, because this provides the most growth. They work under the principle of maximising ‘time under tension’. What this means is, they do more sets, and more reps, and tend to perform their reps much slower also.
A bodybuilder may do anything from 7 - 15 reps and 5 - 10 sets.
Bodybuilders also tend to make much use of ‘isolation’ exercises to work and build each individual muscle.
Strength training is different in that the body is worked as a system, using compound movements such as squats, dead lifts, bench presses, military presses, rows, and so forth – and doesn’t include a great deal of emphasis on isolation exercises.
Strength training is all about improving the amount you can lift a few times. It’s all about the poundage, whereas bodybuilding is all about the muscles.
So, while the bodybuilder will do a lot more sets and reps using lighter weight (obviously, or they couldn’t do so much) the strength trainee will work with much heavier weights but will normally perform less sets, and less reps.
A strength trainee may perform 3-5 reps and do sets of 3 - 5.
Although quite a good amount of muscle mass will be built with strength training, it won’t compare in the mid to long term to the amounts which can be built with bodybuilding. Strength is mainly neural and as such doesn’t rely exclusively on ever-expanding muscle size.
So, if explosive, heavy, low-rep strength is what you need – you need to primarily adopt strength training practices, not those of bodybuilding.