Hi COACH,
According to Charles Poliquin ( and Christian Thibaudeau , to induce hypertrophy, the adequate volume of strength work for each muscle will vary greatly depending on the fibre dominance of the muscle. A muscle that is fast-twitch dominant would benefit from lower volumes of training while a slow-twitch dominant muscle would need a higher volume of work to gain size.
On the other hand, Ian King recommend training mostly the fast-twitch fibres of a muscle (lower reps), and to a lesser degree the slow-twitch fibres (higher reps), to induce hypertrophy, regardless of whether the muscle is fast-twitch dominant or slow-twitch dominant.
Which training method do you believe is the most efficient to cause hypertrophy? Why?
From that, I guess if you are going for size, you would want to include high and low rep sessions in the schedule at some point??? I have always thought that hypertrophy is caused by high rep sessions, and as you want to get quicker and more powerful you decrease the reps. However, I can see that this may be an oversimplistic approach.
With more than 10 years of weights i can tell that medium to high reps ( over 8 unde 12 ) method is the greatest to get hypertrophy, but hey, this can variate from body to body. My thoughts anyway.
I don’t think that poliquin means it will respond to lower volumes, but rather higher intensities. You can still train with high volume (i.e. 10-12 sets of 2-4 reps) but the intensity has to be higher (85% + Above). Efficiency is a measure of what works easiest for the individual, hence there is no absolute answer. You will drive yourself crazy trying to come up with rules and guidelines that will work for everyone. Generally speaking though, medium volumes and medium intensities work well for hypertrophy.
It’s difficult to say. I don’t use tempo very much because I like using resistance training for athletes to display maximal force and when you slow down movements you also have to lower the weight used. I have had good results in the past when I’ve used TUT, but I can’t claim a lot of experience with it.