What makes a muscle grow..stress or strength or both

[KingMike]

I have been working out for a few years but I am all over the board in routine. I have done the Monday-Friday split with a diff. part each day and I have tried the 1 on, 1 off split. The more I lift the bigger I get but the less I lift the stronger I get. It seems that it takes alot more volume for me to stimulate growth (8-10 arms, 12+ back,legs, chest) I am never comfortable becasue I always feel that I am doing somehting wrong. I mean my bench is only 185x6. That is max. I must be doing alot wrong to not progress in that area over the past year. Should I just cut way down on volume and worry only about strength for 5-6 months and then see where I am at?

[PurplePatriot]

Yes i would cut done reps an increase weight. Your first set of reps should be about 95 percent at least of your max. So on bench you can obviously bench over 200 on max so you should toss another 5-10 pounds on there at least and get your veins popping by rep number 6. If you think you can push up more than 7 reps... you got way too much weight buddy. You shouldnt be doing six because thats the number you set your self to do, you want to set your weight just right so that six is ALL you can do, even if your life depended on it. So try that out, use the weight to regulate your sets

[KingMike]

Thanks for the help. How does this new routine look?

2 on, 1 off

1-Flat bench, inc. db press, behind neck press, side laterals, nose crunchers, tri pressdown
2-Back squat, leg ext., abs
off
3-Seated t bar row, wide pull down, bb trap raise, bb curls, hammer curls
4-SLDL, ham curls, Calf raises

It does not seem like enough. I will start out at about 6-8 reps and do 4 sets for each big muscle and 3 sets for the small muscles.

[Foskamink]

The more I lift the bigger I get but the less I lift the stronger I get.

if its what im thinking its pretty common... u do weights regularly and u slowly get stronger and u get bigger... if u take extra days off from working out / week/s u will be stronger.. ur body repairs enough within 24/48 hours depending on ur body.. but if u leave it 1 week u are generally stronger.. i dont know the exact cause of this.. but i dont think it really effects your gains and results...

foskamink