
Originally Posted by
Hypertrophy
It's a chronic process, therefore an accumulative effect of training in different rep ranges and sets will produce the best long-term results. With resistance training you have to look at the big picture, just not a piece of it. For long-term hypertrophy, periodizing your routine between hypertrophy phases and strength phases will cause the most growth. The majority of people hyptrophy train, but do not hypertrophy. Why? The answer is simple, they are simply too WEAK. Benching 135, 4 sets of 10 is not going to develop the pecs. Benching 315, 4 sets of 10 will. You will not see well developed muscles (large) on weak people, just not gonna happen. Therefore, the strength phases are more important for long term hypertrophy. These phases will cause you to be stronger, therefore, lifting more total poundage during your workouts, causing the muscle to hypertrophy to accomodate the insane amount of weight you are lifting.
Periodization is the best long term approach to resistance training!