Strength vs. hypertrophy

[Shelshula]

I'm sorry if this has already been answered. I did a search, but I couldn't find it.

What is the difference between hypertrophy and strength.

As I understand it, hypertrophy is the result of small tears in your muscle tissue healing and creating large muscle mass.

Can you have more muscle mass without being stronger?

And if you are supposed to be 5% stronger at the end of the STS cycle, does that mean you'll have 5% more muscle tissue?

I really don't understand a lot about weight training, so I apologize if my questions are silly, but I would like to understand it better.

Also, It would be nice if Cathe added a faq as one of her new website features. Something that better defined periodization, micro loading, hypertrophy and the like...

Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

[SRP]

I can't give you all the details, but yes, you can gain strength without gaining mass. I've gained a lot of strength over the years, but not a lot of mass. I've read some info on it a while back, but I'll be darned if I can remember where... sorry!

Hopefully some more of the educated crowd will chime in here.

 

[Vee]

Muscles have various properties such as:
Endurance: how long they can keep working
Strength: their power - how heavy they can lift
Size: self explanatory

Resistance training improves all three. Various types of training protocols focus more on one and less on the others. When one improves, it helps you develop the others too. A program like STS focuses on developing all three. A 5% inclrease in strength need not result in a parallel, equivalent increase in hypertrophy. But when your strength increases, your propensity to build size is better in your next hypertrophy phase of training. Similarly when you have more muscle you can use it to develop more strength.

~* Vrinda *~

 

[kathryn]

"The Encyclopedia of Muscle and Strength" is a great resource for info on training for hypertrophy vs. strength (rep ranges, recovery periods, etc).

One can definitely get stronger without gaining much mass and vice versa. Being an ectomorph, I've never gotten 'big' lifting, but I've gotten very strong (I'm one of those 'stronger than she looks' kind of people).

As Virinda states, STS works all three components of muscle over the course of the program. The sets, reps, rest periods, etc. will vary depending on the goal for that part of the program.

 

[kathryn]

>Also, It would be nice if Cathe added a faq as one of her new
>website features. Something that better defined periodization,
>micro loading, hypertrophy and the like...

Nice idea!

And it would be a good place to put Cathe's answers to those questions that are asked over, and over, and over... (not yours!). Then people looking for answers to them will have access to a nice, detailed Cathe answer, rather than a more abbreviated one that Cathe might give after having answered the same question who-knows-how-many times.

 

[Shelshula]

That is the definition of a FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. :+

It drives my husband crazy when he looks something up on a website and the "FAQ" is filled with questions the webmaster "thinks" people will ask, but doesn't provide answers to the frequently asked questions.

I really appreciate everyone's responses. I'll see if my library has that book.

I knew that endurance was one measure of strength and that both cardio-respiratory endurance and muscle endurance were important measures of physical fitness. It just never occurred to me that there was a difference between muscle size (hypertrophy) and strength. Reading your responses, I know I should have realized that sooner. Sometimes I just need a very detailed map to get me where I'm going.

 

[kathryn]

>That is the definition of a FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions.

I know.
;-)