You hear a lot of discussion these days about prioritizing resistance training to emphasize muscular hypertrophy. But should that be our only focus? Not necessarily. Let’s dive in.
As Lifetime Athletes, we train for LIFE and that involves a number of capacities such as endurance, speed, power, and agility. We can also include the targets of fun, fellowship, and overall health. But when we consider our use of resistance training, I’d like to suggest we are training for 4 distinct properties and each is equally important. This is just one of the many reasons why I created The Lifetime Athlete App. As we navigate this journey, we need objective resources that empower us to lead our best lives. Fitness for life programming that addresses topics like these.
Those 4 properties are strength, hypertrophy, movement competency, and durability. We’ll briefly examine each objective and explore the possibilities with an open mind.
Using resistance training in the pursuit of strength is classic. In fact, that’s why it’s synonymous with the term “strength training.” Employing progressive overload in almost any exercise will develop strength, but this is particularly true concerning traditional compound movements like squats, presses, rows, and the like. Every Lifetime Athlete should have some of his/her training geared toward strength. The main challenge lies in selecting exercises and methodologies that work for one’s maturing body. That’s true in all of training but especially so when it comes to heavy lifting.
There are proponents of heavy strength training like Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength. His position is that everyone can and should be doing the basic barbell lifts, and that this practice contributes to all things athletic, health, and longevity. I don’t completely agree. While you certainly need to be “strong enough” (for your body type and activity choices), beyond a certain point research does not support the transfer of this type of training to such elements as speed or agility. Additionally, heavy traditional barbell training is not the most joint-friendly exercise method for aging bodies. Lifting big weights makes you strong to a point, but after that it tends to just make you better at lifting big weights and not so much anything else. Not having a 2x+ body weight squat is not necessarily a deal breaker in most sports and chasing this can often be counterproductive regarding balanced athleticism and longevity.
But what about training for hypertrophy? Pumping Iron (reference to Arnold, no last name necessary) to grow one’s muscles is indeed a valid intention for every human being. At least to some degree. But again, more muscle mass beyond some variable and individual level does not convey additional performance or health benefits. If this were true, Mr. and Ms. Olympia competitors would dominate every sport beyond their own and live to 120 years of age. And, like heavy strength training, the dedication required to achieve supraphysiologic levels of muscle mass comes with drawbacks. Without even talking about steroids and performance-enhancing drugs, we can appreciate that training solely for mass means compromising or sacrificing other critical aspects of athleticism.
One of the most popular advocates of training for hypertrophy, who you’ve probably seen on YouTube, is Mike Israetel, PhD of Renaissance Periodization. This guy is equal parts brilliant and entertaining. He is very well-studied (perhaps the most) on the topic of hypertrophy and his content is extremely informative. Dr. Mike has a sassy sense of humor and his content is one of the best resources for hypertrophy training. In fact, his app is called the Hypertrophy App (for good reason). If your only goal is getting jacked, this might be the app for you. Dr. Mike often publishes critiques of various athletes and training programs. But it’s important to keep in mind that he speaks exclusively from the lens of hypertrophy. If something or someone gets dissed for promoting ineffective practices, his commentary is generally that it may be suboptimal for hypertrophy.
As important as hypertrophy is, it’s not the only thing we should be training for. There is always crossover when it comes to resistance training, so an aesthetic or bodybuilding approach still has the potential to build substantial levels of strength along with mass. But while pursuing those gains beyond a reasonable level (that’s up to only you to decide) can certainly get you jacked, it also has the potential to neglect many aspects of mobility, speed, etc. Having a very specialized focus in training is your choice and there is no judgment anyone has the right to impose. However, if well-rounded athleticism and optimal long-term health is your goal, this may be an opportunity for reflection.
The third consideration in our list is using resistance training for the development and maintenance of movement competency. I’m sure you’re familiar with my concept of the MOVEMENTSMITH…someone who owns every body position and who has mastery of motion in every direction. It’s often a goal more than a reality for many Lifetime Athletes, but it’s certainly a worthwhile quest.
There are many ways to become competent with movement. Skill practice, drills, sports play and competition come to mind. Stretching, yes, but that isn’t effective in isolation. It frees up mobility, but that doesn’t get you all the way to highly proficient athletic (and functional) movement. Resistance training is incredibly valuable for movement competency. Rep after rep allows you to train your nervous system in the major patterns as well as their variants and hybrids. Squat, hinge, lunge, rotate, push, pull, locomote…these are essential. So if a gym workout doesn’t always include heavy loads or going to failure, it’s still far from worthless. It’s even good to prioritize movement quality from time to time and intentionally ease up on the strength and hypertrophy throttle. You want all your movement options to be available when you need them. In sport and LIFE.
Durability is a topic I think you’ll appreciate. You’ve probably also heard me say that training needs to make us robust, resilient, versatile, and durable. There are many parts of durability that Lifetime Athletes possess but I’m going to highlight two important ones. They are tissue integrity and workload tolerance.
Resistance training, of almost any type, improves tissue integrity. This relates to vascularization, collagen deposition and other factors on a system and cellular level. Resistance training makes you less likely to break down (Hard to Kill you might say) because your bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles (hell, just about everything) are positively affected. With regular training (again, even if that is sometimes submaximal), your body will display a higher failure point and this is measurable in applied performance tests as well as MRI’s and biopsies.
Workload tolerance is a related phenomenon. You can take it. This is referring, in the case of “it,” to the physical and mental demands of life. You know you can do hard things. This confidence is incredibly empowering. So when (not if because this happens to everyone) LIFE, or sport, or work throws you a big challenge, you can get it done. Survive it better than untrained individuals, of course. But in actuality you usually crush it.
We were mainly talking about resistance training today. As a Lifetime Athlete, you know that’s just one part of the equation. But it’s an extremely important part of your overall fitness for life mixology. And it’s not only about hypertrophy.