Hypertrophy Differences

If you've ever read a bodybuilding magazine (you have, it's OK, I forgive you) or some other training-related article online, then I'm sure you've heard that for functional gains, you need to be lifting in the 5-8 rep range, and for structural gains, you need to be in the 9-15 range (or something like that).

I definitely want to note that these rules are not set in stone. There are people who grow like weeds keeping everything under 5 reps and others, whose legs grow like they're being fertilized by Mother Nature herself doing nothing but sets of 20-rep squats. With that being said, they are a good general rule for most people.

Now, what is the reasoning for these adaptations and what exactly do they mean? Structural gains refer to actual increases in the size of the muscle. To keep it as direct as possible, training in the 5-8 rep range forces your muscles to partake in very high levels of tension. Your body, being the genius that it is, responds to this by attempting to prepare itself for the next time they have to display such high levels of tension. It does this by increasing the size of and/or adding more contractile proteins to the muscle.

When you lift weights in a rep range beyond 8 reps, and maybe even stretching into the 15+ rep range, your gains in hypertrophy will differ from those mentioned in the above paragraph. Whereas before, the muscle actually increased the size of its contractile elements, it will now respond by storing more "energetic" components in the muscle.

Why? Same reason as before, it just adapts to whatever you tell it to do. Since you did some sets with a weight that required good endurance, it responds by storing more energy in the muscle, so that it can better handle those endurance-related activities, that it expects to see again in the near future. This type of growth is more temporary and short-term than the functional gains talked about before. The famous "pump" will often rear its head in situations like this. And like Arnold said, the pump is definitely a cool feeling, and your muscle will look bigger, but, as you now know, it's very temporary.

If you are interested in looking bigger on a regular basis, you'd be much better off spending time trying to increase the size of your muscle fibers (5-8 reps), not wasting your time with a bunch of high-rep sets that'll send a bunch of glycogen and blood to the muscle, and not much else. To hypertrophy!

Bodybuilding to Get Bigger?

I read a question today about finding a "good, dumbbell, bodybuilding" routine. Here you go: (Of course the answer doesn't actually include a dumbbell routine. That would be way too easy!)

If you are asking questions like this, then I can all but guarantee you're not prepared for a "bodybuilding" routine. In an attempt to oversimplify and ignore a lot of things for the sake of not losing you here, bodybuilding=focus on isolation=limited amount of weight one can use in a single-joint exercise=less stress placed on the body=weaklings in every gym across America. 

The reason bodybuilders can get as big as they are is because of their "supplement use" and the fact that almost all of them built a foundation for strength using your traditional, compound movements. With the second reason, because they got really strong in an overall sense, they were then able to use more weight when they went to using isolation-type exercises. 

For example, every idiot in the gym wants huge biceps, so they do a gazillion sets of curls. But they're weak to start with and can't curl a lot of weight. Since the weight they can curl is so limited, not nearly enough stress is placed on their biceps to induce the type of growth they're after. But, if they stop doing all their curls, and head on over to the chin up bar, those chin-ups will place a lot more stress on their biceps than curls ever could. And if they get to the point where they can knock out 15 dead-hangers, well, I guarantee they're biceps will be noticeably bigger. 

So, to sum it up, don't look for bodybuilding routines when you're not ready for them. The point is, if you want to get bigger (which I assume is the goal since you mentioned bodybuilders), lift for performance (strength). I guarantee that if you put 100 lbs. on your squat or add 10 chin-ups to your rep max, your muscles will be bigger. If people just worried about improving their strength every workout, instead of how sore they can make X muscle, there would be a lot more jacked dudes walking around. But they don't, and me and you do, so we'll just continue to be one of the few, the proud, the jacked!