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Bulking vs. strength training

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tomcornhole
tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
edited February 2 in Social Groups
Silly thought popped into my head. When you do a bulk, do you switch to. More hypertrophy program of 8-12 reps vs. doing say 5/3/1? Seems the goal of bulking is to add muscle so that means hypertrophy. It would seem inefficient to do that with 5/3/1.

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  • fitandgeeky
    fitandgeeky Posts: 232 Member
    tagging for interest
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Silly thought popped into my head. When you do a bulk, do you switch to. More hypertrophy program of 8-12 reps vs. doing say 5/3/1? Seems the goal of bulking is to add muscle so that means hypertrophy. It would seem inefficient to do that with 5/3/1.

    5/3/1 is so adaptable that you can adjust it to suit a variety of goals.

    For example, I'm bulking on 5/3/1 and I was also cutting on 5/3/1. When I moved to a bulk I increased volume and added in more hypertrophy work. So far it seems to be going well.

    The core of my program is still 5/3/1, but it's a lot more accessory volume, for dem gainz.
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    SS. Good to know as I like 5/3/1. Right now I do the Boring But Big (BBB) accessory lifts each time (5x10x50% training max) and that seems like it would be ideal for hypertrophy if I were eating at an excess. They are a bugger and certainly seem to provide the correct volume and rep range for hypertrophy.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    SS. Good to know as I like 5/3/1. Right now I do the Boring But Big (BBB) accessory lifts each time (5x10x50% training max) and that seems like it would be ideal for hypertrophy if I were eating at an excess. They are a bugger and certainly seem to provide the correct volume and rep range for hypertrophy.

    I'm also doing my own ghetto version of BBB and I like it very much. Those hypertrophy sets are crazy.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Just to add my 2c. I do 5/3/1 on a cut and did it on my bulk but I did try out the frequency project when I bulked rather than the 'standard' 5/3/1. My goals were a little different however as I was more focused on strength gains and lower body hypertrophy (I don't want to have more people saying I have bulky arms :tongue: ).

    On this cut I am effectively doing a bastardized version of 5/3/1 by playing around with my assists, very similar to the approach SideSteel has - just focused slightly differently due to differences in goals noted above. Plus, I am on poverty macros at the moment so my volume is a bit lower.

    As SideSteel mentioned, its the great thing about 5/3/1 - the ability to adapt to goals pretty easily.
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