Is hypertrophy useful with low weights?

AshwinA7 wrote: »

I'm trying to gain mass through a hypertrophy program with 3x10 for most of the lifts.

I did Strong Lifts for about about 2 years and lost a lot of strength during my cut, just to give you some background.

Now, when doing 3x10 my lifts are very low (Bench Press is 100 lbs). Is it even worthwhile to do a hypertrophy program at this point? Will I even gain muscle on a program with such low weight?

It's absolutely possible to gain muscle with lower weights and it's also possible to gain muscle in a huge variety of rep ranges.

The question is whether or not it feels challenging to you to lift it enough that your body will adapt by building new muscle.

AshwinA7 wrote: »

Richardgravel - Yes, its very challenging since I've never done a hypertrophy program before. I'm not used to isolating muscles and training to failure. It seems from the responses that is enough to gain muscle.

You don't need to train to failure. You need to continue to progressively add more volume each week and force yourself to become stronger.

In order to build muscle, you have to breakdown the muscle fibers through stress and repair them over and over again. That's all lifting, and eating does. Whether you break down those fibers through high repetition exercise with lower weight, or low repetition high intensity exercise with heavier weight all depends on personal preference. Although, each persons body responds differently. If you have more fast twitch fibers, you will respond better to heavier weight with less reps, whereas if you have more slow twitch, you will respond better to lower weight and more repetitions.

Let me know if you have any questions!