Building Strength vs Building Muscle Size (Hypertrophy) | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | Let's talk about strength and hypertrophy.
00:00:05.160 | If you would, please remind us what strength and hypertrophy are in terms of the specific
00:00:11.600 | adaptation they represent.
00:00:13.720 | What I mean by that is when somebody is training for strength, what are they really training
00:00:18.200 | for?
00:00:19.200 | Obviously, it means the ability to move more weight, but I know that it includes a number
00:00:23.880 | of other things as well.
00:00:25.260 | And when one is training for hypertrophy, for the growth of muscle fibers, what does
00:00:31.300 | that represent?
00:00:32.300 | Because I think if people understand that, they will far better understand the methods
00:00:37.300 | and protocols that are going to be best for strength and hypertrophy.
00:00:40.620 | At its core, you've basically described it.
00:00:42.420 | When we talk about strength, we're talking about an actual function.
00:00:45.740 | So can you create more force across a muscle or muscle groups or total movement?
00:00:50.940 | And when we talk about hypertrophy, now we're specifically referring to just an increase
00:00:54.460 | in size.
00:00:55.460 | There's no actual mention of function.
00:00:58.260 | So a muscle can grow larger without actually technically being stronger for a number of
00:01:03.380 | reasons.
00:01:04.540 | However, there is a strong relationship between strength and hypertrophy.
00:01:08.260 | So a lot of the times in the general public, in the lay conversations, we sort of lump
00:01:12.820 | those two things in as the same thing.
00:01:15.060 | And so we have to recognize people who are new to training or people even who are intermediately
00:01:21.340 | trained.
00:01:22.340 | There is a huge overlap between strength and hypertrophy.
00:01:25.780 | Once you get past that though, they become disentangled.
00:01:29.060 | And a good example of it is this.
00:01:31.220 | If you look at the strongest people in the world, this would be people who compete in
00:01:34.540 | the sport of powerlifting.
00:01:36.820 | That's a true test of maximal strength.
00:01:38.420 | So it is a deadlift, a bench press, and a back squat.
00:01:41.860 | And you're going to do a one repetition max in all three of those.
00:01:44.220 | And so whoever wins is the person who lifted the most amount of weight one time.
00:01:48.540 | That's it.
00:01:49.540 | It's not like World's Strongest Man where it is how many reps can you do in a row or
00:01:52.140 | your time, right?
00:01:53.140 | It's a true maximal strength test.
00:01:55.540 | And you compare those to say bodybuilders.
00:01:58.340 | Now both of those individuals are strong.
00:02:02.620 | And both of those individuals have a lot of muscle.
00:02:04.860 | However, it is extremely clear the powerlifters will be significantly stronger than the bodybuilders
00:02:11.460 | on average.
00:02:12.460 | There are individual exceptions, but we're just talking collective averages.
00:02:16.820 | And the bodybuilders will have more muscle than the other ones.
00:02:20.720 | In addition, whether you look at Olympic weightlifting or powerlifting or World's Strongest Man
00:02:25.660 | for that matter, there are weight classes.
00:02:27.900 | And the reason is as you go up in weight classes, you will always see the world records go higher
00:02:33.100 | and higher and higher, right?
00:02:34.420 | So you can clearly get stronger without adding any muscle.
00:02:39.700 | However, there's a point, right, where you simply have to add more mass to get a higher
00:02:45.460 | number.
00:02:46.460 | And that's why we have weight classes in those sports and in combat sports and lots of other
00:02:49.700 | things.
00:02:50.700 | And we have, there's a lot of confusion, right?
00:02:52.940 | Because people think, man, either these are the same thing or if I want to get stronger,
00:02:58.460 | I have to get bigger, which is not the case at all.
00:03:01.460 | Another misnomer here is I can't get stronger unless I add muscle.
00:03:06.220 | That's not true either, right?
00:03:07.220 | It's a similar idea.
00:03:09.420 | So what I'm saying is you have the ability to do whatever you'd like.
00:03:12.340 | If you'd like to get stronger and add muscle, great.
00:03:16.420 | If you add muscle, you're probably going to bring some strength along for the ride.
00:03:21.420 | However, if you want to get stronger and you don't want to add muscle for any reason, personal
00:03:27.460 | preference on aesthetics, whether you're in a weight class and you simply can't afford
00:03:31.180 | it, it is quite easy to get stronger and not add much muscle mass either.
00:03:35.620 | And so differentiating these two things is one of them is simply a measure of size and
00:03:40.020 | the other one is a measure of force.
00:03:42.740 | And when we talk about strength, what we're really talking about are two unique components.
00:03:47.260 | Component one is what I call the physiology.
00:03:49.260 | So what is the ability of the neuromuscular system?
00:03:51.940 | What is the ability of the muscle fibers to contract and produce force?
00:03:56.760 | The other one is what we call mechanics.
00:03:59.140 | Mechanics is simply things like—it's minutiae down to how long your femurs are relative
00:04:04.820 | to your tibia or other things.
00:04:07.380 | This is biomechanics.
00:04:08.700 | This is also technique.
00:04:10.500 | This is skill.
00:04:11.540 | This is how smooth you feel.
00:04:13.100 | This is are you firing the right muscle group in the right sequence and order.
00:04:18.120 | And all of these things play into strength.
00:04:20.020 | So somebody who maybe has more force capability in their muscle fibers but their technique
00:04:26.180 | in the movement is worse may lose in a competition.
00:04:29.580 | Or somebody, again, who's—like if you go into the world of speed and power, especially
00:04:35.140 | you'll hear a lot of people talk about like the rhythm.
00:04:37.540 | And there's just a certain rhythm that has to happen if you want to jump as high as possible
00:04:40.740 | or run as fast as possible.
00:04:42.580 | But that's all mechanics at this fundamental level.
00:04:45.120 | So when we look at hypertrophy, it's just still simply about how big the muscle is.
00:04:51.700 | So those are really the similarities and distinctions between strength and hypertrophy.
00:04:55.860 | [Music]