How to Gaining strength is not the same as gaining muscle: how to train with weights according to what you want to enhance

There are people who have less muscle mass than others but are stronger. If we look at it the other way around, there are people who have a lot of muscle mass but lift less weight than others. What is the relationship between strength and muscle mass? Can strength be trained more than muscle mass and vice versa? We are going to see the main differences in strength training according to our objective. Strength and muscle mass go hand in hand but at different rates, training to gain strength and increase muscle mass has many similarities, but also many differences. A bodybuilder will focus his training on muscle hypertrophy, with strength gain being a secondary aspect, but that also happens. A powerlifter who lifts as much weight as possible in the deadlift, bench press, and squat will focus on strength gains, with increased muscle mass secondary. We gain more absolute strength than muscle mass in the long run When we start training in the gym with the aim and focus directed at increasing body mass, we can gain much more muscle mass than in later years, where the gains are drastically reduced. If we take 10 years as an example, in the first year we will be able to gain practically half or more of the muscle mass that we will achieve in those 10 years, if we train well, of course. However, absolute strength will grow much more than muscle mass in that decade. Proof of this is an investigation that evaluated six months of training to see what the gains in strength and muscle mass were. Strength increased an average of 21%, while muscle mass grew by 7%. The adaptations of strength and muscle mass are different The more we enlarge the muscle fibers, the more absolute force they can exert. Actually, the relative strength of each muscle fiber will decrease, that is, even if we lift more weight in total, each muscle fiber will generate less tension and less force. That's why a bodybuilder over the years will lift more weight, but not as much as the muscle-to-strength ratio should. With a powerlifter, the opposite will happen: he will optimize the tension of each muscle fiber and with less muscle mass he will be able to lift more weight. Strength adaptations are due to different neural factors such as motor unit recruitment and improved firing rate. Therefore, although there are gains in strength and muscle mass simultaneously, they will be uneven depending on the training we do. That allows sports like soccer, for example, to make their players stronger, but not increase their body weight much. The same thing happens in long-distance runners, since we are interested in having more strength, but not increasing the weight. Differences between strength training and muscle hypertrophy Intensity for strength and volume for hypertrophy, Intensity is the key to gaining strength, while volume is the main variable for muscle hypertrophy. If we want to gain strength, we will have to lift heavy loads at low repetitions. A range of one to five repetitions with 80% or more of 1RM is ideal for increasing strength. To gain muscle mass, we have to perform many series with loads of different intensities. The ideal range is a load that allows us to perform between eight and 14 repetitions, but we will obtain muscle gains at higher and lower intensities. The main difference is that to gain strength we have to focus on those high loads, but for muscle hypertrophy, any load will do, as long as we go to muscle failure or stay close. Close or far from muscle failure training to gain strength generates a lot of fatigue, so it is advisable not to reach muscle failure. In addition, when it is difficult for us to lift the load, or we are fatigued, we will tend to worsen the technique, which can lead to injury. If we want to enlarge our muscles, we must be close to muscle failure. Therefore, the main difference to gain strength or muscle mass is that in the first case we will stay far from muscle failure and in the second we will go close to it. Execution speed If the objective is to gain strength, we must move the load as fast as we can. A high load will move slowly, but our intention is to move it as fast as possible. This detail improves the neural adaptations of force. If the objective is to increase our muscle mass, the speed of execution does not matter, since it can be achieved at different speeds, from faster to slower. Rest between sets High-load strength training requires complete breaks, from at least three minutes up to five or even seven minutes. Here we are not looking for that sensation of muscle swelling, but rather quality in lifting. Muscular hypertrophy does require the sensation of muscular swelling, since this favors different waste substances and the accumulation of metabolites required for the increase in muscle mass. This rest should allow us to face the next series with guarantees, but it should not be complete to retain these metabolites in the area and increase the concentration of blood and hypoxia in the muscle. About two minutes can be a general recommendation, which we can decrease according to preferences and the intensity of the load. Some exercises, but in different proportions Strength training focuses on multijoint exercises that involve a large amount of muscle mass, leaving single-joint exercises and guided machine work as ancillary. To gain muscle mass, the opposite happens: we focus on isolating the muscles, but we also perform basic exercises in an auxiliary mode. When we want to gain strength, we cannot miss exercises such as squats, deadlifts, or bench presses, as well as their variants. We will also use them for muscle growth, but they will not be the main ones, to the point that you can choose not to perform any of them, such as deadlifts, due to their great physical demand in relation to the muscle gains they offer us.