The Differences Between Training for Strength and Building Muscle

A bodybuilder shouldn’t train the same as a strength athlete.

Would you agree that the best way to build muscle is also the best way to get stronger?

If you said yes, you’re wrong…

Sorry.

Yes, there is overlap — both require lifting weights in the gym with similar exercises. And, getting stronger means we’ll build some muscle and building muscle means we’ll get stronger.

But, we can’t maximise our muscle and strength gains at the same time.

And here’s why.

Difference One: The Optimum Number of Reps

The first key difference between training for strength and training for muscle is the number of repetitions (reps) per set.

The optimum number of reps for increasing strength is different to that of building muscle.

Building muscle

Hypertrophy is optimised in the rep range of 6 to 25.

It doesn’t seem to matter exactly how many sets we do in this range; we will achieve similar muscle growth as long as these sets are taken close to failure. Failure means we cannot physically do one more rep.

The aim is to damage our muscle fibres. We concentrate on squeezing our target muscle during the contraction and time under tension, instead of pushing as much weight as possible. We want to “feel” the weight.

The aim of building muscle is to damage our muscle fibres, to stimulate muscle growth.

Strength

If we think about maximising how much muscle we build as higher reps at a lower weight, it makes it easier to frame building strength.

Getting stronger involves lifting heavier loads in lower rep ranges.

Strength training involves low reps (1 to 6) at a high percentage (60–90%) of your one-rep max (1RM).

We also want to maximise neural and technical efficiency — essentially getting smarter and more efficient biomechanically at a movement such as a squat.

It’s easier to optimise our efficiency if we’re not fatigued — we can concentrate on doing one really good rep.

The more efficient we are, the heavier the load we can lift.

Difference Two: The Optimum Number of Sets

Training volume is a key component of any workout plan. Volume can be defined in two ways to measure the output of a workout.

Firstly, “volume load”. This number is calculated by multiplying reps x sets x weight. For example, 5 sets of 5 reps at 80kg are 2000kg of volume load.

However, in this context, it's the total number of effective sets. Effective sets are those completed at suitable intensity (near muscle failure).

So, what’s the ideal amount of volume for building muscle and getting stronger?

Firstly, the scientific term for building muscle is hypertrophy. I will use the terms will be used synonymously.

Now, the first issue with trying to maximise muscle and strength gains is the optimal volume for strength training is different to the optimal volume for building muscle.

I created the Venn diagram below to illustrate.

The upper level of effective volume for strength is somewhere near the minimum effective volume for building muscle.

Building muscle

Hypertrophy stimuli are maximised with higher training volume than strength training.

A minimum of 10 sets per week per muscle group is required to optimise growth as documented in this study and this study.

Building muscle has a dose-response relationship. More volume increases our ability to build muscle — to a point. The point where we still effectively recover and can come back tomorrow and train another muscle group at optimum intensity.

It is unclear exactly where the upper limit is for too much volume and it will vary from person to person. One individual might train a muscle group with 40 total sets over a week and feel no fatigue, whilst another might feel fatigued after 20 total sets a week.

Even if we are fatigued, we can still stimulate hypertrophy and build muscle.

“We know from the literature that training volume is related to growth, and we also know that, to a point, more volume is better.” — Israetel, 2017

Strength

The optimal training volume for strength is something in the range of 4–8 sets per muscle group per week.

A high volume of sets doesn’t impact short-term neural adaptations for strength in the same way volume impacts hypertrophy. However, fatigue has a huge impact on our ability to get stronger.

To get stronger, training intensity is more important than volume. But, intensity fatigues more than volume.

When talking about training intensity for strength, the key consideration is how heavy the load is — how close we are training to our 1 rep max.

Training with heavy loads creates more fatigue than lighter loads, regardless of the number of reps we perform. For example, hitting a personal record (PR) for one rep creates more fatigue than 10 reps at 70% of your 1RM.

Hence, we should avoid higher volumes when strength is our key goal.

Fatigue means it’s harder to recover effectively from exercise and turn up at the gym the next day to train at the same high intensity. Training like this is not sustainable long-term and leads to burnout.

If we can’t train at our best we cannot make progress.

Strength training also requires mental preparedness, so we need to be on point both mentally and physically.

Finally, muscle mass contributes to long term strength gains by increasing the amount of muscle tissue that can contribute to force production. Therefore, building muscle is a key driver for getting stronger.

But, I’ve just told you they’re two different processes!?

So, how much volume helps us to build muscle but also get stronger?

Optimising volume for strength and building muscle

The maximum adaptive volume for strength training… In other words, the most sets we can do before it becomes detrimental for strength gains is often between the maintenance volume and minimum effective volume for building muscle.

Therefore, to build muscle, the number of sets most effective for getting stronger is less than what is required to grow muscle.

A notable 2019 study from Schoenfeld and colleagues provides a great example of the differences between training for strength and hypertrophy.

The research participants were all experienced in the gym and findings were compared for subjects performing 1, 3 or 5 sets per exercise.

• the 1-set group completed 6 or 9 sets total over the week
• the 3-set group completed 18 or 27 total weekly sets
• the 5-set group completed 30 or 45 total weekly sets

The image below graphs the results.

The findings illustrate a dose-response between higher training volume resulting in greater muscle growth. Most of the scientific community generally agrees with this.

However, as you can also see, strength improved most in the low-volume group.

“Muscle hypertrophy follows a dose–response relationship, with increasingly greater gains achieved with higher training volumes.” — Schoenfeld et al., 2019

So, we cannot get as strong as possible and as muscular as possible simultaneously.

We have to choose to maximise one or the other.

But, if we want to be muscular and strong, we can adapt our training to optimise our gains in both.

Difference Three: Progression

A key component to building muscle and strength is progressive overload.

Essentially it’s lifting more weight, doing more reps, or doing more volume.

To build muscle, we progress by increasing stress on the target muscle. So all of the above is beneficial.

However, we shouldn’t lift in lower rep ranges just to increase the load. Doing one or two reps at a heavy load won’t stimulate hypertrophy. However, increasing the number of sets we do over time will help to build more muscle.

There is a big difference in minimum effective volume and maximum recoverable volume, meaning there’s a huge amount of potential to add volume from the lower point of where we get results.

To build strength, progression in volume doesn’t do much for gains. We must progress the load over time. Instead of doing two more sets of the same weight, we do the same amount of sets but aim to increase the weight.

Sometimes, strength athletes will reduce the number of sets to increase the load.

We could lift the same amount of weight for a given period but increase the number of reps (within the 1–6 rep range). Strength training involves the manipulation of these variables over time.

Other Considerations

Before we finish, there are some other things to consider on the journey to getting bigger and/or stronger.

Firstly, in the pursuit of strength, fatigue is our enemy. Fatigue accumulates over time and can include joint fatigue from physically putting them under so much stress through very heavy loads or the mental fatigue of being so focused on strength goals and optimising our training over time.

Deloads are important to building strength. A deload is a short period, usually, a week, with decreased intensity and volume of our workouts to finish off a training block/period.

Fatigue doesn’t impact our ability to train effectively to build muscle.

Building muscle means we will get stronger, but the progress is slow compared to strength training, where neural and technical efficiency is also important. The better we get at a movement, the more weight we will be able to lift.

But, an efficiency adaptation doesn’t mean we’ve built muscle — even if we can lift more.

Strength training is optimised through longer rest periods than hypertrophy training. To maximise our neural efficiency for a lift, we need to minimise fatigue.

Rest periods for hypertrophy training range from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, whilst strength training rest periods range from 3 to 10 minutes.

Because fatigue isn’t so much an issue in hypertrophy training, to maximise the stress on our muscles, proximity to failure on sets is always very close. We should aim to leave one to two reps in reserve.

Final Thoughts

In this article, we’ve explored the differences between training to maximise strength gains and muscle growth.

To put it simply, low volume and low rep ranges are most effective for building strength, but not for building muscle, which requires more reps and volume.

I hope you enjoyed the article, thanks for reading it.

If you enjoyed the content, you might be interested in this article about how doing too much volume (junk volume) negatively impacts your results.

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