4 Aspects of Programming for Better Muscle or Strength Gains

Building muscle and building strength are not the same thing. But the programming topics we discuss today can certainly help with both. And let us remember that muscle mass is the potential for strength gains.

With that, a body builder’s goal is to put on as much muscle mass as possible, while a power lifter or olympic lifter are working to get as strong as possible within their sports. And these athletes’ training can look very different.

So, let’s look at four aspects of your training and programming that can affect your muscle gains and/or strength gains. Take what makes sense, what you can apply and leave the rest, as usual.

All of these aspects are after ONE THING - mechanical tension. Adding new mechanical tension to the muscle group(s) you’re trying to grow. That doesn’t mean more time under tension, though that can be one way to add tension. You’ll see that load, and other demands like range of motion, or angles used also add mechanical tension.

First up, my favorite

Tempo

Tempo in short is the amount of time in each phase of movement - so your lowering, ascending, top and bottom positions - also referred to as lengthening phase being eccentric, and shortening being concentric.

Obviously if we add time to any of these phases, we increase the time under tension - the literal amount of time your muscles spend working. That is if other programming factors like sets and reps remain the same.

I also encourage you to keep load in mind when adding time to tempo. Due to more time under tempo, the load may need to come down. This is very dependent on the amount of time that is added and what the scheduled RPE or intensity is. But if we are attempting to add muscle, we definitely want the change in tempo to be a new, challenging stimulus. That is, after all, the point.

For instance if the previous programming was 4x4 @ 85lbs on a 2.1.1.1 tempo, and you want to alter tempo to add time under tension, that new programming might look like 4x4 @85 on a 2.2.1.1 tempo. We’ve now added 1 second of tension per rep at the same load and volume.

Tiny change - very different experience and stimulus. Bless. The simplicity is what we’re after. Simplicity that can be highly effective.

From a client perspective this also changes just enough to not get bored. On paper it is barely a change at all, but now they’re effectively doing pause squats or bench. Two down, two at the bottom or at the chest, then powering out. This is what I want coaches to understand about program design. More often than not, very little change is needed to create change of stimulus. And change of stimulus or increased stimulus is all that we’re after!

That covers slowing tempo down. You can be very extreme with that, or you can use tempo to add an explosive element to the movement. We know that muscle fibers respond to the demand that is imposed upon them.

There is potential to get after more type 2a and b muscle fibers by working explosively. I like to use intent here. Like I mentioned  with squats, “powering out of the hole.” Or powering off the chest with bench. In tempo you can add an ‘x’ or a 0 to communicate this intent. Speed and/or velocity is the goal with using a DECREASED tempo.

Alright, let’s move on to the one of the most basic aspects of training one can use to alter stimulus…

Volume

Though we won’t dive into both of these - I do want you to keep in mind overall work load or volume for a given session,