Upper Bodybuilding Lower body Strength

[Simply strong]

Ive recently been seeing a number of posts on social media talking about the upper and lower body responding differently to training variety.

The trend I see is that lower body work responds more to specificity and intensity vs the upper body responds better to variety and volume.

Is this a thing?

 

[bluejeff]

I don't see why they would be different without being given more details.

What are the outcomes being measured? Strength? Hypertrophy? Power?

 

[Adachi]

I read about this most in body building circles
There is some evidence and speculation about fiber type distribution in the muscles and what implications that may have for training prospectively.

Upper body seems to present with relatively higher type 2 distribution. Lower body seems to present relatively higher type 1 distribution.

This might make some sense hypothetically, that the lower body muscles are employed for locomotion, and upper body used for specific high power actions. Like chopping wood.

I have heard of body builders tending toward less frequent higher volume sessions for lower body, and more frequent, higher intensity, lower volume sessions for upper body. But there are all sorts of prescriptions out there.

As far as I can tell, feel free to train again when you're feeling sufficiently fresh to do so. The upper and lower body loading may or may not present you with different recovery times and loading that seems to work for you.

2-5 program
And the entire range of these prescriptions largely fits inside of the 2-5 rule. 2-5 sessions per week, 2-5 exercises. 2-5 sets, 2-5 reps. Play around with that and see how heavy you can go.

The one thing I would modify is taking reps up to 10 if you're intentionally trying to increase muscle size. But other than that I think all the bases are covered.

Try it out
Pick a format for a month, run a progression of weight, and see how it does for you. Note the difference in recovery between different exercises and see if that informs you about whether any of those upper/lower muscles have dislocations in how quickly they recover. If so maybe some frequency adjustments can be made for batter results for you.

 

[John K]

Ive recently been seeing a number of posts on social media talking about the upper and lower body responding differently to training variety.

The trend I see is that lower body work responds more to specificity and intensity vs the upper body responds better to variety and volume.

Is this a thing?

Meh. My lower body loves reps. I mean they suck but it gets stronger.

Weirdly enough my upper body is the same…

 

[Hrungnir]

Wendler talks about this in 5/3/1 Forever, he calls it athlete the lower bodybuild the upper.

 

[John K]

Wendler talks about this in 5/3/1 Forever, he calls it athlete the lower bodybuild the upper.

I'm not sure if it is because it "works better" versus "it works better for athletes." He mentions this on a recent livestream QnA (timestamped to relevant question).

 

[Antti]

I think the upper body exercises can use longer sets just because the reps themselves are shorter in duration and they're far less taxing as a whole.

 

[kbgolf]

Ive recently been seeing a number of posts on social media talking about the upper and lower body responding differently to training variety.

The trend I see is that lower body work responds more to specificity and intensity vs the upper body responds better to variety and volume.

Is this a thing?

I would think the conclusion is just a result of there being much more variety available when doing upper body excercises.

 

[Hrungnir]

I'm not sure if it is because it "works better" versus "it works better for athletes." He mentions this on a recent livestream QnA (timestamped to relevant question).

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Forever, but I thought it was just “more enoyable” to not do the BBB and other high rep templates with lower body but it is with upper body.

 

[John K]

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Forever, but I thought it was just “more enoyable” to not do the BBB and other high rep templates with lower body but it is with upper body.

Oh 100%. Sets of 8+ is brutal.

And yet ... beautiful.

 

[Steve Freides]

Oh 100%. Sets of 8+ is brutal.

And yet ... beautiful.

Brutiful. New word.

-S-

 

[Alan Mackey]

Ive recently been seeing a number of posts on social media talking about the upper and lower body responding differently to training variety.

The trend I see is that lower body work responds more to specificity and intensity vs the upper body responds better to variety and volume.

Is this a thing?

Ido Portal already said this very succintly: the scapula craves complexity and the hips crave intensity.

 

[Hrungnir]

Oh 100%. Sets of 8+ is brutal.

And yet ... beautiful.

You feel so accomplished but then the next day getting out of your car is a five minute task lol

 

[puddleduck]

If you’re running with sets of 10 you will create markedly more fatigue, which will reduce effectiveness of subsequent sets and elongate recovery time before the next effective workout.

That said, you will work hardest on a rep range and suite of movements that you like so all this optimal stuff should keep that fundamental in mind

Also, see this for impact of different rep ranges on different muscle fibres

Chris Beardsley on LinkedIn: Strength training with different rep ranges does not have different…

Strength training with different rep ranges does not have different effects on fast twitch and slow twitch fiber growth.

www.linkedin.com

 

[Rickard]

Having had the chance, and opportunity, to train with lifters who have competed in either IPF junior world championship in bench press or just IPF world championship in bench I can say that in Swedish powerlifting there seems to be a trend with very high volume bench press training. The trend, I think, is started based on the success of Josef Eriksson who has championed a much higher volume approach to bench training, 10x10 at around 60% of 1RM is suggested every other day in one of his programs for a couple of weeks, before a peak cycle.

This have given some lifters amazing gains in the bench press and given me the idea that maybe much higher timer under tension for bench is the way to go, I would also say that, based on experience, that the lower body does not seem to improve in the same way (for a lot of lifters) with the same volume. It is also true that it is much harder to program for both squat and deadlift and both the amount of absolute weight used and percentage muscle is quite different. I think we all know the upper body can take a lot of volume and still recover OK.

Jumpers jump. throwers throw and you know... pressers press.

 

[Antti]

Having had the chance, and opportunity, to train with lifters who have competed in either IPF junior world championship in bench press or just IPF world championship in bench I can say that in Swedish powerlifting there seems to be a trend with very high volume bench press training. The trend, I think, is started based on the success of Josef Eriksson who has championed a much higher volume approach to bench training, 10x10 at around 60% of 1RM is suggested every other day in one of his programs for a couple of weeks, before a peak cycle.

This have given some lifters amazing gains in the bench press and given me the idea that maybe much higher timer under tension for bench is the way to go, I would also say that, based on experience, that the lower body does not seem to improve in the same way (for a lot of lifters) with the same volume. It is also true that it is much harder to program for both squat and deadlift and both the amount of absolute weight used and percentage muscle is quite different. I think we all know the upper body can take a lot of volume and still recover OK.

Jumpers jump. throwers throw and you know... pressers press.

Can you see a development in the bench press in the Swedes, as in with this trend of high volume bench press, do you get more medals in international competition, have the actual numbers gone up? As in how do the results these days with high volume compare with those gone by?

Personally, I've done 10*10 and similar high volume schemes, alike what Louie Simmons of Westside fame proposed, 10*10-8*8-6*6 etc. It worked very well. I always thought it better as a shorter term program, but I suppose it depends on load progression. Maybe it would work better with progression with rest periods.

My recovery was surprisingly very good with the very high volume or bench press. I can't imagine it to be the same if I were to do the same with my squat or my deadlift. This goes along my original post in this thread. The upper body can handle a big, big amount of volume.

 

[Rickard]

Can you see a development in the bench press in the Swedes, as in with this trend of high volume bench press, do you get more medals in international competition, have the actual numbers gone up? As in how do the results these days with high volume compare with those gone by?

Personally, I've done 10*10 and similar high volume schemes, alike what Louie Simmons of Westside fame proposed, 10*10-8*8-6*6 etc. It worked very well. I always thought it better as a shorter term program, but I suppose it depends on load progression. Maybe it would work better with progression with rest periods.

My recovery was surprisingly very good with the very high volume or bench press. I can't imagine it to be the same if I were to do the same with my squat or my deadlift. This goes along my original post in this thread. The upper body can handle a big, big amount of volume.

If I had the time it would have been fun to run actual numbers of medals in bench press both in single event and full powerlifting and normalise the values to either population, or percentage of population competing in powerlifting, or something similar for relevant results and seeing if there is a line that tremds up. But I do not have the time so I will just answer heuristically based on my perception of this:

We have a long tradition of powerlifting and for a small nation we have done really well. I do not know if we are taking more medals internationally now then before but we are competitive on the highest level as a nation (a very small nation). Super high volume (with higher reps) have been used with good results by both Josef Eriksson and Andreas Henning (that I know off) as single event competitors and I see the point for someone competing in all 3 lifts to do enough volume to keep deadlift and squat but focusing on increasing the bench for short periods with this type of planning.

I also know that there is a break in-between junior level and senior level where not all athletes make it (for a lot of reasons) but, and this is purely my observation, I think the lower level of Swedish bench in competition has increased a lot during these last years and I think this is due to this type of training. We raised the floor, hopefully the roof will be higher in the end.

Our competitors are also working hard, I assume, and I do not know if this training is implemented in a bigger scale in any other nations or by any other coaches.

 

[Antti]

If I had the time it would have been fun to run actual numbers of medals in bench press both in single event and full powerlifting and normalise the values to either population, or percentage of population competing in powerlifting, or something similar for relevant results and seeing if there is a line that tremds up. But I do not have the time so I will just answer heuristically based on my perception of this:

We have a long tradition of powerlifting and for a small nation we have done really well. I do not know if we are taking more medals internationally now then before but we are competitive on the highest level as a nation (a very small nation). Super high volume (with higher reps) have been used with good results by both Josef Eriksson and Andreas Henning (that I know off) as single event competitors and I see the point for someone competing in all 3 lifts to do enough volume to keep deadlift and squat but focusing on increasing the bench for short periods with this type of planning.

I also know that there is a break in-between junior level and senior level where not all athletes make it (for a lot of reasons) but, and this is purely my observation, I think the lower level of Swedish bench in competition has increased a lot during these last years and I think this is due to this type of training. We raised the floor, hopefully the roof will be higher in the end.

Our competitors are also working hard, I assume, and I do not know if this training is implemented in a bigger scale in any other nations or by any other coaches.

I'm from an even smaller nation across the gulf from you, so I know it makes certain comparisons different.

We don't do that well typically in open powerlifting but the bench press has been quite good. I had a look at the EPF classic bench championships and we did really well. In my view Sweden has a more balanced record lately.

Good to hear the level over there is going up. Maybe it's me but I've seen a lot of the Swedes' success on social media. Of course it would be a pain to run the statistics and I wasn't expecting that. We have a national database of all classic lifters and their lifts and it's pretty easy to rank by top lifts and see which years they were lifted in, but it's not so good data as the classic sport is so recent and the overall population is so small yet has increased a lot lately. So I'm not sure the comparison would be fruitful.

I see some Swedish lifter coaches are somewhat popular over here as well, at least among the Swedish speaking population. Those lifters are typically quite good as well.

 

[Bill Lets]

Upper Bodybuilding Lower body Strength​

I’m not going to overthink this or propose this or that.
BUT
If you did three exercises per body part in the 8 to 12 range for upper body and say 5x 5 or 5,3,1 sets of only squats you probably would have decent symmetry, good proportions and be as strong as you look.