While researching an exercise program, you may have come across the most common ones —strength training and hypertrophy training. At the outset, the two types of training look similar, but they have different goals.
Hypertrophy training focuses on increasing muscle size and mass. It is a good choice when you are looking at improving strength, endurance, and overall health. This type of training reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases and improves the body’s metabolic function.
Strength training is an apt choice if you are focusing on maintaining and improving your overall health. You can get stronger muscles and bones with strength training. It can help you manage or lose weight, along with reducing the risk of chronic diseases and improving your mental well-being.
Let’s understand the pros and cons of Hypertrophy vs Strength training so that you can make an informed decision about your exercise program.
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Hypertrophy Training
Pros of Hypertrophy Training
Hypertrophy training provides the following benefits:
- Improvement in Quality of Life: If you are looking to improve your movement and functional capacity, then it is a good idea to increase your muscle mass. This can be achieved through hypertrophy training. Better movement and functional capacity can enhance your overall quality of life. Hypertrophy training aids in aging healthily.
- Enhance Metabolic Function: Developing your muscles through hypertrophy training can improve your metabolic function by enhancing your glucose tolerance and blood lipid profile. This training helps in lowering blood pressure, reducing body fat, and increasing metabolism. These benefits are particularly important for type 2 diabetes patients. If you are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, then hypertrophy training is a good option to prevent this.
- Reduce the Risk of Osteoporosis: Muscle building can help you prevent osteoporosis. It can also help reverse the damage if you already have osteoporosis. Research indicates that the mechanical load placed on the bones while doing resistance training results in an increase in bone strength. Building muscle alone through hypertrophy training aids in preserving and improving bone mass. This is particularly useful for middle-aged and older adults.
Cons of Hypertrophy Training
Hypertrophy training involves heavy training. It is a safe and effective way to build muscle mass, but it can have several disadvantages, including:
- Increased injury risk: The intense training regimens and heavy lifting, which are part of hypertrophy training, can cause strains, overuse injuries, and tears in tendons, muscles, and ligaments.
- Stressful joints: Hypertrophy training leads to the building of extra muscle mass. This can put extra stress on joints, eventually leading to joint pains or degenerative conditions.
- Muscle imbalances: If you focus heavily on certain muscle groups during hypertrophy training, this can lead to muscle imbalances, poor posture, and a higher risk of injuries.
- Lower functional strength: You may get increased muscle size through hypertrophy training, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will have higher functional strength or improved performance in other physical activities.
- Restricted flexibility: Increased muscle mass may restrict your flexibility and range of motion. This may affect your overall athletic performance and daily activities.
- Changes in metabolism: While increased muscle mass acquired due to hypertrophy training can boost metabolism, the additional muscle gain, if not properly managed, can lead to metabolic imbalances.
So, before going for hypertrophy training, you must consult your healthcare provider. Take into consideration your health history and fitness level, and carefully analyze whether this type of workout is appropriate for you or not.
Strength Training
Pros of Strength Training
Strength training provides the following benefits:
- Feeling stronger: You get stronger when you build muscle mass through strength training. Your endurance increases, and you can lift heavier objects. Strength training also helps in strengthening your bones.
- Fighting diseases: Strength training can help you fight diseases like osteoporosis and arthritis. By boosting bone mass and bone strength, strength training can help prevent osteoporosis. It can also aid in reducing the pain and complications of arthritis. Additionally, strength training reduces the risk of heart disease. This becomes possible as this type of training raises your heart rate. Strength training can also help lower your blood pressure and have better control over your cholesterol levels.
- Weight control: Strength training can help reduce the fat levels in your body. This training can also help in improving your body composition. Strength training helps you to keep your body weight under control, thus avoiding the risk of becoming overweight.
- Better mental health: Working out regularly helps in improving your mental health as well because it helps in reducing stress. By doing strength training on a regular basis, you can lower your anxiety and fatigue levels. Better mental and physical health leads to better self-esteem.
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Cons of Strength Training
As the above discussion unfolds, strength training can significantly aid in improving your muscle strength, endurance, and overall health. However, it includes the risk of injuries. The most common types of injury risks in strength training are the following:
- Overuse injuries: If during strength training, your muscles, tendons, or ligaments are subjected to more stress than they can handle, then overuse injuries may occur. Overuse injuries include tendinitis, muscle strains, and stress fractures. If you lift too heavy weights, quickly increase your training intensity, or use improper techniques while exercising, you will be prone to overuse injuries.
- Joint injuries: While doing strength training, you are likely to do movements that put strain on joints such as knees, hips, and shoulders. You may suffer from joint injuries such as meniscus tears, osteoarthritis, or shoulder instability due to strength training. This may happen due to incorrect technique, excessive load, or lack of stability.
- Back injuries: Strength training can put a significant strain on your spine and cause injuries such as herniated discs, sciatica, or muscle strains. This can happen due to lifting heavy weights too much or doing the exercises with poor technique.
- Muscle imbalances: If you are focusing on specific muscle groups through strength training, then you are prone to the risks of muscle imbalances. In the case of a muscle imbalance, some muscles become overdeveloped while some weaken. This kind of imbalance increases the risk of injuries and can negatively affect your posture and mobility.
Conclusion
Exercising has a lot of benefits. It helps in building strength. However, before choosing a particular type of training for yourself, you must analyze your goals and understand the pros and cons of each. Based on this knowledge, you can choose the best exercise regime for yourself, such as Hypertrophy vs Strength training. Do keep your health history in mind while making the choice.
