Bodybuilding versus Strength Training (Part 2)

Diametrically Opposed? Peaceful Coexistence? Synergistic Synthesis?

Diametrically opposed? Peaceful coexistence? Synergistic synthesis?

My friend of 30 years, Dorian Yates: he is the poster boy for “the power bodybuilder.” I picked this image to back up my contention that Yates, owner of one of bodybuilding’s all-time great backs, had legs second only to Tom Platz.

An elite bodybuilder seeking to increase the muscular size of a targeted body part and an elite athlete seeking to increase raw strength and power have two dramatically different goals that demand two dramatically different training modalities. Bodybuilders, Olympic weightlifters, and powerlifters can all use the identical tool, the barbell, in differing ways to achieve differing goals.

Bodybuilding: Subjective

• Divorced from measured performance: the elite bodybuilder uses resistance training to increase muscle size and correct symmetrical imbalances. Strength increases are usually incidental, an unintended consequence. Bodybuilding presentation requires no timed or measured lifting performance. Winners are selected by visual criteria: muscle size, symmetry, body-fat condition, posing, and overall visual appeal.
• Muscle expansion: bodybuilding is designed to engorge a targeted muscle with blood via the “pump.” Bodybuilding weight training seeks maximum muscle size. By repeatedly stressing and pumping blood into the muscle, over time, this repeated muscle “inflation” creates a larger muscle. Correct symmetrical imbalances over time using specialization routines that bring up lagging body parts.
• High-volume sessions: classically, a bodybuilder uses a wide array of exercises in each session to “attack” a targeted muscle from different angles. A serious biceps session might start with cheat curls, followed by seated incline dumbbell curls, preacher curls, and cable curls: 12, 16, perhaps 20 sets for one small muscle. Bodybuilding training sessions use a broad training menu and often result in lengthy sessions.
• High weekly frequency: bodybuilding sessions are not only long, they need to occur often. Old-school bodybuilders trained each muscle three times a week, six days a week, using a split routine. Modern bodybuilders often weight train 4 to 6 days a week and perform regular cardio. Long sessions generate more frequency pressure; their length requires they be chopped in half and done twice as often.
• Intensity amplifiers: bodybuilders induce intensity using forced reps, partial reps, same-muscle giant sets, drop sets, negative reps and similar set-extenders. The goal is to work a muscle past ordinary capacity. These methods can be done with a training partner, as in forced reps, or alone, as in drop sets. On the top set in an exercise, after reaching positive failure, the set keeps going with an intensity-amplifying set-extender.
• At their visual best, they are often at their weakest: on the day of a bodybuilding competition, the bodybuilder is depleted to maximize muscular definition and fiber clarity. Extreme methods may be used to reduce water that obscures muscularity. This is a contest-prep condition, not a general health recommendation and not a normal training-day state.

Strength Training: Objective

• All about performance: the goal is to increase usable athletic strength via resistance training of a certain type and kind. Strength training seeks to increase power and strength; any muscle-size increase is an added benefit. Increasing power and strength to a significant degree often creates a concurrent increase in lean muscle. Body-fat levels are largely shaped by diet, conditioning, activity, and genetics.
• Usable athletic strength: there is such a thing as “wrong strong.” For the athlete, being proficient at preacher curls or pec deck work will not improve athletic ability to the same degree as becoming a master of ass-on-heels squats or power cleans. Strength training prioritizes compound, multi-joint exercises over isolation exercises. Coordinated power is expressed through compound exercises.
• Low-volume sessions: a classical strength-training session concentrates on doing fewer things better. Whereas the bodybuilder will wade through a shopping list of exercises, the strength trainer begins with explosive compound movements while the central nervous system is fresh, then segues into absolute-strength powerlifts. If time and circumstance permit, assistance exercises are performed.
• Low weekly frequency: full recovery matters before engaging in a serious strength-training session. Training hard when partially recovered generally produces suboptimal results. A lifter looking to increase strength needs rested, focused, high-output effort. Intervals between sessions need to be long enough for the body to recover and perform.
• Periodized strategy: create a realistic goal and set the goal into a classical 12-week timeframe. Create weekly mini-goals by reverse-engineering back to the timeframe starting point. Attain small weekly increments on a weekly basis. Insignificant weekly gains compound over the 12-week timeframe. Periodization is the establishing of goals and the preplanning needed to get there.
• At their best, they are at their strongest: the strength athlete deliberately peaks power and strength. Strength training, coordinated with the timing of the event, ensures that the athlete is strongest on the day of competition. There is an art and science to peaking strength. The bodybuilder’s training-session goals and workout structure are opposite strength-training tactics.

Is There a Third Way?

“East is East, and West is West — and never the two shall meet.” Rudyard Kipling

Kipling spoke to the idea that some things are so diametrically opposed that there is no compromise or synthesis. Oil and water can combine, but they will never meld. Can the same be said for bodybuilding and strength training? Is there some sort of compromise training, a hybrid system, some synthesis that simultaneously produces both bodybuilding muscle size and strength-building raw power and torque? Is there a “third way” of training that straddles both worlds without compromising results? The short answer is a resounding NO.

Thesis, antithesis — synthesis?

Strength Training for Bodybuilding: Dorian Yates

Dorian Yates ruled the bodybuilding world for six years with his heretofore never-seen combination of gargantuan size and extreme leanness. Yates attained his mind-blowing muscle mass by using what I dubbed “powerlifting with forced reps.” Like an elite powerlifter, Yates trained each muscle once a week using a limited number of exercises.

Low-rep sets were extended when Yates’ fearsome training partner, Leroy, provided exquisite forced reps. Yates attained positive failure with incredible poundage, i.e., 435 x 6 in the 45-degree barbell incline press, augmented with two perfect forced reps: not too much, not too little. Yates would use one or two forced reps, no more.

This was strength training bent toward bodybuilding. The goal was not a contest bench press, deadlift, or squat. The goal was maximum muscle size, density, and visual impact. But the route to that muscle was brutally heavy, tightly selected, low-volume, high-intensity resistance training.

Bodybuilding for Strength Training: Ed Coan

Ed Coan was the greatest powerlifter in history. His reign lasted decades. He set world records in the 181-, 198-, 220- and 242-pound classes. Ed was what I dubbed a power-bodybuilder. Like the greatest superheavyweight powerlifter of all time, Bill “Kaz” Kazmaier, Ed augmented his core powerlifts with a wide array of assistance exercises.

Ed would augment deadlift training with wide-grip pullups and rows. Ed used the press-behind-the-neck as an assistance exercise for the bench press. He did curls, triceps pushdowns and single-leg leg presses. Coan gave priority to the powerlift of the day but would always follow up with bodybuilding-style isolation assistance exercises.

This was bodybuilding bent toward strength training. The goal remained measurable powerlifting performance, but bodybuilding assistance work helped build muscle where more muscle could support the squat, bench press and deadlift.

Progressive resistance training has a multitude of strategies and protocols that shift and change depending on shifting goals. Are you a bodybuilder seeking lean muscle mass and symmetry? Are you an athlete seeking to improve strength, power and performance? Progressive resistance strategies differ. Bodybuilding is not strength training. Strength training is not bodybuilding. Be one or the other. Don’t be lukewarm. Be clear in your vision. Pick a path. Then pursue it with disciplined ferocity.

Safety Note for Bodybuilding, Strength Training, and Forced Reps

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW perspective on bodybuilding, strength training, power-bodybuilding, Dorian Yates and Ed Coan. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, contest-prep, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or programming advice.

Heavy incline presses, squats, power cleans, behind-the-neck presses, forced reps, drop sets, negative reps, daily cardio, high-volume bodybuilding, low-frequency power training, contest-style depletion, and aggressive body-composition changes are not automatically appropriate for every lifter.

Age, injury history, shoulder health, elbow health, back health, cardiovascular health, blood pressure, medications, sleep, nutrition, recovery capacity, coaching, and technical skill matter. Build gradually. Warm up thoroughly. Use spotters or rack safeties when needed. Stop or scale back for sharp pain, chest pain, dizziness, faintness, unusual shortness of breath, numbness, uncontrolled bar path, repeated technical collapse, severe fatigue, sleep disruption, disordered eating patterns, or any symptom that feels different from normal training effort.

Equipment Notes for Bodybuilding and Strength Training

The equipment does not decide whether the method is bodybuilding or strength training. The goal, loading, volume, frequency, exercise selection, recovery, and intent decide that.

Bodybuilders and strength athletes both use barbells and dumbbells. The bodybuilder might use them to pump, isolate, and engorge a target muscle. The strength athlete might use them to peak power and increase measurable performance. Same tools, different mission.

Choose tools that match the lifter, the room, the floor, the spotter plan, and the intended training method. Do not confuse owning equipment with owning the discipline. The discipline is in the goal, the logbook, and the execution.

Suggested Equipment for Bodybuilding and Strength Training

Bodybuilding and strength training often use the same tools with different intent. The bodybuilder may use them to build, shape and pump a target muscle, while the strength athlete uses them to increase measurable power. For readers building a serious training setup, useful options include IRON COMPANY Pioneer leather weightlifting straps for heavy pulling support, IRON COMPANY urethane Olympic grip plates for progressive loading, the IRON COMPANY Forged Passion leather weightlifting belt for bracing during heavy work, IRON COMPANY heavy-duty deadlifting mats for floor protection, and the American Barbell 7-foot axle bar for grip-intensive strength work.

The equipment does not decide whether the method is bodybuilding or strength training. The goal, loading, volume, frequency, technique, and recovery decide that.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.