Intro To Powerbuilding
Training programs of years past touted that no mortal can serve two masters, meaning that you either had to train for strength or hypertrophy (muscle-building). Yet, modern research coupled with years (if not decades of real-world experience) disputes these claims showing that you really can have the “best of both worlds.”
This killer hybrid training program that enables individuals to build muscle and strength at the same time is called powerbuilding.
What is Powerbuilding?
Powerbuilding is a training paradigm that incorporates elements of traditional strength training (i.e. powerlifting -- lower rep sets with longer rest) with traditional hypertrophy training (i.e. muscle-building -- higher reps with shorter rest). This creates the ultimate training program for individuals seeking both size and strength.
How to Design a Powerbuilding Training Program
While it might seem complicated to design a powerbuilding program, it’s pretty easy to understand. One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to utilize both low and high rep ranges in the same workout.
Let’s consider the most popular workouts of all time -- chest workouts.
An example powerbuilding chest workout could be:
- Bench Press: 5 x 5
- Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 x 8
- Close-grip floor press: 3 x 10
- Inverted row: 3 x AMRAP
- Skull Crusher: 4 x 10-12
- Cable Crossovers/Rear Delt Flyes: 2 x AMRAP (perform as a superset)
Note: We realize that the inverted row is a back-focused exercise, but far too many meatheads are push-dominant, leading to poor posture and muscle imbalances which can lead to injury. Adding a couple of back exercises into your chest and/or shoulder workouts will do a world of good for your long-term health as well as your physique.
Takeaway
Powerbuilding is all about building size and strength. How you organize your workouts as well as what type of training split you use (upper/lower, total body, bro split, etc.) is up to you, and they can all be molded to fit the powerbuilding paradigm -- just remember that you need to utilize both heavier weight/low rep training as well as higher rep/relatively lower load sets into your training.
Training to look good and lift heavy weights is incredibly daunting, both physically and mentally, which means you want a hard-hitting pre workout like Stim Reaper to kill every workout!
