Bigger Muscles or Stronger Muscles?(-for PTs)

Believe it or not, these are not the same…Here’s why

As a trainer, you hear just about everything from your clients. Each one has a different goal.

Client #1 says:

“You know what? I really just want to get big.”

Client #2 says:

“Me? I just want to increase my 1 RM, but you know, not look crazy huge.”

You have different clients and they have different needs. While having bigger muscles does lead to the potential for having greater strength, generally speaking, optimizing muscle size and optimizing muscle strength are two different things.

And you can work with your clients to achieve one or the other. It just takes different strategies, each backed by exercise research.

What do the textbooks say?

As a certified trainer you can go back to your fitness textbook and find the chart that tells you how to use weight training to achieve greater strength or hypertrophy.

In most texts the recommendations are about the same