Once you have learned to perform basic weight training exercises with proper technique using added resistance, then you can begin to specialize your training to emphasize one of four main areas of muscular fitness—strength, power, hypertrophy, or endurance.

Advanced Styles of Strength Training

Training for Muscular Strength

Muscular strength is the amount of force that your muscles can generate in a single effort.

When trying to improve muscular strength, your goal is to push (or pull) as much weight as possible in just a few repetitions. In these kinds of workouts, you spend as much energy as you can activating as much of your muscle fibers as possible in one go.

A program that focuses on improving muscular strength usually involves lifting very heavy weight (as much as you can lift with perfect form) for between 2 and 6 Sets of between 1 and 6 Reps per Set of a given exercise. Rest periods for this type of workout vary between 2 and 5 minutes between sets and between exercises.

Because improving strength involves heavy resistance, you want to make sure that your technique is absolutely perfect before attempting this style of training. It’s definitely worthwhile to get a personal trainer (like me!) to check out your form and make sure you’re doing this safely.

Muscular strength workouts usually take longer to get through than beginning-level workouts, so in a sixty-minute session you may only complete between two and four exercises. During my own personal “A Day” workout routine, for example, I spend between 45 and 90 minutes in my studio to get through 3-5 sets of deadlifts, overhead presses, and turkish getups.

Training for Muscular Power

Muscular power is the explosive aspect of strength. It factors in not only how much force you can generate, but also how quickly you can move against resistance as well. Training for increasing muscular power is especially important for improving athletic performance.

Programs for muscular power usually involve lower volume (lighter or no additional weight) and very high intensities. You might see exercises like squat jumps, kettlebell swings, cleans, and other explosive, plyometric exercises.

Power programs usually have between 3 and 5 sets per exercise of either 1-2 reps (for single-effort events) or 3-5 reps (for multiple-effort events). Rest is usually between 2 and 5 minutes between sets.

Training for Hypertrophy (Toning)

Muscular hypertrophy is what a lot of people refer to as “toning.” It’s the actual physical growth of the muscle that occurs naturally as you get stronger. However you can encourage the muscles to increase even larger by training with slightly lighter resistance than you would use in a strength program and longer sets (between 6 and 20 reps per set) for between 4 and 6 sets per exercise. Rest is usually between 30 and 90 seconds between sets and exercises.

Often people enjoy a mixed program that includes training for both muscular strength and hypertrophy. This is what I usually program for my intermediate clients who have just completed several rounds of Phase I and Phase II, learning the basic weight training techniques. A mixed program might include some exercises with heavier weight, shorter sets, and longer rest (developing muscular strength) while others might use slightly lighter weight, longer sets, and shorter rest periods (developing muscular hypertrophy).

Other people like to keep the two styles of training separate and work to develop one adaptation at a time—which is also fine!

Training for Muscular Endurance

Finally, muscular endurance is your muscles’ ability to hold a contraction or to repeat a contraction over and over again for a sustained period of time. Wall sits, planks, and other similar isometric hold exercises are great for developing muscular endurance.

Lots of balancing exercises and yoga-styles of training are also great for developing muscular endurance.

An endurance program usually includes 2-3 sets per exercise of at least 12 reps per set, with 30 seconds or less of rest between sets.

This style of training is a great particularly for athletes whose sport involves long periods of sustained activity—like swimming, running, cycling, and other similar sports.

Cycling Your Training Phases

It’s a good idea to cycle your training to keep your body progressing and avoid the dreaded strength plateau.

A plateau is what happens when your body adapts to your current training plan, making it difficult to progress. You may find yourself stuck at a certain amount of weight or repetitions for several weeks, or you may see no change in your muscle size or your body fat percentage.

In order to keep your body progressing, you need to give it what we call a “novel stimulus.” This means giving the muscles a new task that they’re not used to in order to stimulate muscle growth and strengthening.

A “novel stimulus” could be changing out the exercises in your routine. You can add new exercises, new variations of familiar exercises, the rate of motion (speeding up or slowing down your repetitions) or simply change the angle of the exercises (going for increased depth in your squats, for instance, or turning your arms out at a wider angle for your bicep curls).

You might also change to a different style of training to provide that novel stimulus and develop a different facet of your muscular fitness. For example, if you’ve been working on developing muscular strength, you could switch to a hypertrophy program by taking the same exercises and reducing the amount of weight you use while increasing the number of repetitions you perform in each set.

This is one reason why tracking your workouts is so important—seeing your progress from week to week as you train will allow you to identify when you’ve reached a plateau and it’s time to change up your program.

Although everyone’s body is different, it usually takes between six and twelve weeks for the body to adapt to a training program before hitting a plateau. For this reason, I usually change up my clients’ programs every eight or twelve weeks to keep them making progress.

If you’re new to resistance training, make sure to spend enough time mastering the technique of strength training exercises before trying any of the above, more advanced styles of training.

About the Author

Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media.