In this instructional video, personal trainer Eric Roberts explains that building strength and building muscle are distinct adaptations: strength is primarily a neurological improvement, while muscle growth (hypertrophy) is a physiological increase in muscle fiber size. He outlines the beginner phase (first ~12 months of a true strength‑training program) where novices naturally gain both strength and size. After that phase, he details three key training differences for each goal. For strength, he recommends heavy loads, low rep ranges (3‑6 reps), heavy compound lifts (deadlift, squat, bench, overhead press), and relatively low weekly volume. For hypertrophy, he advises slightly lighter loads with higher rep ranges (6‑12 reps), inclusion of isolation or variation exercises (Romanian deadlift, chest flies, lat pulldowns, lateral raises) to maintain tension, and higher weekly volume. He emphasizes that the rep ranges are guidelines, not absolutes, and that both adaptations can complement each other. Roberts then provides a sample lower‑body workout that blends strength (back squat 3×5) and hypertrophy (Romanian deadlift 3×6‑8, hip thrust 3×8‑10, hamstring curl 3×10‑12). The video ends with a brief promotion of his Clubhouse training programs and a humorous anecdote about icing a leg after dropping a barbell.
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Building strength versus building muscle. That did not turn out as planned. You've been led to believe your entire life that if you get stronger, that automatically means that you're going to build muscle. But is that actually how it works? Well, let's talk about it. See, building muscle is a physiological adaptation. You are actually building new muscle fibers in your body, whereas Building strength, this is more of a neurological adaptation. This usually involves a bit more of your central nervous system as opposed to actually building new muscles on your body. So let's take a beginner for example. A beginner is going to build strength and build muscle no matter what. They're going to build muscle and make the physiological adaptation because Since what they are doing is so new, they're going to build muscle no matter what because they were doing nothing beforehand. And on that same token, because they are new to the skill of lifting weights— because that's really what weightlifting is, a skill— just from them doing the skills of these movements a lot more, they will neurologically get more efficient at the movement. Which means they will get stronger with the movement. So if that's you, you lucky bastard, you, you will build muscle and strength at the same time. But what happens after you get past the beginner stage? And by the way, the beginner stage is roughly the first 12 months of you following a real strength training program. I don't mean Beachbody. I don't mean Orangetheory or HIIT boot camps. Nothing against those things inherently. They're just not real strength training programs like the programs that I create inside of my clubhouse. So if you're in the first 12 months of following a real program, you'll build strength and muscle no matter what. But after that, this is where things start to get a little bit more complicated. And depending on which one you're focusing on more, building strength or building muscle, you might have to take a smarter approach to your workouts and make sure whichever one you're trying to focus on more, you're actually training for, because there are differences between the two that we're going to talk about right now. I'm going to give you the 3 main differences in training more for strength versus training more for building muscle. Let's start with strength. When you're training more for strength, You are typically going to be training with heavier weights because you are going to be doing less reps during your exercises. Training for strength is generally going to leave you in that 3 to 6 rep range. And so since you are doing less reps, you are automatically going to lift much heavier weight. These lower reps and heavier weight impact your neurological strength much more than if you were to do 8 reps, 10 reps, 15, 20 reps. The second biggest thing when you're training for strength is you are going to be doing a lot more of the heavy compound movements. Things like a deadlift from the floor, for example, or things like a barbell back squat, for example. Or things like a barbell bench press or a standing barbell shoulder press. It's not to say you can't do those movements if you're looking to build muscle. It's just that the nature of those bigger compound movements will allow you to lift the heaviest weight possible. And since you're already doing lower reps and trying to lift the heaviest weight, these movements can really help build up your strength. Last but not least, the third main difference when training for strength: you will not need as much of something that we call volume. Volume just means the amount of sets per muscle group per week that you do for a specific body part. So for example, let's take your shoulders since I was just doing a shoulder press. For you to get stronger in your shoulders, You will not need to do as many sets throughout the course of a workout and throughout the course of a week in order for you to get stronger. Now, how many sets am I talking about? Let's cover that as we move on to the 3 main differences in building muscle. Now, the first main difference, you are going to go a little bit lighter in the weight so that you are going to do a little bit more reps. And just to be clear, I don't mean you're going lighter so your sets are easier, because even if you're going a little bit lighter in the weight, you should still be pushing very close to failure and you should still be lifting heavy for the rep range that you're doing. It's just that now instead of doing heavy reps of 3, 4, 5, or 6, you're now going to start doing heavy sets of 6, 8, 10, 12. This is really important because even though you're going lighter weight and doing a bit more reps, strength was in that 3 to 6 rep range and muscle building is more in that 6 to 12 rep range. You still want to pick a weight that is heavy for doing 8 reps because what's heavy for 8 reps might be different than what's heavy for 3 reps, but they should still be heavy sets. Does that make sense? Now, the second main difference when we're talking about building muscle is talking about exercise selection. Remember how I said for building strength, you're probably going to be doing the really heavy compound movements? Let's take a deadlift for example. If one of your main goals was to get stronger, you would probably be deadlifting from the floor Because that is where you can lift the heaviest weight and build the most strength. But let's say you're a bit more focused on building muscle instead. This is where you might opt for a Romanian deadlift instead, because with this exercise, since you don't go all the way down to the ground, you're putting your muscle under more constant tension, which usually is going to be a bit better for building muscle since you don't stop on the ground completely. Or let's say you start throwing in things like chest flies if you're really trying to build muscle in your chest. Or now is when you start throwing in things like lat pulldowns to really help build your back muscles a bit more. Or a final example could be something like these shoulder raises to help build your shoulders a bit more. You're not going to be doing a bunch of side lateral raises If your main focus is just building strength, but building muscle, you'll start to throw these things in. Then the third thing, you are going to be doing a little bit more volume in your workouts. So remember, volume just means sets per muscle group per week. So again, let's just use your shoulders as an example. Let's say your main goal was just to get stronger in a shoulder press, for example. You might do 3 sets of 5 reps just to purely focus on getting stronger. But if you want to focus on growing your shoulder muscles, you might now also throw in some side lateral raises to get more volume, to get exercises in maybe the 8 to 12 rep range so you can help build your shoulder muscles a bit more. Now let's do a quick recap. Strength, you're training with heavier weight with lower reps. More in the 3 to 6 rep range. You're picking more compound-based movements like a barbell deadlift from the floor, like a back squat, like a bench press, and you don't need as much volume. Whereas with muscle building, you're going more in the 6 to 12 rep range. You're picking exercises that are more geared towards isolating certain muscles, and you will be doing a bit more volume. Now I want to be really clear on this as well. This doesn't mean that you can't build muscle in the 3 to 6 rep range and you can't get stronger in the 6 to 12 rep range. It's just that 3 to 6 reps with heavier weight focus more on building strength, whereas 6 to 12 reps with a bit more moderate rate is going to focus a bit more on building muscle. So does this mean you should only train for one or the other? No, because they both can play a role going hand in hand. For example, If let's say you get stronger in your barbell back squat, for example, because you are gaining strength, when you go to do things like a hip thrust or a leg curl or a leg extension, because you're stronger, because you worked in that lower rep range, let's say 5 reps, when you go to do 8 reps, 10 reps, 12 reps of an RDL or a hip thrust or a leg curl, you'll be able to lift more weight for those higher rep exercises because you got stronger on the back squat. So they both can play a role synergistically and complement each other, which is why you should train for both. Now again, I'm a personal trainer. I do this for a living. I have my own training program. So I want to show you how I set up an example lower body workout to help you train to get stronger but also train to build muscle. Let's just say your first exercise for the day is going to be a barbell back squat, and you're doing 3 sets of 5 reps to really work on your strength. And then let's say your next exercise is a barbell Romanian deadlift where you're doing 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps. Still somewhat in the lower rep range, so you will get some strength component, But you're also doing a little bit more to help you build some muscle. Let's say your next exercise is going to be a barbell hip thrust because you are trying to focus on growing your glutes a little bit more. Let's say you do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps, again focused a bit more on building muscle. And then let's say you finish off with some sort of hamstring curl, like I'm using a dumbbell hamstring curl right here. And let's say you do 3 sets of about 10 to 12 reps. That 4-exercise leg day right there would be something very similar to what I program in the clubhouse, where you can train for strength and train to build muscle at the same time. I hope this video helped. If you're interested in joining my clubhouse so you can get access to all my training programs, the link is going to be in the description below. And if you'll excuse me, I have to go ice my leg after I dropped that barbell on it. Hope it helps. Thanks, Eric.
