Stop Chasing More / Understanding Strength, Hypertrophy and How I train On Tonal

So questions that are very common, you know, should you train for strength, you know, hypertrophy, endurance, you know, what is the best? How do I know when, you know, when to do it? Like, when's the right time to switch, right? So the truth is every phase has a purpose.

There's not one that's better.

And there's multiple ways of, like I said, there's multiple roads to Rome, right? There is no right or wrong.

Just like when I talk about how I go about doing things, is that written in stone? Absolutely not.

We can always play around with things.

So a lot of people think they're, you know, very completely, you know, separate goals, but they're really different ways of creating adaptations.

The key is understanding what each phase is really asking your body to do, right? Like, how are you supposed to perform? And I think that's like the biggest question when it comes to tonal programs is, how am I supposed to perform? Like, how am I supposed to apply what I'm reading, right? Like, when you read a program description, it's like...

okay, how do I apply it? Like, what is the goal here? How do I apply it for each set? How do I apply it from week to week? And how does that, like, what is the main thing? And for me, I'm very one goal, right? Like when I look at a program, I'm like, okay, I'm going to focus on one thing and I'm going to dial in on that.

And it helps keep me focused on the goal of the program.

For me, at least, that has definitely helped me.

So strength training is about teaching your nervous system to produce more force.

So strength is force.

You're getting better at recruiting those muscle fibers, right? And improving coordination.

and becoming more efficient on those heavy loads.

So hypertrophy is different.

The goal isn't simply to move the heaviest weight possible, right? Your goal is not like PRs.

Your goal isn't to, you know, yes, I have been guilty of going for PRs and hypertrophy just because Joe gets me so amped up and I blame him.

But hypertrophy, it's all about stressing that muscle.

I always tell people it's kind of like making love to your muscles, right? It's like giving them all, like feeling that stretch.

It feels good.

The best way I can explain hypertrophy.

So the goal is creating a lot of mechanical tension and enough quality work.

So in hypertrophy, form, you know, feeling the stretch, all that good stuff that helps you build muscles.

So all that mechanical tension and your form and stretching the muscle gives that muscle a reason to grow.

So now endurance.