So if someone wanted to increase his squat from 1xBW to 2.5xBW and his next plan is to do hypertrophy to gain some mass, which would be more muscle fibres to utilize. Would it be more wise to:
try increase your squat in the hypertrophy until you reach 2.5xBW
or
should the aim be increase muscle mass, which includes the squat but finish off when you have acquired enough mass and then move on to a strength training routine to carry on increasing your squat where you left of but instead of moving slowly like it was done during hypertrophy but with speed in mind.
or
is there another way because the aim is to increase squat and the hypertrophy workout is next.
You do sets of 5 in the squat every couple of days and add weight every time. You do this until you hit 2.5 x bw.
If you get stuck before (fail twice in a row), deload 10% and work back up. If you get stuck again (fail twice in a row), deload 10% and work back up. If you get stuck again, vary volumes+intensities in the squat over the week and hit PRs weekly. Always eat enough to NOT fail scheduled reps and sets unnecessarily.
And for type A stronger is possible without gains in bw, and for type B it is not - as we defined. So herein does not lie a solution.
Why?
Maybe athlete A can naturally recruit 80% of his motor neurons when he jumps, whereas athlete B needs training to get to those 80% from his current 50%. He can do that without the need of additional muscle. Once he gets there, then obviously there's no other way than increasing muscle mass.
If the person could increase his strength without adding more bw, he would not have a problem, right? He can do that as long as it works, I am not against it at all. But when this person gets seriously stuck being still rather weak and his training weights are creeping upwards very slowly or not at all, then there is no reasonable alternative to gaining more muscle. If you squat less then two times your bodyweight and you are not AT LEAST making a mean increase of 5 lbs per week in the squat over a considerable time span, you are fooling around.
Check yourself: Look into your training logs from 6 months ago. When the weight you were doing then is not at least 100 lbs lighter then it is now, then there is a problem (given that everything else in your training is up to par and you are still under 2 x bw).
The question is - how can you know where you're at in terms of quick&high % recruitment ability and if you should continue to work on that or not?
You train powersnatches. When you don't make progress at least weekly, you need to gain strength.
