Conflicted. Thinking about changing to a hypertrophy focus for a while.

[Pops1085]

If I swap to a hypertrophy 5 day split, will I lose my strength progress?

I’ve been lifting for a long time. 8+ years. I have naturally short arms so my bench is 385lbs. I’ve always benched twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays and Squats/Back works on Tuesdays and Fridays. Lately I’ve just been plateaued out and kind of burnt. I got heavy in my pursuit of strength gains and am thinking of switching it up and focusing on on hypertrophy for a few months.

If I only bench once a week vs twice, am I sabotaging my own progress? I’d really like to bench 405 just once before I get too old to do it lol I’m 30.

[Camarija]

Once you're that far into lifting it's worth experimenting for several months at a time, just take notes and see what works and what doesn't work

I have a feeling Taws will comment to keep a second push day being lighter / hypertrophy focused

[TAWS6]

I think that training frequency matters FAR less for advanced lifters. Add in some heavy singles, doubles or triples every now and then and you’ll be good.

[SuicideGripMe]

Hitting a muscle once a week seems to maintain strength if your diet/training day isn't awful.

If you start going too high reps and also getting out of the groove of performing the lifts like a strength athlete... you probably will lose strength or at least exercise cooridination.

Why not do a conjugate program with emphasis on 2 strength days (ME days) and 2 hypertrophy days (RE days)?

[TolerantLactose]

I’ve been lifting for a long time. 8+ years. I have naturally short arms so my bench is 385lbs.

You should be telling us what to do.

[Horizon92]

If I swap to a hypertrophy 5 day split, will I lose my strength progress?

I’ve been lifting for a long time. 8+ years. I have naturally short arms so my bench is 385lbs. I’ve always benched twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays and Squats/Back works on Tuesdays and Fridays. Lately I’ve just been plateaued out and kind of burnt. I got heavy in my pursuit of strength gains and am thinking of switching it up and focusing on on hypertrophy for a few months.

If I only bench once a week vs twice, am I sabotaging my own progress? I’d really like to bench 405 just once before I get too old to do it lol I’m 30.

You're not even close to "too old" at 30 lmao.

Anyways, hypertrophy vs powerlifting focus doesn't necessarily have anything to do with training frequency. In real life, higher frequency is generally better assuming you can recover. This is because essentially, the number of sets you're doing per week correlates to the amount of growth you will see. At your level, its hard to imagine you'd manage to do more sets for lets say chest in one day than over three days, as an example.

What do you mean when you say you "got heavy"? Like you gained too much weight? Thats a matter of diet. You say you want to focus on hypertrophy, but at the same time it seems you want to increase your bench. I won't give advice on increasing your bench because you are much more advanced than me, and I have orangutan arms. With that being said, if you want to increase your bench long term, I think it would be a mistake to lift only once a week. I think it would be a better idea to increase the frequency - IF you can recover from it. As for overall hypertrophy, you should simply aim to do more sets per week for every muscle. Its likely it would be easier to do that by avoiding a bro split. But you say you're burnt out, and you might want to shorten the time spent in gym each day, or just give yourself a rest. In that case, a bro split could be a fine way to give yourself a bit of a rest and change of pace. Long term though I don't think its the most effective way for you to increase your bench and hypertrophy. But if volume is equated for, it won't make a difference in terms of hypertrophy. But your bench press skill might decline over time.