What are your fitness goals? Are you trying to build muscle or strength if you’re working out? 

Arguably, muscle-building is more popular than strength training, but strength training is more useful than muscle-building. 

But once again, it’s about what you’re trying to achieve. So I’ll explain the popular reasons behind each route and what they are.

Strength training

Strength training is working out to move something from A to B. This results in you being able to exert more force on others, and also increase your explosivity and agility.

You also generally get leaner.

People may strength train to increase their agility for explosive sports like basketball, or maybe they just want to get stronger in general.

The reason strength training doesn’t necessarily get you big is because it targets the muscle fibres with the smallest cross-section; so you still build muscle but the smaller muscle fibres that are the strongest muscle fibres for their size.

Muscle building

Muscle building is working out to build muscle mass (hypertrophy) and look bigger. You inevitably build strength but in a lower proportion. This also results in you being able to exert more force on others and you have the potential to get stronger because your body has to adapt to carrying more mass.

This can be useful in higher physically demanding sports like rugby, where you exert more force on people when you tackle. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re strong.

When you train for hypertrophy, you target the muscle fibres with a larger cross-section, which although exert more force, they are weaker for their size relative to the smaller muscle fibres.

So if person A theoretically had the same volume of large muscle fibres as person B has with small muscle fibres, he would be weaker than person B.

Common misconceptions

People think that people with more muscle mass are strong, but that’s not always the case. Someone can carry more muscle mass than someone and still be weaker than them because the muscle fibres with the largest cross-section are weaker than the muscles with the smallest cross-section.

However, people with more muscle mass have the potential to become stronger than someone with less muscle mass if they train for strength, and it’s easier for them to get stronger because their large muscle fibres can transition into the smaller muscle fibres, hence increasing the proportions.

They also have the potential to exert more force on others than people with less muscle mass.

However, people with less muscle mass have the potential to get bigger if they increase their protein intake in their diet.  And if they did that and strength trained simultaneously, they would be like someone who built muscle, but they’re stronger (it’s what most powerlifters do)!

Also, people with less muscle mass have the potential to exert more force than people with muscle mass because they have more agility and it’s easier for them to run faster, meaning that if they reach top speed, they would be able to exert more force on people with more muscle mass.

Comparison

They’re both popular and I’ve already told you some reasons for picking each route, so here’s an overview of the pros and cons of each way you can take. However, there’ll have to be some constant variables (assume these factors stay the same):

• They both have the same protein intake
• They both have the same training routine (apart from different weights)

The pros of Strength training

• You generally become stronger than most people
• You typically become and have the potential to become more explosive and get more agility than people with more muscle mass
• You can exert more force on others

The pros of muscle-building

• You have the potential to get stronger than people who strength-train
• You look bigger
• You have the potential to exert more force on others than people who strength training
• Lower chance of injury

The cons of strength training

• There’s a higher chance of injury due to the movement of heavier weights

The cons of muscle building

• You won’t build as much strength compared to strength training

Your route should be based on your goals

It’s not only about what people think about you but your goals. If you’re playing basketball, maybe you want to become more explosive to adapt to the sport, so you would need to strength train, but not build muscle because it will decrease your strength-to-mass ratio.

But if you’re playing rugby, you will want to exert more force on your opponents, so you must build muscle to increase that and increase your strength to gain more agility (although that isn’t the only thing you must do for agility).

These are all assumptions because some people have a lower strength-to-mass ratio in basketball, and some have a higher strength-to-mass ratio in rugby, and this leads to my next point.

You can build both

There’s such a thing as building muscle and strength simultaneously, and although one will be more than the other, the general ratio can be close! For example, if you’re playing football, maybe you want to build proportionally more muscle mass than strength, but as a striker, more strength than muscle mass.

I wrote an article on how to effectively build a workout plan, and it tells you how to optimise your workout for these different goals, including sets, rest between sets and more. I recommend you read it afterwards: How to Build an Effective Workout Plan

Otherwise, here’s a quick overview of how to do so:

• If you’re training extremely for strength, your reps should be less than 5
• If you’re training more for strength, your reps should be 5 – 10
• If you’re training more for muscle, your reps should be 10 – 15

But remember, the output you get from either of these ways depends on your protein intake. Generally, the more protein you consume, the more you gain output (strength and muscle).

And there’s another way to extend the gains you reap, and it’s by progressive overloading. If you want to do that and you’re struggling to build a workout plan, here are the ones I followed you should consider (and sometimes they’re on offer so be alert).

Other than that:

• Know your workout goals
• Build your workout plan (or use mine)
• Stay consistent

And achieve your goals!