The importance of Full Range of Motion for Hypertrophy

I’m sure you have all been to the gym and seen the people who pick up the heaviest weights in the gym and turn a bicep curl into a full body movement😂. One of the biggest factors contributing to hypertrophy is stretch under load and taking a muscle through its entire stretch-shortening cycle AKA full range of motion. Most people don’t understand that your muscles don’t know how much weight is on the bar, their currency is tension. If your training for hypertrophy is all about the rep journey, you should crave inefficiency, how can I do this rep to put as much weight on the target muscle. An easy example, bench press someone puts 100kg on the bar bangs out 10 partials, shoulders out in front of the chest, triceps taking on most of the work, maybe 40kg of that 100kg has been taken on by the chest (obviously is doesn’t exactly work like this but for example). Now someone puts 60kg on the bar, has a 2 second eccentric all the way down, pauses, explodes up and squeezes at the top, they have allowed the chest to push almost all that 60kg.

Another way of looking at it would be through a volume calculation. Volume these days has been simplified to sets per muscle but really the equation is weight*reps*sets*range of motion. Everyone always forgets about the range of motion. So, when people say that volume must increase overtime, this can be done by adding weight, reps or sets. E.g. 70kg 3 sets of 10 reps all with same range of motion = 6300, next week 70kg 3 sets of 12,11,10 same ROM = 6930. Now say someone does the 70kg 3 sets of 10 with full ROM= 6300, next week 70kg 3 sets of 12,11,10, but those additional 3 reps were done with partial range of motion the equation brakes down and that volume cannot be counted the same, yes it has increased but not as much, however it is impossible to track this. People will say next week I will increase the range, which is fine, but you would get a lot more out of it stopping at technical failure, take a few seconds, then if you want to do a few more full range reps go for it! I think partials are a great intensity technique however that is what they are, if the majority of your work is with improper form its simply not optimal.

The kings of this Topic are Renaissance Periodisation, Dr Mike Israetel is an absolute hero, extremely funny and bursting with knowledge. I highly recommend if you want to lean about hypertrophy you go to him. In fact, Dr Mike, Dr Eric Helms, Dr Brad Schoenfeld and Dr Greg Nuckols are the people I look to for hypertrophy information.

If you want a more scientific explanation as to why you will see better hypertrophy with full ROM seek out Dr Mike, it will open your eyes. Trust me 200kg leg press full ROM vs 400kg partials, 200kg leg press will kill you, let’s be honest your all train with partials cause it’s easier and you need to inflate your ego. Leave the ego at the door, strip the weight back, train with full range of motion, and you will be humbled!