This thread has been interesting af. Great topic. I’ve never truly separated the 2 like this. I always just wanted to lift heavy as fuck but throw in hypertrophy excerises as well. Guess I’m in the middle. Practical strength but want to look good as well. Thinking about it now I wonder if doing both is limiting my training?

I always looked stronger than i was. But it worked out for me physically im not as beat up in my mid 40’s

Occasionally a number will appear in my head and set out to achieve it which can be a huge amount of fun but it really isn’t worth it in the long run personally speaking. I have a weird shoulder due to lifting incorrectly on bench as the weight was too heavy and the last time I set out to hit a PB on squat I ruptured a testicle which annoyed the missus for a week or so.

I also don’t think lifting heavy always equates to real life usable strength. A lot of very strong lads I know can lift a huge amount of weight once or twice but are winded for 10 minutes afterwards. Some will struggle to complete a day of normal graft as they are exhausted after 10 minutes of light physical activity.

Swings and roundabouts, I would much prefer to be reasonably strong, lean, muscular, flexible with a decent level of cardio but if your goal is to hit big numbers then more power to you.

When I was young and dumb I wanted both worlds, big and strong. Now I could give two shits about how strong I am. I am not a weakling by any means but if someone asks me how much I can bench or squat my answer is I have no clue. It has probably been 10+ years since I have done anything that would resemble some type of maximum lift. I probably look like the strongest guy in the gym but I am definitely not which is fine with me.

I myself like the look of being athletic while being stronger than i look. Functional muscle, mobility, and athletic cardio are important to me. Ofcourse i measure myself up to everyone i meet in the gym too, lol. Keeping away from injury and being healthy are key.

LMFAO A man after my own heart - for a very long time I have felt this way. What's the point in driving a Lamborghini if it goes like a Skoda??! Lol All that ever mattered to me was being as strong as I possibly could be, it didn't matter to me that I was still light & small compared to what I could lift etc. Over the past 6 months though I have started to change a bit on this mentality though, because it sucks walking around and not filling out your clothes as much and looking as good as you can do if you just add in a bit of hypertrophy training to the important parts that give you the illusion of looking quite a bit bigger. Since my shoulder and pec injuries at Xmas I started doing dumbell front and side raises to strengthen my rotator cuffs - well damn literally after a few sessions all of a sudden my tops started getting tight in the shoulders and I looked twice as broad as normal!! After deadlifts I began doing barbell rows also and all of a sudden I started to get a big thick back that was making the back of my hoodies tight on me. However the downside to this as I'm sure you know is the more hypertrophy training you do the more power you burnout - making recovery time much longer inbetween workouts and ultimately bringing down strength levels slightly. Its a very fine line between doing too much shoulder work and making them too sore and stiff for a heavy bench workout, it takes a while to workout the new parameters to make them to your advantage long term. Unless you have the un Godly Genetics of someone like Iain Valiere or Larry Wheels where you can still rep 500lb's till the cows come home & look awesome at the same time - to get to your Very best in either Bodybuilding or Powerlifting you generally have to decide between one or the other and stick to that path.