My new macrocycle

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

[TimK]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

Absolutely, because your 10rm is now going to be much higher. Your 1rm won’t have improved nearly as much as if you had trained with heavier weight, but if you can lift the same weight for more reps, or more weight for the same reps, you’re stronger. Not sure how that’s controversial unless you have someone has a very odd, ultra narrow definition of “strength”.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

Absolutely, because your 10rm is now going to be much higher. Your 1rm won’t have improved nearly as much as if you had trained with heavier weight, but if you can lift the same weight for more reps, or more weight for the same reps, you’re stronger. Not sure how that’s controversial unless you have someone has a very odd, ultra narrow definition of “strength”.

So hypertrophy training does make people stronger (sets of 10 on high bar squats sounds pretty hypertrophy-esque to me).

[quikky]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

It seems to me you have a strange, caricature-like view of bodybuilding. There is no one bodybuilding advice or approach out there. I have no idea who these bodybuilders and coaches are who tell people to just bang reps, and even then, why their advice would somehow be representative of bodybuilding as a whole.

There is a very broad spectrum of training approaches in bodybuilding, from ultra high volume, to ultra low volume, to focusing on regular PRs, and even using lift strength as a metric for growth and hypertrophy potential, to chasing the pump. It's a very broad training style, in fact probably much more broad than pure strength focused ones simply due to popularity and less narrow focus than say powerlifting that centers around 3 lifts.

In terms of adding reps, as others have pointed out, it also makes you stronger. The idea of indefinitely just adding reps as you have alluded to does not exist. If you want to keep getting bigger, even if you focus on adding reps vs adding weight, at some point you will need to add weight as well, simply because adding reps will not work after a certain point and will gradually shift the focus towards muscle endurance. As I said in my previous post, it is impossible to keep getting bigger without getting stronger due to the necessity of progressive overload, which necessitates strength increases, one way or another, over time. To put simply, you cannot get huge without gaining a bunch of strength along the way.

Maybe you have a very strange definition of "monstrously big" and/or "appreciable strength" but with my, and I am guessing, most people's definitions of both phrases, a monstrously big non-strong person does not exist. At least, I have never seen one in my life or heard of one. Your own example of Nick Walker seemed stranger yet. I do not follow bodybuilding as a sport, so I did not even know who Nick Walker was. However, since you mentioned his lateral raises and shoulder size, I searched for his shoulder clips on YouTube and within seconds found a clip of him incline pressing 200lb dumbbells for a set of 10, 225lb dumbbells for 5 (I think?), and something like 375lb incline on the Smith machine for high reps (did not count but like 10-15 or so) in the middle of a workout. Again, I don't know what you call appreciable strength but I would call that pretty damn appreciable.

Bodybuilders can be weaker in their 1RMs on SBD than they look, or in 1RM strength in general, but not being as strong in specialized strength is very different than having no appreciable strength despite big muscles. It's kind of a bizarre notion that seems to have some up in some circles as of late, that muscle size and strength don't really have much to do with each other. Maybe I'm an old school simpleton, but big muscles and strength are a bit of a "duh" in my book.

[KarlM]

You can’t train for size without also eventually getting stronger, and you can’t get stronger without also eventually adding size. You can bias towards either side of the spectrum with your training approach, but those two variables are confounded.

[Hardartery]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

It is somewhat individual dependent, but I can provide examples. One of Ken Leistner's guys on Iron Island was doing 600 for 20, HIT training, never did low reps. He could not squat 650. I don't have the thing in front of me, but I remember it being said that he couldn't squat 630. That is maybe extreme, but maybe not because how many guys are that exclusive in their training to compare to? In my case, pushing up a 10 RM has never had any impact whatsoever on my 1 RM, neither did pushing up my 20 RM. I worked up to close to 400 for 20 at one point in my youth. My 1 RM did not budge as a result, but it did get easier to hit reps at a given weight. I did gain some size in the thighs, so probably hypertrophy but not a pump.

[Hardartery]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

It seems to me you have a strange, caricature-like view of bodybuilding. There is no one bodybuilding advice or approach out there. I have no idea who these bodybuilders and coaches are who tell people to just bang reps, and even then, why their advice would somehow be representative of bodybuilding as a whole.

There is a very broad spectrum of training approaches in bodybuilding, from ultra high volume, to ultra low volume, to focusing on regular PRs, and even using lift strength as a metric for growth and hypertrophy potential, to chasing the pump. It's a very broad training style, in fact probably much more broad than pure strength focused ones simply due to popularity and less narrow focus than say powerlifting that centers around 3 lifts.

In terms of adding reps, as others have pointed out, it also makes you stronger. The idea of indefinitely just adding reps as you have alluded to does not exist. If you want to keep getting bigger, even if you focus on adding reps vs adding weight, at some point you will need to add weight as well, simply because adding reps will not work after a certain point and will gradually shift the focus towards muscle endurance. As I said in my previous post, it is impossible to keep getting bigger without getting stronger due to the necessity of progressive overload, which necessitates strength increases, one way or another, over time. To put simply, you cannot get huge without gaining a bunch of strength along the way.

Maybe you have a very strange definition of "monstrously big" and/or "appreciable strength" but with my, and I am guessing, most people's definitions of both phrases, a monstrously big non-strong person does not exist. At least, I have never seen one in my life or heard of one. Your own example of Nick Walker seemed stranger yet. I do not follow bodybuilding as a sport, so I did not even know who Nick Walker was. However, since you mentioned his lateral raises and shoulder size, I searched for his shoulder clips on YouTube and within seconds found a clip of him incline pressing 200lb dumbbells for a set of 10, 225lb dumbbells for 5 (I think?), and something like 375lb incline on the Smith machine for high reps (did not count but like 10-15 or so) in the middle of a workout. Again, I don't know what you call appreciable strength but I would call that pretty damn appreciable.

Bodybuilders can be weaker in their 1RMs on SBD than they look, or in 1RM strength in general, but not being as strong in specialized strength is very different than having no appreciable strength despite big muscles. It's kind of a bizarre notion that seems to have some up in some circles as of late, that muscle size and strength don't really have much to do with each other. Maybe I'm an old school simpleton, but big muscles and strength are a bit of a "duh" in my book.

My view of BBing is shaped by my time around guys actively pursuing it and listening to podcasts of current pros and trainers. I have lifted with NPC guys and my younger brother competed in Ontario as an amateur, he was actually competitive (Won a Mr Ontario of some variety at one point, I don't know what fed it was). I observed their workouts, and I know what the podcast guys are currently saying about lifting. I am referencing guys like Mike Van Wyck, Ian Valliere, James Holingshead, even Greg Doucette once on a while.
I know what the NPC guys that lifted at the same gym did for training. When I say monstrously big I am talking about guys with 240+ stage weight, which is quite huge IME. You can get huge without getting appreciably strong. You cannot get huge without getting stronger, up to a point. Which is the thing, it's not linear or continuous, at some point the strength gains simply stop if you are pursuing size exclusively. You do not need them past a certain point to grow, you do not need more weight to effect stimulus in pursuit of size. Adding drop sets, failure, forced reps, controlled eccentric, adding sets, all work to help size but have at best a minimal effect on strength.
I would argue that you are more likely to gain size pursuing strength than you are to gain strength pursuing size. Nothing is unrelated, but they are different goals with different training needs. I would also argue that there is no need for a set of 20+ ever in pursuit of strength, but it is common place in pursuit of hypertrophy. Maybe it doesn't work, I have not experimented much with that stuff, but I would bet that it has some merit for size or it would not continue to be prevalent in training for size.
I also could introduce you to someone 6'-9 and 340 lbs that would be outlifted by the majority on this forum, in spite of the fact that he has weight trained for years. I have been around plenty of guys larger than myself, many on PEDs, that are mostly show. It is a thing.

[DCR]

Maybe you have a very strange definition of "monstrously big" and/or "appreciable strength" but with my, and I am guessing, most people's definitions of both phrases, a monstrously big non-strong person does not exist. At least, I have never seen one in my life or heard of one. Your own example of Nick Walker seemed stranger yet. I do not follow bodybuilding as a sport, so I did not even know who Nick Walker was. However, since you mentioned his lateral raises and shoulder size, I searched for his shoulder clips on YouTube and within seconds found a clip of him incline pressing 200lb dumbbells for a set of 10, 225lb dumbbells for 5 (I think?), and something like 375lb incline on the Smith machine for high reps (did not count but like 10-15 or so) in the middle of a workout. Again, I don't know what you call appreciable strength but I would call that pretty damn appreciable.

Reminds me of years back when there was this idea that Cutler was weak because he wasn’t Coleman. Of course in reality he was very fucking strong, just not as strong.

Anyway, I think the disconnect here is that folks are correctly saying that to get big, you gotta get at least somewhat stronger (even in the case of a guy like Labrada who allegedly never benched more than 225 in training, my assumption always was that it probably was like a broomstick for him and that he was using all sorts of intensity techniques), whereas Hardartery is saying only that the fact of having big muscles doesn’t necessarily correlate linearly with increased strength. I may be misreading.

ETA: Hardartery and I posted simultaneously. Now I’m more sure that I read right.

[Hardartery]

Maybe you have a very strange definition of "monstrously big" and/or "appreciable strength" but with my, and I am guessing, most people's definitions of both phrases, a monstrously big non-strong person does not exist. At least, I have never seen one in my life or heard of one. Your own example of Nick Walker seemed stranger yet. I do not follow bodybuilding as a sport, so I did not even know who Nick Walker was. However, since you mentioned his lateral raises and shoulder size, I searched for his shoulder clips on YouTube and within seconds found a clip of him incline pressing 200lb dumbbells for a set of 10, 225lb dumbbells for 5 (I think?), and something like 375lb incline on the Smith machine for high reps (did not count but like 10-15 or so) in the middle of a workout. Again, I don't know what you call appreciable strength but I would call that pretty damn appreciable.

Reminds me of years back when there was this idea that Cutler was weak because he wasn’t Coleman. Of course in realitt he was very fucking strong, just not as strong.

Anyway, I think the disconnect here is that folks are correctly saying that to get big, you gotta get at least somewhat stronger (even in the case of a guy like Labrada who allegedly never benched more than 225 in training, my assumption always was that it probably was like a broomstick for him and that he was using all sorts of intensity techniques), whereas Hardartery is saying only that the fact of having big muscles doesn’t necessarily correlate linearly with increased strength. I may be misreading.

ETA: Hardartery and I posted simultaneously. Now I’m more sure that I read right.

Obviously there is SOME effect on strength with hypertrophy training, but I feel like it i vastly overblown in most people's thinking and not worthy of the time invested. You WILL gain some size with strength training. You WILL gain some strength lifting for size. It is all somewhat muddied by PED's in the observable populace. Take away the PEDs and it becomes easier to see.

[quikky]

I think the idea of hypertrophy training not producing much strength does not make sense. Specifically, it is impossible to continuously increase muscle size over time without getting stronger. As a simple example, suppose you curl 20lb dumbbells for 10 reps max. Will your biceps keep growing for months and years if you simply do 20x10? How do you keep growing your biceps without increasing the weight of the dumbbells and/or reps (up to a certain point) over time? And, if over time you biceps grow and you're doing 30x10, 40x10, etc., what happened to their strength?

It's the same with any other hypertrophy training. You don't keep growing your legs by doing 3PPS leg presses for sets of 10 for years. You don't keep growing your lats by pulling pin #8x10 for years. Whether you like it or not, you will get stronger and will have to do more weight to keep growing. All training requires progressive overload.

It's called Bodybuilding. You can get positively monstrous without any appreciable gains in strength, if that is the goal. The main advice you will see from professional BBers and trainers is to drop the weight used and just bang reps. No strength gains aimed for or achieved. Whether or not it "Makes sense", or seems logical, it is in fact a thing. It's a basic tenet that size does not equal strength, and you can easily encounter infinite example of people in commercial gyms that have gained size with no change in weights used or weights usable.

As an example, it is common to hit sets of 25 plus reps for these guys at some point in every group of sets. Many of them profess to not even bother counting, they just go until they feel like they got the job done (Usually failure or some forced reps). It produces hypertrophy, but how much strength does that actually gain? You can easily add reps ad nauseum and achieve some measure of size gains and zero strength gains.

It seems to me you have a strange, caricature-like view of bodybuilding. There is no one bodybuilding advice or approach out there. I have no idea who these bodybuilders and coaches are who tell people to just bang reps, and even then, why their advice would somehow be representative of bodybuilding as a whole.

There is a very broad spectrum of training approaches in bodybuilding, from ultra high volume, to ultra low volume, to focusing on regular PRs, and even using lift strength as a metric for growth and hypertrophy potential, to chasing the pump. It's a very broad training style, in fact probably much more broad than pure strength focused ones simply due to popularity and less narrow focus than say powerlifting that centers around 3 lifts.

In terms of adding reps, as others have pointed out, it also makes you stronger. The idea of indefinitely just adding reps as you have alluded to does not exist. If you want to keep getting bigger, even if you focus on adding reps vs adding weight, at some point you will need to add weight as well, simply because adding reps will not work after a certain point and will gradually shift the focus towards muscle endurance. As I said in my previous post, it is impossible to keep getting bigger without getting stronger due to the necessity of progressive overload, which necessitates strength increases, one way or another, over time. To put simply, you cannot get huge without gaining a bunch of strength along the way.

Maybe you have a very strange definition of "monstrously big" and/or "appreciable strength" but with my, and I am guessing, most people's definitions of both phrases, a monstrously big non-strong person does not exist. At least, I have never seen one in my life or heard of one. Your own example of Nick Walker seemed stranger yet. I do not follow bodybuilding as a sport, so I did not even know who Nick Walker was. However, since you mentioned his lateral raises and shoulder size, I searched for his shoulder clips on YouTube and within seconds found a clip of him incline pressing 200lb dumbbells for a set of 10, 225lb dumbbells for 5 (I think?), and something like 375lb incline on the Smith machine for high reps (did not count but like 10-15 or so) in the middle of a workout. Again, I don't know what you call appreciable strength but I would call that pretty damn appreciable.

Bodybuilders can be weaker in their 1RMs on SBD than they look, or in 1RM strength in general, but not being as strong in specialized strength is very different than having no appreciable strength despite big muscles. It's kind of a bizarre notion that seems to have some up in some circles as of late, that muscle size and strength don't really have much to do with each other. Maybe I'm an old school simpleton, but big muscles and strength are a bit of a "duh" in my book.

My view of BBing is shaped by my time around guys actively pursuing it and listening to podcasts of current pros and trainers. I have lifted with NPC guys and my younger brother competed in Ontario as an amateur, he was actually competitive (Won a Mr Ontario of some variety at one point, I don't know what fed it was). I observed their workouts, and I know what the podcast guys are currently saying about lifting. I am referencing guys like Mike Van Wyck, Ian Valliere, James Holingshead, even Greg Doucette once on a while.
I know what the NPC guys that lifted at the same gym did for training. When I say monstrously big I am talking about guys with 240+ stage weight, which is quite huge IME. You can get huge without getting appreciably strong. You cannot get huge without getting stronger, up to a point. Which is the thing, it's not linear or continuous, at some point the strength gains simply stop if you are pursuing size exclusively. You do not need them past a certain point to grow, you do not need more weight to effect stimulus in pursuit of size. Adding drop sets, failure, forced reps, controlled eccentric, adding sets, all work to help size but have at best a minimal effect on strength.
I would argue that you are more likely to gain size pursuing strength than you are to gain strength pursuing size. Nothing is unrelated, but they are different goals with different training needs. I would also argue that there is no need for a set of 20+ ever in pursuit of strength, but it is common place in pursuit of hypertrophy. Maybe it doesn't work, I have not experimented much with that stuff, but I would bet that it has some merit for size or it would not continue to be prevalent in training for size.
I also could introduce you to someone 6'-9 and 340 lbs that would be outlifted by the majority on this forum, in spite of the fact that he has weight trained for years. I have been around plenty of guys larger than myself, many on PEDs, that are mostly show. It is a thing.

I had to look up the guys you were referring to, but a quick Googles of some their lifts and training that popped up:

Mike Van Wyck - 315x30 and 535x10 bench, 200lb dumbbell bench
Ian Valliere - 675x5 deadlift weeks before a BB show (so this is in a shredded almost show ready state too), bench 495x7
James Holingshead - 750x3 and 660x9 squat
Greg Doucette - could not find much about his lifts except for some sumo record of 400x50 (this is actually pretty nuts)

I don't know if we're talking past each other but you're proving my point again, unless you have a really weird definition of appreciable strength. All those dudes are strong AF in my book.

Regarding intensifiers and such, they are not progressive overload, but a way to achieve more stimulus that can work in certain contexts and training styles. Progressive overload is not about increasing stimulus, it is about maintaining stimulus as the adaptations to the stimulus rise and cause it to decrease. If you add intensifiers to your training, it can boost stimulus but only for so long, you still have to increase weight/reps over time for it to work because you produce adaptations and cannot sustain progress without an increase in load.

And yeah, hypertrophy training does not produce strength as well as strength training, duh. The point is that it still does, and a lot of it, as evidenced by every big bodybuilder actually being pretty damn strong too. I would even argue bodybuilders might be stronger than powerlifters outside of 1RM SBD because they have a broader training base. I am not 100% on that but it would not surprise me.

[Hardartery]

I had to look up the guys you were referring to, but a quick Googles of some their lifts and training that popped up:

Mike Van Wyck - 315x30 and 535x10 bench, 200lb dumbbell bench
Ian Valliere - 675x5 deadlift weeks before a BB show (so this is in a shredded almost show ready state too), bench 495x7
James Holingshead - 750x3 and 660x9 squat
Greg Doucette - could not find much about his lifts except for some sumo record of 400x50 (this is actually pretty nuts)

I don't know if we're talking past each other but you're proving my point again, unless you have a really weird definition of appreciable strength. All those dudes are strong AF in my book.

Regarding intensifiers and such, they are not progressive overload, but a way to achieve more stimulus that can work in certain contexts and training styles. Progressive overload is not about increasing stimulus, it is about maintaining stimulus as the adaptations to the stimulus rise and cause it to decrease. If you add intensifiers to your training, it can boost stimulus but only for so long, you still have to increase weight/reps over time for it to work because you produce adaptations and cannot sustain progress without an increase in load.

And yeah, hypertrophy training does not produce strength as well as strength training, duh. The point is that it still does, and a lot of it, as evidenced by every big bodybuilder actually being pretty damn strong too. I would even argue bodybuilders might be stronger than powerlifters outside of 1RM SBD because they have a broader training base. I am not 100% on that but it would not surprise me.

Those are not great lifts. Compared to a regular gym bro, sure, those are good lifts. If you are talking about top 5%, not even close. I don't know if Van Wyck got his pro card, but he in particular I am referencing as a trainer (Which he primarily is, now that he isn't Drake's bodyguard). Compare those lifts to any top strength athlete. Those Squat and DL numbers are good, but not any better than me in my prime totally natty. Let that sink in for a minute, I didn't win a pro card and those are numbers I was hitting natty. Doucette was a PLer before he pursued BBing, and has/had a Bench record as well. I positively would look DYEL standing next to those guys at my peak, and with the exception of Bench would have been more than able to hang with them. Compare Oliveires, or Hooper, or Dan Bell or even John Haack (Much smaller bodyweight), actual top of the pack guys to these guys. It isn't close. They have great gym lifts, compared to regular gym lifters. I have handed off 600+ benches to multiple PLers, we had a guy benching over 830 lbs in a shirt at one gym I was at in NC. The BB guys, even at the top level, aren't doing those numbers and it would be foolish for them to try. And if you think the juice is a negligible difference, look up Whit Baskin or Pete Rubish and compare their juiced numbers with their natty numbers.
A guy with 270 lbs or so of stage weight is 300+ in regular life at 10% or so BF. At likely 5'-9 or less. Valliere is 5'-9 I believe, Walker is like 5'-6. I am 6'-0 and at my fattest was maybe barely 300 for a week . Hooper is carrying about 220 LBM, which is less muscle spread over a 6'-2 frame. Getting bigger is not the same as getting stronger, people are confused by the overlap.

[quikky]

I had to look up the guys you were referring to, but a quick Googles of some their lifts and training that popped up:

Mike Van Wyck - 315x30 and 535x10 bench, 200lb dumbbell bench
Ian Valliere - 675x5 deadlift weeks before a BB show (so this is in a shredded almost show ready state too), bench 495x7
James Holingshead - 750x3 and 660x9 squat
Greg Doucette - could not find much about his lifts except for some sumo record of 400x50 (this is actually pretty nuts)

I don't know if we're talking past each other but you're proving my point again, unless you have a really weird definition of appreciable strength. All those dudes are strong AF in my book.

Regarding intensifiers and such, they are not progressive overload, but a way to achieve more stimulus that can work in certain contexts and training styles. Progressive overload is not about increasing stimulus, it is about maintaining stimulus as the adaptations to the stimulus rise and cause it to decrease. If you add intensifiers to your training, it can boost stimulus but only for so long, you still have to increase weight/reps over time for it to work because you produce adaptations and cannot sustain progress without an increase in load.

And yeah, hypertrophy training does not produce strength as well as strength training, duh. The point is that it still does, and a lot of it, as evidenced by every big bodybuilder actually being pretty damn strong too. I would even argue bodybuilders might be stronger than powerlifters outside of 1RM SBD because they have a broader training base. I am not 100% on that but it would not surprise me.

Those are not great lifts. Compared to a regular gym bro, sure, those are good lifts. If you are talking about top 5%, not even close. I don't know if Van Wyck got his pro card, but he in particular I am referencing as a trainer (Which he primarily is, now that he isn't Drake's bodyguard). Compare those lifts to any top strength athlete. Those Squat and DL numbers are good, but not any better than me in my prime totally natty. Let that sink in for a minute, I didn't win a pro card and those are numbers I was hitting natty. Doucette was a PLer before he pursued BBing, and has/had a Bench record as well. I positively would look DYEL standing next to those guys at my peak, and with the exception of Bench would have been more than able to hang with them. Compare Oliveires, or Hooper, or Dan Bell or even John Haack (Much smaller bodyweight), actual top of the pack guys to these guys. It isn't close. They have great gym lifts, compared to regular gym lifters. I have handed off 600+ benches to multiple PLers, we had a guy benching over 830 lbs in a shirt at one gym I was at in NC. The BB guys, even at the top level, aren't doing those numbers and it would be foolish for them to try. And if you think the juice is a negligible difference, look up Whit Baskin or Pete Rubish and compare their juiced numbers with their natty numbers.
A guy with 270 lbs or so of stage weight is 300+ in regular life at 10% or so BF. At likely 5'-9 or less. Valliere is 5'-9 I believe, Walker is like 5'-6. I am 6'-0 and at my fattest was maybe barely 300 for a week . Hooper is carrying about 220 LBM, which is less muscle spread over a 6'-2 frame. Getting bigger is not the same as getting stronger, people are confused by the overlap.

Well, okay, then what you are saying makes sense now, i.e.:

"You can get monstrously big and very strong but you won't be as strong as the strongest people out there training specifically for strength"

I agree. That's quite different than saying you'll get huge with no appreciable strength.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

It is somewhat individual dependent, but I can provide examples. One of Ken Leistner's guys on Iron Island was doing 600 for 20, HIT training, never did low reps. He could not squat 650. I don't have the thing in front of me, but I remember it being said that he couldn't squat 630. That is maybe extreme, but maybe not because how many guys are that exclusive in their training to compare to? In my case, pushing up a 10 RM has never had any impact whatsoever on my 1 RM, neither did pushing up my 20 RM. I worked up to close to 400 for 20 at one point in my youth. My 1 RM did not budge as a result, but it did get easier to hit reps at a given weight. I did gain some size in the thighs, so probably hypertrophy but not a pump.

OK but that's only if you assume that the unique measure of strength is 1RM strength.

[Hardartery]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

It is somewhat individual dependent, but I can provide examples. One of Ken Leistner's guys on Iron Island was doing 600 for 20, HIT training, never did low reps. He could not squat 650. I don't have the thing in front of me, but I remember it being said that he couldn't squat 630. That is maybe extreme, but maybe not because how many guys are that exclusive in their training to compare to? In my case, pushing up a 10 RM has never had any impact whatsoever on my 1 RM, neither did pushing up my 20 RM. I worked up to close to 400 for 20 at one point in my youth. My 1 RM did not budge as a result, but it did get easier to hit reps at a given weight. I did gain some size in the thighs, so probably hypertrophy but not a pump.

OK but that's only if you assume that the unique measure of strength is 1RM strength.

The universal measure is who can lift the most, is it not? While 3 RM PRs are great for motivation, ultimately they don't matter if my goal is to be strongest what matters is I lifter something that everyone else failed to lift. So, maybe time can be a test, but if we all lift it then every other measurement comes down to will power IMO. Unless we're talking about feels, in which case you measure the strength differently.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

So if on day one I took my 10 RM on the high bar squat, and then squatted the same weight every time, attempting to add a rep every now and again until it became my 20 RM, have I gotten stronger or not ?

It is somewhat individual dependent, but I can provide examples. One of Ken Leistner's guys on Iron Island was doing 600 for 20, HIT training, never did low reps. He could not squat 650. I don't have the thing in front of me, but I remember it being said that he couldn't squat 630. That is maybe extreme, but maybe not because how many guys are that exclusive in their training to compare to? In my case, pushing up a 10 RM has never had any impact whatsoever on my 1 RM, neither did pushing up my 20 RM. I worked up to close to 400 for 20 at one point in my youth. My 1 RM did not budge as a result, but it did get easier to hit reps at a given weight. I did gain some size in the thighs, so probably hypertrophy but not a pump.

OK but that's only if you assume that the unique measure of strength is 1RM strength.

The universal measure is who can lift the most, is it not? While 3 RM PRs are great for motivation, ultimately they don't matter if my goal is to be strongest what matters is I lifter something that everyone else failed to lift. So, maybe time can be a test, but if we all lift it then every other measurement comes down to will power IMO. Unless we're talking about feels, in which case you measure the strength differently.

I'm not sure what makes it universal. But once again if 1RM on a competition lift is your measure of strength then yeah doing mostly non specific bodybuilding work is not going to increase that measure of strength, I think it's safe to assume that everyone agrees with that because specificity is a thing.

[quikky]

The other thing worth mentioning is that hypertrophy distribution does not look the same between bodybuilders and say powerlifters.

If you are into bodybuilding, you train all muscles regardless of what movement they contribute to.

If you are into powerlifting, you get hypertrophy only in the muscles that get trained by SBD and whatever accessories you might be doing. You might only squat low bar and get a lot of hypertrophy in your adductors and glutes, and not nearly as much in your quads and hamstrings. So a bodybuilder your size might have more overall leg circumference and look bigger, but actually have smaller adductors and glutes, and subsequently not have the capacity to squat as much low bar, even specificity aside. Also, the bodybuilder is likely to have more mass in muscles you don't even train much (calves, forearms, lats, biceps, etc) thus diluting the size comparison further, i.e. they weigh the same but the muscle mass is more "spread out" and less specialized due to SBD training.