March 29, 2019

The Best Way to Stimulate Muscle Hypertrophy (Build Muscle) Part 1

Der Beste Weg eine Muskelhypertrophie zu stimulieren (Muskeln aufzubauen) Teil 1

If you want to know how muscle hypertrophy aka muscle growth really works and how you can build muscle faster, then this is the article for you

You've probably heard a lot of things about muscle hypertrophy - things you've picked up in bodybuilding magazines, gym locker rooms and supplement ads.

Things like:

Muscles respond differently to different types of training (mass vs. strength)
Muscles don't know weights - they only know tension
There are different types of muscle growth and some are better than others

And you've probably heard that most of this is pseudo-scientific nonsense and that some other theory or model is the "real" secret to building muscle mass.

Well, if you're confused now... and if you just want to know what works and what doesn't, then I can understand you. I found myself at that point once.

I mean, we've decoded the human genome and we're still arguing about the best way to make our biceps grow?

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that muscle hypertrophy is a complex topic that we still don't fully understand. The good news, however, is that you don't have to be a scientist to understand and use the basic principles of muscle growth to achieve exceptional results. And that's exactly what this article will be about.

In this article, I will explain the fundamental mechanisms of muscle growth in a way that is easy to understand. I will then outline some simple but effective guidelines to help you grow your muscles faster.

So if you're struggling to build muscle as quickly as you'd like, then this article is for you. By the end of it, you'll know exactly what's holding you back and what you need to do to achieve the kind of gains you really want.

Let's get started.

What is hypertrophy?

The term hypertrophy simply means an increase in the size of an organ or tissue due to an increase in the size of the cells that make it up. And when we talk about muscle hypertrophy, we have to talk about two different types of hypertrophy:

Myofibrillar hypertrophy
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy

You don't have to delve too far into the theory of muscle development before you come across these terms. And you don't have to read too much before your head starts spinning and you no longer know what to believe. Are these phenomena real? Are they significant? Do they have any relevance to your training?

Let's find out.

The truth about myofibrillar vs. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy

Let's start with myofibrillar hypertrophy. Myo means muscle and a fibril is a thread-like cellular structure. Myofibrils are made up of proteins that can contract and are what allow a muscle to function the way it does. Each muscle contains many myofibrils.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy refers to an increase in the size and number of myofibrils in the muscle fibers. This increases the force with which a muscle can contract.

And now to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Sarco means flesh and plasmic refers to the plasma, a gel-like substance within the cell that contains various things necessary to sustain the life of the cell. The sarcoplasm is therefore the plasmatic element of muscle cells and it contains protein, glycogen, water, collagen and other substances.

As you can see from this, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an increase in the volume of fluid - the non-contractile component of the muscle (the sarcoplasm).

Here is a simple visual representation of myofibrillar vs. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy:

Few well-informed people dispute the fact that these things happen. We know that muscle fibers increase in myofibrils and that this also causes a necessary expansion of the sarcoplasmic elements of the muscle cell (1). We also know that you can temporarily increase sarcoplasmic volume by things like loading up on creatine, consuming carbohydrates or causing damage to muscle tissue (2).

Where opinions differ is when it comes to the question of whether it is possible to selectively influence one type of hypertrophy over the other through training. Can you expand the sarcoplasmic elements of the muscles faster than the myofibrillar elements? Or is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy more a by-product of myofibrillar hypertrophy? And if this is possible, will it result in a long-lasting enlargement of the muscle?

And this is where the discussions begin. Scientific research suggests that something like selective hypertrophy is a myth, but we simply don't know enough yet to give a definitive answer (1,3).

Some people believe that the differences in muscle mass and strength between bodybuilders and strength athletes are evidence that sarcoplasmic hypertrophy can occur independently of myofibrillar hypertrophy. "How else can you explain that a 75 kilo powerlifter can beat a 100 kilo bodybuilder at squats?" these people will ask.

One answer is that bodybuilders are able to stimulate more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy through a different style of training, which would lead to an increase in muscle size without accompanying gains in strength (the sarcoplasm of a muscle cell cannot contract). This would make it possible for a bodybuilder to be disproportionately muscular for his level of strength.

The problem with this line of reasoning (which gave birth to the "hypertrophy repetition range" myth that just won't die) is that it is not supported by scientific fact and research, and that it overlooks a simpler and more plausible explanation - the fact that strength training involves not only heavier weights than bodybuilding training, but also more frequent execution of heavy basic exercises such as squats, bench presses, shoulder presses and deadlifts.

This is important because, as with any physical activity, the more often you perform an exercise, the better you get at it. And the better you get at an exercise, the better you can handle heavy weights.

This helps explain why many bodybuilders build strength rapidly when they switch to strength training programs. Suddenly their "big but weak" muscles get really strong really fast.

None of this, of course, is conclusive proof that there is no such thing as selective hypertrophy and that sarcoplasmic hypertrophy cannot exceed myofibrillar hypertrophy due to training variables. We just don't understand hypertrophy well enough yet to rule out this possibility.

The good news is that you don't have to worry about this if you want to build muscle effectively. We know enough to put together training programs that do the job really well.

How to stimulate hypertrophy

Now that we know what hypertrophy is, let's talk about how to make it happen - i.e. how to build muscle (and fast).

You can stimulate hypertrophy in three ways:

1. progressive tension overload

This refers to increasing the levels of tension in the muscle fibers. The most effective way to achieve this is to increase the amount of weight you move over time.

2. muscle damage

This refers to the actual damage done to the muscle fibers, also known as microtrauma. This damage needs to be repaired and if the body is provided with the correct nutrition and sufficient rest, it will adapt to better cope with whatever has caused the damage.

3. metabolic stress

This refers to stressing muscle fibers to their metabolic limits through repetitive actions that continue until muscle failure.

You can think of these pathways as muscle growth pathways and each of these pathways can be emphasized more or less depending on the way you train. Heavy weightlifting, for example, emphasizes progressive tension overload and muscle damage, while training with lighter weights and higher repetitions emphasizes metabolic stress (which is especially true if the rest intervals between sets are kept relatively short).

Scientific research shows that of all these pathways, progressive tension overload is the most important for muscle growth (4). In other words, this means that if you want to build muscle as quickly as possible, you should ensure that you progressively increase the weight on the bar over time.

This is the reason that one of your primary goals as a natural trainee should be to get stronger - and especially on exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses and shoulder presses.

I learned this lesson a few years ago. When I first started training, I let bodybuilding magazines dictate my training and diet. This meant that I ate significantly more food and protein than necessary and did a lot of long (2 hours or more) high repetition workouts consisting mainly of isolation exercises.

After seven years of this type of training, I looked "okay" but expected more. So after 7 years I threw away the bodybuilding magazines, stopped buying supplements and set about learning more about training. I dramatically changed the way I ate and was able to improve my appearance and development tremendously in just over 2 years, while also getting much stronger.

Within those 2.5 years, I was able to increase my bench press and shoulder press weight by almost 50 kilos each and even doubled my squat and deadlift weight. Even better, I had achieved all of this in 4 to 6 hours of training per week instead of the 10 to 12 hours I had done in previous years.

I was somewhat stunned by my transformation, as I had previously believed that training with heavy weights was good for building strength but less good for building muscle mass. Well, that's just one of the many muscle-building myths that keep people from developing the body they really want.

Let's find out why this is the case...

Is heavy or light training best for hypertrophy?

This is another hotly debated topic in the field of bodybuilding. Opinions vary widely here and a cursory review of the scientific literature (abstract surfing) produces nothing more than a bunch of contradictions.

Now, I don't claim to have the ultimate answer to this question, but I have done a lot of research and worked with a few thousand people, which is why I believe I have an answer worth sharing.

My position is this:

You can build muscle with both heavy and light weights, but....
If you want to maximize your muscle growth, then you should emphasize training with heavy weights and moderate volume.

And by heavy weights I mean weights in the 80+% of your 1RM weight range, while by moderate volume I'm referring to the total number of sets you perform each week (we'll get into specific numbers later).

A good example of this approach can be found in a well-designed study conducted by scientists at the University of Central Florida. The scientists divided 33 physically active men training with weights into two groups

One group performed 4 training sessions per week, consisting of 4 sets per exercise in a repetition range of 10 to 12 repetitions (70% of 1RM weight).
The second group performed 4 training sessions per week consisting of 4 sets per exercise in a repetition range of 3 to 5 repetitions (90% of 1RM weight).

As you can see, the first group followed the standard high-volume, moderate-intensity bodybuilding routine. The second group followed a moderate-volume, high-intensity program similar to many strength training programs.

Both groups performed the same exercises - bench press, squat, deadlift and seated shoulder press - and were instructed to maintain their normal dietary habits, which were monitored using food diaries.

The results?

After 8 weeks of training, the study authors found that the group that had trained at a higher intensity had built significantly more muscle and strength than the group that had trained at a lower intensity.

The reasons for the superiority of the heavier training were as follows:

1. higher amounts of mechanical stress to which the muscles were exposed

Higher-volume training, in turn, caused greater amounts of metabolic stress.

2. greater activation of muscle fibers

And this in turn stimulated greater adaptation in a larger percentage of muscle tissue (5).

Similar results can be seen in other studies (6, 7) and I have seen this again and again in the thousands of people I have worked with. So if you want to avoid those dreaded muscle-building plateaus, do a lot of training with heavy weights.

It's as simple as that...

In the second part of this article, I'll discuss training frequency and show you how to put all this theory into practice with some sample training programs. Last but not least, I will briefly discuss supplements that can help you build muscle.

References:

Source: https://legionathletics.com/HYPERTROPHY-HOW-TO-BUILD-MUSCLE/

By Mike Matthews

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