Hypertrophy By Barry Rudd
Muscle Hypertrophy is the scientific name give to the growth and increase in size of muscle cells. This muscle cell growth depends on many factors not limited to the type of muscle cells activated, pattern of muscle cell recruitment, nutritional availability of amino acids and carbohydrate and genetics.
When an individual completes a resistance training program they are knowingly or unknowingly causing micro trauma to their muscles. Micro trauma; as the name suggests is tiny amounts of damage to the muscle fibers, and is seen as the basis for hypertrophy. When micro trauma occurs the body attempts to reduce the chance of this happening again by overcompensating ie. replacing the damaged tissue and then adding more. It is for this reason that a well designed resistance training program will rely on the principles of progressive overload.
Simply put – progressive overload is the constant evolving of a training regime, so that there is a gradual increase in the amount of stress put on the body as it adapts.
There are hundreds of theories out there on the best method to work towards building greater muscles mass; everything from pure isolation exercises to gym sessions that involve over 1000 total repetitions. The main thing to remember is overload. Your body should never get used to the one workout, so constant modification is a must if you want to avoid a plateau in results.
The main factors of a resistance training program that can be modified to increase intensity and result in overload are the amount of tension placed on the muscle (weight); the time under tension (length of set); and the volume of session (total amount of weight lifted). These factors can be modified by increasing the weight, amount of reps, time of reps, amount of exercises completed as well as shortening rest times; just to name a few.
General recommendations are similar for both strength and hypertrophy training, as an increase in size is obviously accompanied by an increase in strength. (NB: during the initial stages of training strength is increased without an increase in muscle cross sectional area – this is due to an increase in neurological control in the trained area).
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that a resistance training program include a minimum of 8 – 10 exercises that target all major muscle groups. Each set should include a rep range of 8 – 15, with the speed of reps and breathing pattern being slow and controlled (~3 seconds on both the concentric and eccentric phase).
With all this resistance training going on it is important that you are adequately fuelling your body. Nutrition for exercise is another endless discussion topic; so I will only briefly touch on it today.
Simply put – Your body must have spare energy to create the extra lean tissue resulting in hypertrophy. The two main fuels involved in this are protein (amino acids) and carbohydrate. Nutrition for lean weight gain is a near polar opposite of that of reduced body fat. Throughout each day you want to have a slight positive energy balance (slightly more energy coming in than going out). As I mentioned, there is a lot more to this; but we will leave it at that for today.
Finally I will leave you with this thought:
Many athletes will benefit from increasing their lean body mass; however the number that require a dedicated body building phase in their training is a lot smaller than you might expect. Greater amounts of lean tissue can actually be a hindrance in many sports. For this reason it is important to decide on an individual basis whether sole hypertrophy training is for you. Chances are you will discover that a well designed sport specific, strength specific and functional program will better suit your needs.