Weight Training Basics – What is Hypertrophy Training?
Hypertrophy training is the typical training style of the average bodybuilder. You aren’t really working for maximal strength or muscular endurance. What you are working on is the size of your muscles! Through myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the size of your muscles increase. Myofibrillar hypertrophy is when the actual muscle fibers are grown. This is also known as functional hypertrophy, since the muscle growth results in more muscle fiber to activate on any given strenuous occasion – like weight training. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is the growth of other parts of the muscle. This type of growth isn’t with the actual muscle fibers itself and doesn’t amount to much functional strength or endurance improvement.
While there is a huge debate on whether you can exclusively train for one type of hypertrophy, it is not a secret that there are two types of hypertrophy. Your muscle fibers make up a small portion of the actual size of the muscle that you see. If only the muscle fibers grew, you wouldn’t be able to put on as much mass. With sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, your muscle can hold more fluid, leading to a much greater size. So, to the point, you don’t need to worry about training for either of these specifically just yet. There isn’t definitive evidence that you can train for one without training for the other at the same time.
Who Should Be Training For Hypertrophy?
This is a pretty basic question with a pretty basic answer – if you want to add size to your muscles, you should be training for hypertrophy. If you are a powerlifter, you probably don’t want to do much of this unless you are looking to go up in a weight class and eat in a calorie surplus.
Had to point this out – you need to be eating in a calorie surplus to actually gain a good amount of muscle utilizing hypertrophy training. Being in a calorie deficit and trying to build muscle is a slow and boring process :).
Women – you can definitely benefit from hypertrophy training! You aren’t going to get huge naturally – you just don’t have the genetics or hormones to look like a man naturally. Don’t worry about getting to bulky. If you want to “tone” your arms and “firm” your booty – hypertrophy training is a great tool. A “toned” arm usually means a little bit of fat but the muscle is visible anyway. Guess how that muscle is visible? Because it grew! Same goes with a firmer and tighter looking booty – grow the muscle and lose a little fat. Brittany regularly uses hypertrophy training actually – so if that body is your goal, you know what you have to do.
In closing – bodybuilders, mass seekers, and anybody else who wants to look the part of a fitness junkie should use hypertrophy training.
Basic Hypertrophy Training
Training for muscle growth may be one of the most over written subjects online. With that, everybody mostly knows the basic way of training for hypertrophy already. If you don’t, here it is:
3 sets, 8-12 reps per set, 30-60 seconds rest between sets.
Set up your workouts so you hit each muscle group twice a week. Even though you have heard that once a week is good enough, stick to twice a week if you are natural. Also, don’t go doing 30 sets per body part twice a week either. All of these crazy volume and inefficient body part splits are designed by enhanced athletes for the most part. They can handle 30+ sets and actually benefit. If you are natural, frequency and less volume actually works better. If you can get 20-30 sets total each week for a muscle, that is a good place to start. A good split is the typical upper, lower split with 4 workouts per week.
Advanced Hypertrophy Training
Becoming more advanced means you have to push a little harder to stimulate the muscle in the same ways that you use to. This is the time to start utilizing intensity techniques like drop sets, strips sets, compound sets, pyramid progressions, pulses, and all that other good stuff!
Don’t go overboard with these at the beginning. Putting in one or two intensity techniques per workout and monitoring progress is a great way to start. Then, once you plateau again, you can add more.
Get Out There & Earn Them GAINZ!
Hypertrophy training is great for the mirror and aspiring bodybuilders everywhere. It may not be the most functional training branch, but it is the one that will have people doing a double take to admire your muscle. It’s not a problem if you want to look the part, right?! Eat in a calorie surplus and utilize hypertrophy training to earn you some new muscle!
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