Building Muscle (hypertrophy)

“the enlargement of an organ or tissue from the increase in size of its cells”

As it applies to exercise we are mostly concerned with muscle hypertrophy; the enlargement of muscle fibres. Not to be confused with hyperplasia which is an increase in the number of muscle fibres; it has never been seen in the lab to happen in human muscles tissue but there is some evidence to suggest it does exist. From Supertraining, page 65;

“Some scientists have suggested that the reason many bodybuilders or other athletes have muscle fibers which are the same size (or smaller) versus untrained controls is due to a greater genetic endowment of muscle fibers. That is, they were born with more fibers. If that was true, then the intense training over years and decades performed by elite bodybuilders has produced at best average size fibers. That means, some bodybuilders were born with a bunch of below average size fibers and training enlarged them to average size.”

We’ll look at hypertrophy. If you have spent any time reading message boards on the subject you’ll have seen talk of two types of hypertrophy; sarcoplasmic and sarcomere.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an increase in the sarcoplasm of a muscle (the area that holds liquid proteins, glycogen and other substances that support contraction).

Sarcomere hypertrophy is an increase in the size of the actual muscle fibres that connect and contract with each other. Gym rat logic and message board gurus tell you that you can have one or the other depending on how you train.

This idea came about after the observation that a bodybuilder is not as strong as a powerlifter of equal size. Legend has it that powerlifters have sarcomere hypertrophy as they lift heavier weights and bodybuilders have sarcoplasmic as they lift lighter weights for higher reps and more volume which causes them to store more fuel and require less actual fibre growth (they clearly hadn’t read the post on strength and skill).

This idea caught on with no evidence from the lab to suggest it’s validity and has now become almost law among message boards. So far as I can find (and I have searched high and low) there has not been any evidence to suggest that you can train to increase one over the other.

Yes both types of hypertrophy exist, no you can’t train for one specifically.

If one increases then so does the other, in a linear fashion; one doesn’t exists without the other. the strength difference between equal sized bodybuilders and powerlifters is a matter covered in the strength post linked to above.

If you only lift heavy then you will still hypertrophy your sarcoplasm. If you only lift lighter weights to failure then you will still hypertrophy your sarcomere’s. Hand in hand hypertrophy.

How to Hypertrophy Muscle

A hard task indeed. Have you ever seen those people that just seem to grow no matter how they train?Then there’s the rest of us.

If you are anything like me you have to bust a gut to see even the slightest increase in size. Your training has to be spot on, your diet needs to be in order and your lifestyle too (boozing every weekend won’t help matters).

Aside from having your diet in order (a discussion for another time) which we’ll assume you do, lets talk about the training for hypertrophy;

You’ll hear that training for size is the same as training for strength but that usually leads down a road that ends in frustration chasing after ever increasing weights. Most of the time this results in poor technique, injuries, cheating and worse yet, quitting.

Some will tell you that is about workload and how much of it you can perform, which leads to tired and weakened muscles. Intensity of effort is the cry of many.

It is said that you must train to absolute failure to stimulate hypertrophy and anything less just wont cut it but this also leads to poor form, exhausted bodies and battered motivation.

As usual in life, the answer is

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That’s a fairly comprehensive look at hypertrophy, the different types and how to go about achieving it!