Why Hypertrophy?
In today’s world, everybody wants to look good. Walk into any gym across the country it’s filled with people with this mindset – from the young wannabe “bros” curling in the squat rack, to the females on the stepper looking for their booty gains! Now, both of these thought processes are ridiculous. But you have to at least, on some level, appreciate the fact they are trying… And, let’s face it. We all want to look good naked!
Yes, there are always elements of doing it for your health. But in today’s populous (and especially with the younger generation) it’s nearly always about aesthetics. They couldn’t care less about anything else. In a world consumed by Instagram, Facebook and other superficial sites that are aimed to promote nonsense, insecurities and fakeness, it’s becoming harder and harder to fight the click-bait generation and sift through the mountains of misinformation that is put out there.
People want less and less to learn the why’s and how’s, and certainly, they don’t want to earn the right to whatever their goal is. They simply want it now – whilst doing it wrong – then promote how awesome they are (insert douchebag emoji here).
However, that’s a topic for another day.
All this put aside, hypertrophy and the pursuit of all them gainzzzzz is a valuable and effective tool no matter your purpose. Today we will be discussing the 3 mechanisms to maximise these results.
Mechanisms of Hypertrophy
In the absolutely amazing scholarly article written by Brad J Schoenfeld, “The Mechanisms of Muscle Hypertrophy and Their Application to Resistance Training” talks in depth on this subject in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2010, NSCA. Please, go away and look it up. This journal details all of the following I’m about to write in a much more science-y manner. With bigger, more fancy words. So, in all honesty, you should probably stop reading this and just read that……
However, if you’re cool with this more succinct version then here we go:
As a newbie lifter, you’ll go through the following stages:
- You’ll get pretty much zero gainz to begin with. This sucks, but I’m sad to say it’s a fact. You will certainly get a tonne of neural adaptations, but physically, not so much.
- Never fear. After a couple of months of those hard-fought curls, you’ll start to develop. Nice work, bro!!
- Gainz will come thick and fast from here on out… Well, until you hit a plateau. But more of that another time.
Now at this stage, a host of factors come into play. Recovery, gender, age, training age – yes, they are 2 different things! But forget about these for the moment, and just crack on hitting that iron. Gainz are gainz!
This article is trying to shed light on a few things that may help, and if you take one thing away that helps your goals, then I’m a happy man.
So on to the nuts and bolts of the article.
The 3 Mechanics of Hypertrophy:
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Mechanical Tension
Now, this bad boy is for you strength-orientated beasts out there. GO HEAVY!
Big old heavy weights are needed here – compounds are your friends. Now while we say heavy weights, don’t start ripping 1RMs. We still want you putting in the reps to create that needed time under tension element to impact hypertrophy. Let’s say 3-7 reps here. Now then, some of you may not be used to going heavy, so please be sensible. Don’t let your form go to hell. Complete full reps and finish them smoothly and efficiently.
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Muscle Damage
This presents itself in the soreness, the dreaded DOMS. This can happen in many ways:
New exercises, an excessive range of motion, or focusing on the eccentric portion of the lift (that’d be the negatives, for you old school lifters).
However, have you ever noticed when you do a completely new workout you’re really sore? That’s because you’ve created a tone of strain in areas that you’re not used to. Therefore creating muscle damage, which leads to muscle recovery and growth. Sooo muscle damage is a win for size gainz. However, be mindful, as there is such a thing as too much damage. So load the volume accordingly. Less is more to begin with.
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Metabolic Stress
Finally onto you true meatheads out there who chase the PUMP! And if any of you have ever watched the legendary film “Pumping Iron” – we all know what Arnie thinks about this. “The feeling you get from the pump. It’s better than……”
This mechanism works fantastically well in the isolation portion. Really targeting singular muscles (as much as you can target a singular muscle).
A couple of ways to do this:
- Lower weights and perform higher reps to flood the muscle with blood.
- Occlude the area, depriving blood flow to the area.
Putting It All Together
“Ronnie Coleman said it best: Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight!”
Get some!
Be ready for anything,
Coach Sale.
Author - Luke Sale - Head Coach & Mentor
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