People who go to the gym regularly every week for serious weight training usually set several goals for the training session. Usually, these goals revolve around strength, muscle hypertrophy, and improving performance in other sports.
To achieve the goal of muscle hypertrophy, it is necessary to focus on resistance training and gradually increase a load of muscle fibers to develop larger muscles. It must be understood that there are many training methods for muscle hypertrophy. Depending on factors such as personal fitness and training years, each person's response to various training methods will also be slightly different.
This article will talk about muscle hypertrophy, ways to practice related skills in the gym, and supplements that may support muscle growth. Before taking any new supplements, you should consult a health professional first to ensure that you use these supplements with peace of mind.
What is muscle hypertrophy?
Muscle hypertrophy refers to targeted training to achieve the effect of increasing skeletal muscle. When you focus on hypertrophy training, your muscles will have many changes over time, prompting changes in muscle size. Muscle hypertrophy is related to many factors. To increase the physical size of skeletal muscles, a variety of cooperation is necessary.
In terms of physical training, muscle hypertrophy is usually divided into two categories:
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is focused on strengthening the muscle's ability to store glycogen.
Muscle hypertrophy is directly focused on increasing the size and density of muscle fibers, thereby increasing muscle.
In addition to being divided into different levels, it must be remembered that muscle hypertrophy is an adaptation process that needs to be sustained over a long period. When we first start training, strength may improve quickly, but muscle hypertrophy may take longer to manifest.
This may be due to personal genetic differences, previous training history, and other factors. That being said, when training for hypertrophy, it is extremely important to be patient, persevering, and strategic in achieving muscle adaptation.
How to do muscle hypertrophy training?
Although the main point of this article is to introduce supplements that may support the adaptation of muscle hypertrophy, it is also important to understand the training for muscle hypertrophy first. Why? It's a pity that even more supplements can't make up for poor, unstrategic training.
Most coaches agree that there is a major factor that can optimize muscle mass to achieve the goal of muscle hypertrophy. This factor is mechanical tension, that is, muscle fatigue is caused by the tension exerted on the muscles, which promotes the corresponding growth of skeletal fibers.
The question now is, how do we generate mechanical tension, and how to formulate targeted training strategies to achieve the goal of muscle hypertrophy as a whole?
3 tips for hypertrophy training
To make this article applies to all training levels, we will focus on three key techniques to help you develop a corresponding hypertrophy plan.
1. Develop an appropriate amount of training
For muscle hypertrophy training, we must first consider how much specific stimulation each group of muscles needs per week.
Everyone is a different individual. Therefore, it is very important to properly adjust your training intensity and training volume when doing weight training. In the beginning, you can refer to the following suggestions.
In a systematic review published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2019, the author pointed out that research on intensity and training volume is still quite small and cannot provide conclusive recommendations; however, for many people, A good starting point is to perform 3-6 sets of 6-12 repetitions in each set, with a load between 60-80% of the extra-large muscle strength (1RM).
After adapting to this training volume, the weekly training volume for each muscle group can be increased to 12-28 groups. Basically, as the number of years of training and ability improves, if you want to make progress, you need more training volume and stimulation.
In the beginning, it should be less than more; the amount of training can be adjusted and increased at any time. Therefore, if you are a novice, you should avoid falling into the trap of "to gain muscle, you must immerse yourself in training"-this is not necessarily the case, and muscle hypertrophy is also affected by many other factors.
2. Train to exhaustion occasionally and spontaneously
Once you have established a weekly training volume for each muscle group, you must determine how to strengthen the exercise. At this time, training for failure is sometimes really useful.
We know that mechanical tension is the main factor contributing to muscle hypertrophy. To obtain great benefits, we need to apply a high level of mechanical tension to the muscles and set a training amount close to your exhaustion to exercise as many muscle fibers as possible. The more fatigued the muscles, the more muscle fibers that have been exercised.
It can be very useful to do a few sets of exhaustion training every week before the end of the exercise. Note: This does not mean that it is only repeatedly subjected to extreme loads. You can explore a variety of different tools to achieve the goal of muscle hypertrophy.
Some useful tools include rest-pause training, group training, decreasing group training, supergroup training, etc., to name a few. The main question you have to ask yourself is: "How can I get my muscles to a state of mechanical exhaustion, without letting myself fall into a recovery obstacle, to limit my other training?"
3. Choose the right exercise
After you have determined the amount of training you will do each week and how to apply high levels of mechanical tension to your muscles, it is time to make a strategic choice for your exercise. As a crash course, I recommend targeted exercises that allow you to effectively separate the muscles you are trying to create hypertrophy and correspond to the direction of movement of these muscle fibers.
For example, for quadriceps stretching exercises, you can choose mechanical oblique squats instead of back squats. The latter has a higher level of skill and is more likely to feel fatigued in other parts before the quadriceps are exhausted.
In addition to choosing exercises that are more discrete in nature, it is also a good idea to look at the muscle anatomy and pay attention to the trajectory of the muscle fibers. You don't have to be an expert to understand this knowledge. We want to exercise muscle fibers and know the direction of movement of muscle fibers when they contract.
Muscle Hypertrophy Supplement 1: Creatine
Creatine is a cost-effective primary supplement for anyone who wants to improve muscle strength, body shape, and explosive power. There are many studies on creatine monohydrates. It helps optimize overall strength and body shape, allows weight training people to perform more difficult exercises for a longer time, and optimizes cell signal transmission, which plays an extremely important role in muscle growth and repair.
To choose your creatine supplement, refer to the Comprehensive Creatine Guide.
Muscle Hypertrophy Supplement 2: Protein Powder
Protein powder by itself does not necessarily increase muscle mass. After all, we need muscle hypertrophy training to achieve this. However, it may be a really useful supplement for long-term muscle repair and growth.
If we can regularly consume adequate amounts of protein to obtain sufficient amino acids (the building blocks of protein), we can ensure that muscles are properly repaired after hard training. Protein powder is convenient for daily consumption and is also suitable for milkshakes and oatmeal. Depending on your dietary needs and preferences, you can choose a whey protein powder, casein protein powder, or plant protein powder.
Muscle Hypertrophy Supplement 3: Citrulline
Citrulline is another supplement that needs more research to explore its benefits for muscle hypertrophy. Supplementing citrulline can help the body produce more nitric oxide and help blood flow.
In the field of muscle gain training, this is helpful for all kinds of muscle hypertrophy training methods, and can more effectively deliver nutrition to the muscles. Citrulline is an ingredient used in many pre-workout formulas and nitrogen pump products (if you prefer non-stimulating products). Studies have shown that taking 3-6 grams of L-citrulline can have huge potential benefits.
Also, see: Doctor recommends 8 essential nutrients to support longevity
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