Table Of Content
Everyone dreams about having big muscles and aims to be strong as well (well, at least I do), but in order to do that, you need to build muscle, obviously. The question is how can you build it effectively? First, let’s get the basics out the way.
Muscle Hypertrophy
Muscle hypertrophy, better known as muscle growth, is an increase in muscle mass, i.e. size of your muscle. There are two types of muscle hypertrophy: Myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic.
Myofibrils are bundles of protein filaments that are responsible for contraction and relaxation. They run parallel to each other forming fibres. Myofibrillar hypertrophy is when the number of fibres increase meaning that the volume and density to also increase resulting in muscle growth and size.
Sarcoplasm is a fluid which surrounds the myofibrils in the muscles. It contains molecules such as glycogen, water, and creatine phosphate. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is slightly different to myofibrillar hypertrophy. Instead of increasing the number of fibres, the volume of sarcoplasmic fluid is increased resulting in an increase in muscle volume.
There are a couple of ways in which you can build muscle effectively.
Mechanical tension
NationalBodyBuildingco states that “Mechanical tension is the force that you apply to muscles through a form of resistance or weights, to create tension”.
Progressive overload is the best way to increase the weight amount of mechanical tension being generated when performing an exercise. Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight or load making your muscles work harder in order to lift that weight which in turn results in hypertrophy. A sign that you should increase the is if you are able to lift a weight that used to be hard but now you can lift it without much of a challenge for a certain rep range.
There are different ways of applying progressive overload in your training routine. The most common way to progressive overload is to increase the weight or resistance by small increments. For example, if you are bench pressing 80kg for 10 to 12 RM (Repetition Maximum), increase it by 5kg and perform the same amount of repetition. If it is not challenging enough for you, increase the weight.
Secondly, you can increase the volume. Volume is simply the sets multiplied by reps multiplied by weight/load. In this case, if you are doing three sets of 10-12RM, add another set, making a total of four sets.
Lastly, you can increase the training frequency. If you want to target a specific muscle group, you can increase the training frequency by working out that specific muscle group twice a week.
Metabolic stress
Metabolic stress is defined as “a physiological process that occurs during exercise in response to low energy that leads to metabolic accumulation such as lactate, phosphate inorganic and hydrogen ions in muscle cells”. Findings by Schoenfeld et al. show that a lower weight resistance training (weights that are ≤60% of 1RM) performed to failure and moderate weight resistance training (weights that are >60% 1RM) prompts a major increase in muscle hypertrophy among well trained young men.
Furthermore, according to this study, training with moderate number of reps (≈6-12), sets between 3 to 6, moderate weight (60%-80% 1RM) and short rest time (60s) between sets prompts a greater metabolic stress.
To summarize, to elicit muscle growth through metabolic stress, the research above shows that an exercise has to be performed with moderate to high repetition with a shorter rest time (less than 60s). This means you have to choose a weight that you can fail at a moderate to high rep range.
Drop sets
Drop sets are when you perform a set to failure and then reduce the weight and continue the exercise till failure again. This method induces high metabolic stress due to a high number of repetitions performed within a short time interval.
A study by Fink et al. showed a greater muscle thickness after drop sets than following a traditional set. It shows that the cross sectional of the triceps increased greatly after 6 weeks of drop set training when compared to traditional set. However, the participants had less experience in weight training and trained under a year.
Summary
Building muscle takes a long time and you have to put in the work and stay consistent to see progress.
The key takeaways:
- Mechanical tension through progressive overload is the best way to grow your muscles
- Metabolic stress induces muscle growth at a moderate to higher rep range with moderate weight and shorter rest time
- Drop sets have been shown to increase muscle thickness but only with people who have been weight training under a year
Last tip: Don’t forget to neglect your nutrition and recovery, both of which play an important role in muscle growth.
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