Muscle hypertrophy training is defined as the increased growth of your muscular tissues. It involves enlarging your muscles by working them out. It is most commonly associated with weight lifting.

Your muscles get bigger when you constantly pose resistance & weight upon them. Muscular hypertrophy occurs when your muscles tissues sustain some damage or injury.

The damage is repaired by the body by fusing the damaged fibers. This increases muscle mass and size.

What Is Muscle Hypertrophy?

When you exercise a muscle in your bodybuilding clothes, an increase of nerve impulses leads to muscle contraction. Which often causes strength gains without the noticeable alteration in your muscle size. Constantly engaging the muscle in an exercise leads to the complex interaction of your nervous system responses, which increases protein synthesis. Over time, your muscle cells grow larger & stronger. Following are the 3 key components that are necessary for muscle growth—repair, stimulation & peripheral fatigue.

• Stimulation: This sensation occurs during muscular contraction. Repeated contractions while doing an exercise causes damage to your internal muscular fiber cells. This phenomenon triggers the inflammatory response. Excess/chronic inflammation isn’t so great for health generally, but the body’s natural use of inflammation enables it to deal with the damage. Stressing your muscles at the same time can increase the stimulation of hormones which is responsible for muscular growth.
• Repair: The healing process of muscular fiber takes place after you are done exercising when the muscles are resting. New muscle tissues replace & repair the injured ones. A bigger number of fibers are produced for making the damaged ones up. It’s where actual muscular growth happens.
• Peripheral Fatigue: Peripheral fatigue takes place when you’re unable to complete a workout, by the end of strenuous activity. Research is still going on in this area by experts who claim that the more peripheral fatigue is induced, the harder your muscles will have to work.

Types of Muscular Hypertrophy

Muscular hypertrophy is basically of two types:

Myofibrillar hypertrophy: This type of hypertrophy refers to increasing the myofibrils, these are the long strands in your muscle that enable them to contract. With the increase of myofibrils, your muscles get stronger & denser.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy: The hypertrophy of this involves increasing the muscular volume of the sarcoplasmic fluid, or fluid which is filled with the variety

What Types of Muscle Can You Build?

By doing hypertrophy training in your bodybuilding clothes there are certain types of muscle that you build. Before we get into increasing your muscle size you should know what muscles are muscles and how they work. There are 3 types of muscle:

• Smooth
• Skeletal
• Cardiac

Skeletal: Skeletal muscles are exactly as they sound. They stretch over your bones and aid your movements. For each muscle on one side of your body, you have an exact copy on the other side. These muscles move as we choose them consciously for moving.

Smooth: These are the involuntary muscles. Enables your body organs to function. I.e. food digestion & blood pumping.

Cardiac: These muscles are responsible for heart contractions.

The human body has different sizes of muscles. Some are larger, some are smaller. Large muscles are located on the areas like upper legs, chest & back. Smaller were in arms, calves, and shoulders. Seeing the results of hypertrophy is easier in larger muscles. They provide more foundation while supporting full-body training.

Exercises for Hypertrophy

Workout builds your muscles by contracting them against the resistance in a repeated manner. It usually involves free weights, resistance bands, exercise machines, or bodyweight exercises. A lot of expertise training regimens vary the loads, number of reps, & the recovery intervals in between them. Each of the components has its proportions, ultimate results depend on the dedication and right choice of exercise for a specific body type.

Irrespective of the workout plan that you choose to perform, make sure to do it till you are fatigued out. It creates a high stimulus for muscle hypertrophy. Means lifting weight till you can lift more. It is recommended to lift weights 2-3 times per week. Training on alternate days allows your muscle fibers to relax & repair themself by growing bigger.

Prioritize compound exercises

Compound exercises are the type of exercises that engage several muscle groups at the same time, examples of such exercises are deadlift, squat, bench press & overhead press.

Studies show that for maximizing muscle hypertrophy, compound weightlifting is the best approach.

Workouts that target one joint & major muscular group at one time are referred to as isolated exercise. They can be placed in your program as well; however if hypertrophy is the main goal, most of the energy should be put into the compound exercises.

Emphasize progressive overload

Your muscles will stop getting bigger if they stop getting bigger. This is why you should keep on adding weight and reps to your workout regimen. It’s called progressive overload, & one of the best approaches for maximizing muscle-building. This is the prime reason why they are considered a little better than the high-reps specifically for the hypertrophy training. Performing most of the sets in 4-10 range of reps enables you to add on weight & reps frequently & the exercise regimen tends to get less fatiguing. Experts state that sets of high reps i.e (10+) can make an appropriate place in the hypertrophy regimen but should be performed sparingly.

Perform the appropriate right number of sets per week

For maximizing Muscle hypertrophy training, you must perform 10-to-20 reps per set for every muscle group. Altering your set & reps number is very effective in overcoming muscle plateau. Studies show that increasing your training for a particular muscle group by the amount of 20% is an amazing way of kickstarting progress. If you have not gained enough muscle strength in the chest performing 10 sets in a week, you would add 2 more sets every week.

Hypertrophy Workout Program

Following is the tested, 5 days week hypertrophy exercise program that has been followed by the bodybuilders for building muscle mass. If your Muscle hypertrophy training working out for five days a week is too much for you you can shorten them to 4-days by skipping a day.

Day 1: Push

• Barbell Bench Press: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Barbell Bench Press: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Triceps Pushdown: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Dumbbell Bench Press: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest

Day 2: Pull

• Arm Dumbbell Row: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute res
• Deadlift: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Seated Cable Row: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Pulldown: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest

Day 3: Upper A

• Dumbbell Lateral Raise: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Seated Dumbbell Press: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Dumbbell Rear Raise: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• One-sided Dumbbell Curl: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest

Day 4: Lower

• Leg Press: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Barbell Back Squat: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Seated Calf Raise: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Lying Leg Curl: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest

Day 5: Upper B

• Weighted Pull-up: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Close-Grip Bench Press: Perform 3 sets of 4-6 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Barbell Curl: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest
• Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Extension: Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 2-3 minute rest