BUILDING MUSCLE
Hypertrophy
Everybody Has Their Own Goals, For Some It's All About The Muscle
For maximum hypertrophy and continual muscle growth, a calculated approach is needed and I strongly advise getting professional guidance with your own individual programming.
VOLUME, INTENSITY AND FREQUENCY
PreparationÂ
Before you start choosing exercises or searching the internet for workout plans - you must have a good understanding of these three things -
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Volume - The amount of stimulation/work you are going to perform for each muscle group must be consistent. If one week you are bench pressing 50kg for 10 reps and 4 sets you have a volume of 2000 (50kg x 40 reps = 2000). If you go back the next time and do 70kg for 5 reps and 5 sets you have a volume of 1750 (70kg x 25 reps = 1750). So although you feel you are making some progress by lifting heavier loads, you are performing less volume and therefore getting less from your workout. if you wanted to lift heavier loads in this instance you need to do some calculations. Initially, you had a volume of 2000. You have decided to lift heavier and want to do a 5x5 workout plan (5 reps and 5 sets) so you are performing 25 reps. If you take 2000 and divide it by 25 you get 80. So to keep your volume the same and lift heavier weight (increase intensity) you should be lifting 80kg over 5 reps and 5 sets. You should be looking to perform between 40 and 70 reps per muscle group.
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Intensity - As we looked at volume, the load we move for each rep can have a large impact on the results we get. With our goals the rep ranges that we exercise in are very important. For strength training staying in the 4 - 6 rep range is a good starting point, 6 - 12 for hypertrophy and 1 - 4 for power.
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Frequency - This is the most subjective of the three. For most people, it is the time available that dictates our training frequency and with work and other commitments, this is not always negotiable. Saying that there are still ways to get everything in place if we are smart with our planning. As with all of my advice here, it is to give you an idea of how to proceed, not a set-in-stone way of reaching your fitness goals. As a guide, you should be looking to train each muscle group 2 or 3 times per week. If you train a muscle group twice a week it will be performing 80 to 140 reps. This seems like a big gap but remember the relationship between volume and intensity and how they work together. If you are closer to 80 reps per week you will be lifting heavier loads and therefore covering the same amount of volume as you would with a moderate load for 140 reps. Also remember that compound movements work more than one muscle group - for instance, the bench press works your chest, shoulders and triceps. This can be factored into your 40 - 70 reps per muscle group. So if you're short on training time and/or frequency, stick with as many compound movements as possible.
FITNESS AND FATIGUE
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One of the many problems with not recording your workouts and rest days is that when results stop or in some cases reverse, you have no idea why.
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If for instance you are training for hypertrophy and you stop growing, you need to think about your training volume, frequency and recovery time. It is common knowledge that volume is one of, if not the biggest influences on gaining lean muscle tissue (provided everything else is in place - calories, intensity etc). But how much volume is enough and how much is too much?
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To answer this we need to look at the relationship between fitness and fatigue. Your fitness being the ability to perform your training program effectively, fatigue being the impact on your body and the necessary recovery time. If fitness levels are high and fatigue is low we can perform well. If however fatigue is high our performance (fitness) will suffer.
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This can happen over days, weeks or months. If you are continually left with a small level of fatigue through not fully recovering it will start to have an impact on your training. You may not be able to lift as heavy (intensity) or as many times (volume). Therefore progressive overload will not be achieved causing us to plateau.
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This is known as "over reaching", basically pushing too hard for too long. If it is not addressed it can lead to "over training" a much harder problem to correct (you will have to say goodbye to the gym for a while).
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So if you don't record your workouts or train to a well designed plan - you will have no idea how to keep moving forward with your training when things start going wrong, which inevitably at some point it will.
Important - If you are new to resistance training you should first learn good technique with lighter loads before challenging yourself too far.
FINALLY
Muscle growth, like weight loss, has become big money for many businesses. Often what stands in the way of results are simple easy to find problems that a Personal Trainer can help you with. Unfortunately however, many people go from one workout to another often immitating fitness models and body builders that are in completely different stages with their training. It is also now common place to see some respected athletes and models selling advice and workout plans to the masses without taking into consideration anything about YOU and YOUR body. Personal Training is relatively cheap when you consider all the money and hard work that is spent in gyms everyday for little or no results. There will always be exceptions to the rule, just like at school there was always someone that had a natural talent towards sports. The same applies with weight training. Imagine what they could achieve with expert help!
If you would like my expert help to get you the muscle that you want you can CONTACT ME HERE
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Alternatively, you may just need me to design a workout programme specific to you. In this case I strongly recommend my online coaching - ONLINE PACKAGES