Hypertrophy (building muscle) requires four key elements, think of these as your big rocks in the jar of gains…
- A calorie surplus
People with a low training age can build muscle on maintenance calories (energy in equal to energy out) and even a calorie deficit (energy out greater than energy in), this is commonly known as newbie gains. But once you have a couple of years of “proper” training under your belt those gains will be minimal if any, so in order to build muscle your body requires extra available energy, this is achieved through a calorie surplus (energy in greater than energy out), otherwise, where is your body going to get the energy required to build that muscle?
The size of the surplus will vary from person to person and can change over time for an individual. A good starting point is to calculate your maintenance calories using a simple online TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator. Most will provide you with an estimate of calories required to lose, maintain or gain weight. A good starting point is to add 500 calories to your maintenance requirement and trial that for a few weeks, by weighing yourself often (multiple times per week) you can calculate your weekly average weight, determine if and by how much your weight is increasing and then adjust as necessary to stay around the optimal rate of monthly increase ( see point 3). - Resistance training
In order for hypertrophy to occur a stimulus needs to be applied, this is achieved through resistance training, then repair and growth can occur if certain criteria are met via nutrition and recovery. We all know that we have to train hard to produce muscle gains and our training should get harder over time so that those gains keep coming. But what does “harder “ mean? And how can we ensure we are achieving this each time we train?
Essentially, we need to increase the intensity, volume or frequency over time, known as progressive overload. This is measured in a progression of weight lifted (intensity), repetitions or sets (volume) or how often you train (frequency) .
To continue to overload the body we need to continually make it harder and more challenging for it each session. An option is to follow with your programing is to complete the same number of reps and sets each week and each session look to increase the weight lifted from the previous week to increase the intensity and total volume for that session. Volume = sets x reps x load.
Another method to challenge the body and continue to overload it is through an increase in either rep or set volume or combination of both. Progressing this way you complete more reps at the same weight per exercise from the previous week & increase sets if and when you feel that you can do more “work”.
For both methods a good starting point for your weights should be around 85% of your 10rep max for each exercise. Example, if you can perform 10 reps on a leg press at 100kg and this be a full max effort, couldn’t get 11 reps then you would start at 80kg for your weights lifted.
It’s also important that you follow a structured program designed to build certain muscle groups through volume progressions in this way. Changing up your sessions and just going through ‘workouts”each week won’t provide enough of a stimulus to grow muscle. - Consistency
Weight (fat) loss results can be seen almost immediately with weight reduction of 100’s of grams per week. But building muscle takes time, a long time, so be patient! The old days of a “dirty bulk” (large increase in body weight with the hope that extra muscle has been built) are gone and apart from the obvious associated health risks associated with being “overweight”, the more fat you accumulate the longer or harder your “cut” phase needs to be.
For minimal fat gain during a “bulking” cycle a goal of 1% to 2% body weight increase over the month is optimal, for example an 80kg person would be looking for a monthly increase of around only 800g to 1600g in total weight. Now a gain of 1.6kg may sound like a lot but only part of that will be actual muscle tissue.
In studies of body composition it shows that fat and lean muscle tissue increase or decrease in relationship to each other, so for an already lean person 60% to 70% of the additional weight will be lean tissue, but for someone with high body fat the gain will only be 30%to 40%as lean mass. So best case, a lean 80kg person may only gain 900g of muscle tissue in a month across multiple body parts, hardly enough to make any major changes to your body composition. Therefore a hypertrophy phase should be a minimum of at least 3 to 6 months long. Short “mini cut” phases can be performed along the way to keep body fat levels in check if need be.
Eating lots of food may sound like heaven but consistently eating more than your body requires on a daily basis while keeping up hard training and a healthy diet is hard. - Recovery
If you’re not recovering from your training sessions, how long could you keep going for? Remember it’s going to take a minimum of 3 to 6 months for any substantial gains to be made and no one can train consistently, at a solid intensity for that long without looking at their recovery, natty or not! Recovery incompasses multiple areas, we’ll call these the little rocks.
Sleep: The most important factor in recovery is sleep, and most importantly high quality sleep. Poor quality and lack of sleep have been linked to loss of muscle mass, whilst short sleep durations and sleep interruptions reduce the body’s secretion of insulin-like growth factor-1, which aids muscle growth. The research shows that less than six hours of sleep resulted in poorer recovery and gains while seven to eight hours showed positive effects. Sleep needs are individual and you may need more than that, especially if your workouts are particularly intense.
During sleep your body repairs the muscle fibres that were damaged during training, this is also where extra muscle tissue is built in order to adapt to the increased stimulus from the progressive overloading in resistance training. This process occurs during the non REM sleep known as slow wave or deep sleep phase, hence the need for quality. As your body enters into the non-REM deep sleep stage, your pituitary gland releases a shot of growth hormone that stimulates tissue growth and muscle repair. Not enough sleep causes a sharp decline in growth hormone secretion.
Nutrition: A calorie surplus is essential, but the quality and make up of your nutrition also plays an important role. Protein synthesis is the key to muscle growth, therefore it is important you are consuming sufficient total protein (1.8g to 2.2g per kg of body weight). Research also shows that frequent consumption of protein in 30 to 40g doses 3 to 4 times per day is preferred.
Stress Management: Stress is not always a bad thing, in order for your body to adapt it needs to be placed under stress. It is when the stress is too great that it becomes a problem. High levels of stress affects recovery from training by causing a delay in both muscle repair and strength recovery between sessions.
Stress comes in multiple forms, energetic stress (generally only in a dieting phase), physiological stress (from exercise) and psychological stress (work and/or relationships/ financial etc). Stress affects our hormones and in particular our Cortisol levels. Not always a negative thing but when stress levels are high Cortisol levels are increased to a point that it can have a negative effect on the body’s ability to recover. These effects vary from person to person, some lose weight due to a decreased appetite (which is obviously counter productive to the goal of hypertrophy), others may gain weight (our goal, but excessive gains in weight will unfortunately be mostly fat) from an increased appetite and cravings.
In the short term elevated Cortisol can simply cause water retention and can show up as false muscle gain, this is where stress management comes in.
Reducing stress where possible is beneficial. Practicing relaxation and/or meditation techniques, doing some yoga or remedial massage are great ways to achieve this, it can even be as simple as using your spare time to get out for a walk, get some fresh air and vitamin D from the sun. ■
By Ella Martyn and josh Bolin
For the full article grab the December 2020 issue of MAXIM Australia from newsagents and convenience locations. Subscribe here.
