Complete Exercise Guide Muscle Hypertrophy - Holly T Baxter

Complete Exercise Guide Muscle Hypertrophy (eBook)

Holly T Baxter (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
230 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-3038-2 (ISBN)

'Save time. Consolidate your knowledge. Achieve your goals faster... by working out the correct way! If you are anything like me, you'll likely agree that one of the most frustrating things when it comes to achieving your health & fitness goals is the challenge of finding quality evidence based information. Who do you entrust your health & fitness to? Especially with so many 'Influencers' each claiming to be experts? In my early career, I realized just how difficult this process could be, and have since spent the next decade surrounding myself with highly regarded, well respected academic researchers to help sharpen this skill. My new book 'The Complete Exercise Guide To Muscle Hypertrophy', with scientific research serving as the backbone, will teach you about the myriad of resistance training concepts and training techniques, such as How Do Muscles Grow? Average Rates of Muscle Hypertrophy Exercise Volume Rest Periods Low Load Training Periodization Hormones Muscle Memory Sex Differences Blood Flow Restriction And... will explain the role each of these concepts play in optimizing muscle growth.... plus so much more! All thirteen chapters of this book have been written in an easily digestible format, and offer many different scientific perspectives (some of which have not yet made their way to social media circles!)..... As well as the perspectives I hold as a coach and as a professional physique athlete on each of these described topics.

"e;Save time. Consolidate your knowledge. Achieve your goals faster... by working out the correct way!If you are anything like me, you'll likely agree that one of the most frustrating things when it comes to achieving your health & fitness goals is the challenge of finding quality evidence based information. Who do you entrust your health & fitness to? Especially with so many "e;Influencers"e; each claiming to be experts? In my early career, I realized just how difficult this process could be, and have since spent the next decade surrounding myself with highly regarded, well respected academic researchers to help sharpen this skill. My new book 'The Complete Exercise Guide To Muscle Hypertrophy', with scientific research serving as the backbone, will teach you about the myriad of resistance training concepts and training techniques, such as How Do Muscles Grow?Average Rates of Muscle Hypertrophy Exercise VolumeRest PeriodsLow Load Training PeriodizationHormonesMuscle MemorySex DifferencesBlood Flow Restriction And will explain the role each of these concepts play in optimizing muscle growth. plus so much more!All thirteen chapters of this book have been written in an easily digestible format, and offer many different scientific perspectives (some of which have not yet made their way to social media circles!)..... As well as the perspectives I hold as a coach and as a professional physique athlete on each of these described topics.

Muscle Size: How Much Muscle Can You Gain?

When you begin a resistance training program in the gym, with the goal of increasing your muscle size, it is natural to think about how much muscle growth is achievable over time. You may have images of your favorite fitness influencers, bodybuilders or athletes in mind. Accordingly, you may have the desire to acquire large amounts of muscle mass, or you may worry about gaining too much muscle and achieving a look that is non-desirable. It is common for individuals to have a grasp on what changes in weight should look at over time. For example, a weight loss or weight gain goal is quite tangible to most individuals (you look at the scale). On the other hand, If you were asked how much muscle growth is possible in your quads or biceps over a training career, it would be more difficult to come up with an answer. Admittedly, there is no consensus on how much muscle growth is possible over a lifting career. However, training interventions and time-course studies have provided us with data which may help to guide our expectations. This chapter will discuss limitations on human skeletal muscle growth with training and provide certain expectations of what muscle growth may look like over time.

Is Muscle Growth Limited?

It is interesting to think about how many years into lifting skeletal muscle growth plateaus. For example, if you have been lifting weights for 10 years, are you still growing when you go to the gym? Or, are you simply providing a stimulus to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and upregulate signals that maintain your muscle size? This is important to think about because muscle growth is not likely infinite. Some scientists have made the suggestion that the majority of muscle growth appears to happen in the first several months of training [1], with a plateau observed as early as 3 months into training. Although the majority of growth may occur relatively early I don’t believe that we stop growing until many years into a lifting career. However, it does appear that muscle growth begins to accrue at a much slower rate once you become more “trained”. For example, a 6-month resistance training study in non-resistance trained women found that the arm cross-sectional area increased around 11% following the first 3-months of training and only 6% in the following 3-months of training [2]. This may represent a slowing of muscle growth as individuals reach their growth potential. On the other end of the spectrum, a study from 1987 [3] examined muscle size and strength changes in thirteen elite weightlifters over an entire training year. Following a year of training, authors observed that body mass, thigh girth, body fat percentage and muscle fiber size did not change significantly [3]. All of the athletes included in this study were Finnish champions and/or Finnish national record holders, suggesting they were advanced in their lifting careers [3]. Of course, it could be argued that elite weightlifters are not training specifically for muscle growth; however, it is still interesting that their training did not lead to some meaningful growth over an entire year. Perhaps bodybuilders can provide more useful insight regarding limitations on skeletal muscle growth given their primary training pursuit is the acquisition of new muscle tissue? A study from 1992 [4] examined changes in muscle cross-sectional area and muscle fiber size following 24-weeks of training in 5 male and 5 female competitive bodybuilders. The training program they performed had a great deal of biceps work, including barbell curls, standing alternating dumbbell curls, barbell scott curls, bent over dumbbell concentration curls, and hammer curls [4]. Following the 24-week period, authors observed no changes in muscle fiber size, muscle fiber number or muscle cross sectional area [4]. Ultimately, the authors concluded that after reaching a high level, improvements in muscle characteristics may be minimal [4]. It seems reasonable to suggest that this data provides some evidence that muscle growth is limited to some finite limit. Individuals who have reached a competitive level do not appear to grow in a meaningful way that can be measured across the short durations seen in research interventions. The idea that muscle growth is limited is also rooted in logic. It would not benefit longevity to endlessly seek more and more muscle tissue. In a sense, limits on muscle growth may serve as a protective mechanism from excessive amounts of muscle tissue that would be very energetically costly. In addition, metabolic theories of aging [5], and stress research [6,7]) may provide a rationale as to why large amounts of muscle tissue may not be beneficial for overall longevity.

An interesting study in rodents may help to illustrate the finite capacity of muscle growth. Yes, rodent studies don’t translate perfectly to humans, but they can still teach us interesting concepts and help us think in new ways about various physiological systems. A study by Hamilton et al. [8] employed a technique known as synergistic ablation. Synergistic ablation is a technique where they surgically remove the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles of the calf musculature. This leaves the remaining muscle (the plantaris) responsible for the entire burden of supporting the rodent’s weight (known as functional overload). Since the one muscle is now bearing the full burden of the rodent’s weight that the gastrocnemius and soleus used to help support, the muscle is “overloaded” (similar to lifting weights). As you might imagine, you can’t just teach a rodent to squat or perform various resistance training exercises. Thus, this model has proven helpful for providing a hypertrophic stimulus in rodent research. One interesting characteristics of this model is that the plantaris rapidly grows to compensate for the lack of other musculature. For example, Hamilton et al. [8] observed an 81% greater size in plantaris muscles following synergistic ablation compared to control muscles following 21 days. Thus, this model may represent an exaggerated and extreme model of muscle growth. Put another way, the muscle would not grow by 81% from voluntary exercise over this time-period even if the rodents could lift weights. Thus, the growth observed can be considered rapid and unusually robust. This study by Hamilton et al. [8] was interested in intrinsic mechanisms within the muscle that would try to slow and limit this rapid growth. Thus, the authors examined the stimulation of muscle growth (activation of certain proteins within the muscle that tell it to grow), but also looked at negative regulators of muscle growth (factors working against the stimulation of muscle growth). The authors referred to these mechanisms as “molecular breaks”. Through their study, the authors identified that there appeared to be 3 separate molecular breaks that were working against muscle growth and ultimately concluded that the rate of muscle growth is tightly regulated even when faced with a supra-physiological stimulus such as synergistic ablation [8]. What does this mean? This shows that the muscle may possess an ability to limit excess growth at the molecular level. Further, it seems reasonable to assume that there are inherent mechanisms within our physiology that protect us from becoming too large by limiting our muscle growth. If muscle growth limits do exists in humans, it may first be helpful to discuss what muscle growth looks like.

Changes in Muscle Size with Training

When looking at individual muscle groups, the scientific literature offers insight into only a few select muscles. For example, there are several studies that have looked at biceps muscle growth. Although this is not the most exciting muscle group, from the researcher perspective it offers a lot of positives! The biceps are an easy muscle group to image using ultrasound. Thus, researchers are able to measure really small changes over an 8-12 week time period with confidence. Another positive aspect when it comes to studying the biceps is that you do not have to worry about swelling in the muscle as much as you might in the lower body. If an individual is visiting a lab for a study, they have likely walked across a college campus to arrive at that lab. Walking will cause muscle contraction, which can cause muscle swelling in the lower body. This could possibly be confused with muscle growth, which may confound the actual findings of the study. Because of these reasons, many labs have opted to use the bicep for research to learn about various training interventions. With that being said, there are many studies that do measure changes in the quadriceps muscles following training interventions. This muscle group is, in general, a bit more difficult to image an measure compared to the biceps, but many labs have perfected their skills, allowing insight into lower body growth.

When muscle growth is discussed in the subsequent sections, It will be discussed in terms of muscle thickness in centimeters (cm). Figure 2.1 provides an example image of a biceps muscle thickness and Figure 2.2 provides a representative image of the quadriceps muscle thickness taken using B-mode ultrasound. A measurement of muscle thickness represents the thickness of the muscle...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	8.1.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-3038-2 / 9798350930382

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