Tag Archives: muscle hypertrophy

The Mechanisms Of Muscle Hypertrophy: What Causes Muscles To Grow?

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bodybuilder 7 wcAs we all know, when you lift weights your body responds to the challenge by increasing the size and strength of the muscles involved in the lift so that you will be able to do the job more easily next time. But what are the specific mechanisms involved that actually cause this to happen?

Well, there are three main underlying mechanisms that trigger a growth response in skeletal muscle. These are mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. So if you want to achieve maximum muscle growth you need to train in a way that will optimize the effects of all of these.

So in this article I’ll give an outline of each of these mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and I’ll also explain how best to train in order to get the full benefits of all three of them… Continue Reading →

Should You Always Use A Full Range Of Motion In Your Training?

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bench press flickrIf you go to the gym regularly you’ll see people doing exercises through a partial range of motion all the time. Half bench presses, half squats – even quarter squats. And if you are anything like me, you’ll probably shake your head disapprovingly at them. But are they right? Is there any value to using a partial range of motion or should you always use a full range of motion? Well the answer is, it depends.

First you have to decide how you actually define a full range of motion. For instance in the squat is it parallel or is it well below parallel? In the overhead press is it bar below the chin or right down to the chest? In pull ups is it chin over the bar or chest touching the bar? In parallel bar dips is it the backs of the arms parallel to the floor or is it well below that? I could go on, but you get the point. Continue Reading →

The 9 Essential Factors Of Muscle Hypertrophy

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bodybuilder 7 flickrWhat is it that really causes muscles to grow? Well, despite all the myths and misconceptions, you can boil it down to 9 key factors that contribute to muscle hypertrophy.

Some of these are more important than others of course, but they all play a role and if you want to maximize your muscular development you’ll want to be incorporating most, if not all, of them into your workouts. Not necessarily all at the same time, but over the course of a training year you’ll want to have them pretty much all covered.

In this article I’m not going to discuss the underlying mechanisms of muscle growth (i.e. mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage), but rather what you actually need to do to achieve these.

So without further ado here are the 9 essential factors of muscle hypertrophy… Continue Reading →