What is Hypertrophy?

Have you ever wondered how many reps are truly required for optimal muscle growth? Maybe you thought 5 or 15, maybe even 20. But the truth hides behind a phase your muscles go through during workouts called “Hypertrophy”. Now if you’ve never heard of the Hypertrophy phase and find yourself eager to find out what it does, and how to achieve it then please read on to learn more.

What is Hypertrophy?
Muscular Hypertrophy in short, is a stage that your muscles go through during workouts that activates the inflammatory response to your muscles. To be a little more detailed, it is a function of protein balance which has 3 main mechanisms being: muscle tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress. Muscle tension being the tension placed on a muscle during a workout, muscle damage is the micro tears and inflammatory response, and metabolic stress pertaining to the increase of metabolites such as glycerol. Finding a Hypertrophy workout plan and following it is proven to have various benefits not limited to an increase muscle growth.

All Benefits
Physical:
Cardio improvement
Increased lean body mass
Increased metabolic efficiency
Increased muscular Hypertrophy
Decreased body fat
Performance:
Increased power
Increased endurance
Psychological:
Improved mood
Improved self esteem
Decrease of symptoms associated with depression
Positive body image

How do I achieve Hypertrophy ?
Hypertrophy is achievable through introducing low to intermediate repetition ranges with progressive overload to your workouts. A great example of this would be 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps with a 1-2 minute resting period. This combination paves the ground for muscle growth, as your muscles inflame they fill with nutrient rich blood. This blood provides the muscle with all the nutrients needed to recover. When finding a workout plan to achieve Hypertrophy please note that a healthy diet is a key factor in all workout plans. Desired results will be achieved faster with a healthy and balanced diet.