TOPIC 6: DIFFERENT KINDS OF HYPERTROPHY
Hypertrophy: guys, i wrote this in responce to a question on the think muscle board... i thought it might be of interest to some of you here. if not, well no harm done i guess. there are basically 3 trainable factors involved in size and strength. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy... does not directly increase strength but can effect it by increasing tendon angle at the attachment. but of course increases size. sarcomere hypertrophy... increases contractile proteins in muscle thereby increasing strength directly and also size. neural effeciency... increase in the percentage of motor units that can be activated at any given time. no effect on size but increases strength. the training for each quality exists on sort of a continuim. training for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is high volume and low intensity... like 10 sets of 10 for a muscle. training for sarcomere hypertrophy is med intensity and med volume... like 5 sets of 5 for a muscle. training for increased neural effeciency is high intensity and low volume... like 5 max effort singles for a given muscle. now, each style of training effects each muscle quality, but in different quantities. for example, 10 sets of 10 will result in a high degree of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, some sarcomere hypertrophy, and little or no increase in neural effeciency. 5 sets of 5 will increase all 3 qualities, but will effect sarcomere hypertrophy the most. max effort singles will increase neural effeciency a great deal, but will have only a small effect on hypertrophy of the sarcomere, and little or no effect on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. so no matter how you train, you are likely to get both bigger and stronger... but the degree to which each quality is increased depends on the training. as you get more advanced, the picture changes somewhat. for example, if a highly trained explosive athlete, like a shot-putter, did only workouts of 10 sets of 10 for a month, he would get hypertrophy of the sarcoplasm... but likely NO hypertrophy of the sarcomere and would likely LOSE neural effeciency, simply because he was so highly trainind in this quality beforehand that 10 sets of 10 would not be sufficient stimulus to even keep what neural effeciency he had. also... for a beginner, doing multiple singles would likely lead to some size increases. but for an advanced bodybuilder it would not be sufficient stimulus to keep the sarcoplamic hypertrophy already present. now, as far as whether training for one quality helps subsequent training for another quality, the answer is yes. for instance, an athlete who is only concerned with explosive strength will still train at times with higher reps and experience some sarcoplamic hypertrophy... this "supports" later gains in sarcomere hypertrophy and neural effeciency by building work capacity (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy adds the neccessary ingredients such as cappillaries to the muscle to support high work capacity later in the training cycle, so the athlete can do a higher volume of work). also, a bodybuilder who is only concerned with size will do most of his work with volumes and intensities of training which favor hypertrophy of both the sarcomere and the sarcoplasm. but heavy work done to increase neural effeciency will also help... the ability to activate more motor units during an all out effort will make the rest of his training more result producing and effecient. as far as how to "cycle" these different types of work during a training cycle... well at almost all times during a training cycle you should do at least SOME work on each quality... if you totally neglect some portion of the muscle you will lose performance in that quality. however, you should shift your concentration of work from the least important quality for your sport over time to the most important. in other words... a bodybuilder might begin training for a contest 6 months away with more high intensity work, and gradually shift the emphasis over the months to more med. and low intensity work. a strength athlete would do the opposite. hope this helped in some way.
