Here’s an all too familiar tale - A guy struts into the gym hyped up on pre-workout, walks over to the dumbbells, and finds a comfy bench to spend the first half hour at the gym searching "best workout for huge biceps." Our friend then proceeds with whichever routine is promoted by the biggest-looking dude. This hypothetical bro might be satisfied with the workout - he ends up with a sick pump, throbbing soreness, and maybe even struggles to get dressed the next day - but after several repetitions of this cycle with different body parts and routines, he gazes in the mirror disappointed with his underwhelming results. In the meantime, there are other guys getting bigger, stronger, and leaner quicker with what appears to be less effort.
I've spent my fair share of time in those shoes. Eventually I came to the realization that relying on "gurus" for advice wasn't getting me the results I wanted.
Before wasting another workout, I wanted to become clear on the biological modes of muscle growth.
Muscle Growth (Hypertrophy)
It’s intuitive that the goal of lifting is hypertrophy (growth), but what I found is that there are two distinct modes in which muscle grows:
1. Myofibril hypertrophy literally increases the size of the fibers that overlap to contract the muscle.
2. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy increases the amount of fluid (water, glycogen, proteins, creatine, etc.) surrounding the fibers.
In my experience, the vast majority of people interested in building muscle (me included) spend nearly all of their time with weights they can move for at least 10-15 repetitions, the only exception being a random “max out day” every month or so. What most people don’t understand is this rep range primarily leads to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The inherent issue is the amount of fluid your muscles can hold is dependent on the size of the fibers. Consequently, you must focus on stimulating myofibril hypertrophy, not just sarcoplasmic.
The not-so-appealing trick to growing the individual fibers of your muscles lies in the teeth gritting, vein popping, sweat stained world of heavy weight. It varies slightly from person to person, but the ideal range for myofibril growth is somewhere between 4-8 reps. This means to build significant amounts of muscle naturally, you must incorporate weights that cause you to fail at relatively low repetitions.
There still may be a place for the low weight and high rep work that everyone seems to gravitate toward, but it shouldn’t be the focus of your routine.
To learn which exercises are best to safely put your body in a position to push to near failure within each given rep range, take a look at my article on Compound Vs. Isolation Exercises.
I'm sure you have some experience, opinions, or questions about this! It’s your turn to let me know what you think!
What are your goals?
What’s holding you back?
What questions do you have?
Whatever is on your mind, connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or email informedfit@gmail.com.