Maximum Hypertrophy

[Andro9]

Please don't move i didnt get any responses in workout forum. what do you guys make of this article. muscle science asked me where i got it, i dont remember so dont ask lol. Question is do you guys think this is accurate

The primary difference between the effects of rep ranges on the adaptive response depends on whether the load affects neural factors (low reps) or metabolic factors (higher reps).

When you train with low reps (1 – 5), the adaptations that make you stronger are mostly neurological: You develop an increased ability to recruit more muscle fibers, you stimulate the higher threshold fibers that are not activated with high rep, low weight sets, you decrease neuromuscular inhibition, and there is increased coordination between the muscle groups. However, with low reps, the hypertrophy (size increase) of the muscle fibers is minimal.

In other words, reps under 6 make you stronger, but they don’t necessarily make you bigger because the strength gains come from adaptations in the nervous system – the muscle fibers and other muscle cell structures do not hypertrophy (enlarge). This explains why certain athletes, powerlifters and Olympic lifters can be wicked strong but they don’t look as strong as they are.

When you train with medium reps (6-12) the adaptations are more metabolic and cellular and only moderately neurological. This is why 6-12 reps is the range most often recommended for bodybuilding and hypertrophy. You get bigger and stronger in this rep range, but your strength gains are not maximal. This explains why some bodybuilders look stronger than they are (and why they are often the brunt of jokes made by powerlifters and weight lifters; i.e. “big, weak, slow, useless muscles”, ha ha).

When you train with higher reps (13-20+), the adaptations are mostly metabolic and cellular. This rep range produces local muscular endurance, a small degree of hypertrophy in certain cellular components such as the mitochondria and the capillaries, and very little strength.

There is not a distinct line where neural adaptations end and structural/metabolic adaptations begin; rather it is a continuum, like temperature or colors of a rainbow.

For example, when you train in the 6-8 rep range, the adaptations are still somewhat neural, but also metabolic/structural: In this rep range, you get excellent strength gains and also excellent hypertrophy. In the 8-12 rep range, there is still some neural adaptation, but less than the 6-8 range and much less than the 1-5 range. The advantage of the 8-12 rep range is that you get maximal hypertrophy (this is the best rep range for pure size increases when strength is not the number one concern). You will also get stronger, of course, but not nearly to the degree as you would training with lower reps. Now, what exactly happens inside the muscle to make it get bigger and not necessarily stronger? Quite simply, ALL the structures inside the muscle cell grow when exposed to the appropriate training stimulus.

Remember back in high school when you had to memorize those diagrams of cellular anatomy (or you would get an F in the class)? There were all kinds of organelles and cell structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum, the mitochondria, the golgi complex, ribosomes, centrioles, Lysosomes, and cytoplasm. Remember all that stuff?

If you’re anything like me, you defied your biology teacher to explain the reason why you had to memorize all that crap and what good it would do you in the "real world." Well, now that you're in the "real world" and you want strength and muscles, here you go:

A muscle cell has all the same cell structures as other body cells, and they all take up space. When speaking of the muscle cell, you mostly hear about the mitochondria (the cellular powerhouse where energy production takes place), the myofibrils (the actual muscle fibers themselves) and the fluid inside the cell (called cytoplasm in other body cells, or in the case of the muscle cell, its called sarcoplasm).

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is caused most effectively in the 6-8 rep range. This contributes to the most visible increases in muscle mass and cross sectional width. However, that doesn’t mean you should only train in the 6-8 rep range. If you want to make the other "stuff" in the muscle cell grow as well, you should train in all rep ranges. The mitochondria and sarcoplasm also take up a substantial amount of space in the muscle cell and they are best stimulated with high reps. High rep training can also stimulate increased capillarization in the muscle (just ask former Mr. Universe and Mr. Legs himself, Tom Platz, about the effectiveness of high rep leg training done in addition to the low and medium rep training).

In addition, there is more than one type of muscle fiber: you have slow twitch (type I) and fast twitch (type IIa and IIb). Slow twitch muscle fibers also hypertrophy from higher reps (although they have the least potential for size increases, which is why you should spend more time below 13 reps if it's muscle mass you're after).

[MuscleScience]

No, its not completely accurate. There are things in the article that are true and others that are not right at all. There is no consensus in the literature right now as to what is more effective at causing hypertropy. It had been believed that the 6-12 rep range was the best, then a couple of papers came out that said rep ranges of 10-12 where best. Some papers have it between 3-5. If you read text book recommendations right now they will say that 6-12 reps is most effective for hypertropy per NSCA's Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, 2nd edition. If you look at the references they use. The newest one is from 1992, so not very recent.

[Andro9]

well, i guess i could have waited for responses in the workout forum lol. im really curious about this though

[Andro9]

thanks man ill look into it more

[MuscleScience]

thanks man ill look into it more

Shoot me a PM I have a paper you can read that might help you out.

[Phate]

Shoot me a PM I have a paper you can read that might help you out.

i get where your coming from, i have read a ton of books and papers on this and i've seen the same thing, the number of reps for "maximum" hypertrophy vary greatly, i think it just comes down to your body, i've read training logs from professionals and some, like lee priest, say they grow best on high rep high sets counts, while others are the opposite

[MuscleScience]

i get where your coming from, i have read a ton of books and papers on this and i've seen the same thing, the number of reps for "maximum" hypertrophy vary greatly, i think it just comes down to your body, i've read training logs from professionals and some, like lee priest, say they grow best on high rep high sets counts, while others are the opposite

Yeah I agree with you completely on that. I just learn what the text books tell me so I can still keep my certs, but when i train or devise programs I look at their progression and judge what changes need to be made based on their progress.

I try to stay very current with all the literature because I enjoy learning the new cutting edge stuff. Right now though it seems a lot of what the exercise field considered true has been re-examined my the most recent generation of exercise scientist and some very good and shocking papers are coming out pissing off the old guard.

[Phate]

i find it funny, no matter how much we know our body is always the final say as to how we train, lol, mine obviously doesn't like the books i read because half the stuff i read doesn't work well for me but does amazing for my friends, oh well, guess my body's as stubborn as i am

[MuscleScience]

i find it funny, no matter how much we know our body is always the final say as to how we train, lol, mine obviously doesn't like the books i read because half the stuff i read doesn't work well for me but does amazing for my friends, oh well, guess my body's as stubborn as i am

I had a better body when i didnt know shit about training, of course I spent all my time exercising my body for sports and what not. Now I look ok but I spend as much time training my mind as I ever did training my body back in the day.

[Phate]

I had a better body when i didnt know shit about training, of course I spent all my time exercising my body for sports and what not. Now I look ok but I spend as much time training my mind as I ever did training my body back in the day.

not a bad idea, the mind is the strongest muscle hands down, it has the power to control all other muscles and influence their growth and development or shut it down completely, have you ever read about the brain's subliminal ability to control how your body shapes itself and how you perform during sports regardless of your ability?

[MuscleScience]

not a bad idea, the mind is the strongest muscle hands down, it has the power to control all other muscles and influence their growth and development or shut it down completely, have you ever read about the brain's subliminal ability to control how your body shapes itself and how you perform during sports regardless of your ability?

I have read a little, I wish I could read more. The University I was at brought in a sports psychologist my last year there. I sat in a few of his lectures when he was interviewing and after he got the position I went to a few presentations he gave. From what I gathered from him was that that particular field was growing by leaps and bounds thanks to newer imaging technology and things of that nature. To be honest though I have never really had a grasp on the CNS and how it works. I am a cell physiology guy, so neural input is somewhat foreign to me.

If you have stuff on it I wouldnt mind looking at it, if you dont mind answering questions. LOL

[Phate]

i'll see what i have and pm it to you later, if i can answer them, not to sound like i'm bragging but your one of the few people on here that i think has a knowledge of physiology and the body at a cellular level that dwarfs mine

the guy was right about the field growing, i just wrote a huge research paper on neuroradiology and i found that it's influences on MRI and Nuclear Imaging is astounding

it might take me a while to find some of the stuff and load it but i'll try to remember to, it's pretty amazing, it talks about how your mind has logical and illogical process and the illogical believes everything you tell it regardless and what it is and acts it out

so by saying that your fat or you'll never see abs your unconscious believes the negatives your telling it and trys to change your body to produce those unresults

[MuscleScience]

i'll see what i have and pm it to you later, if i can answer them, not to sound like i'm bragging but your one of the few people on here that i think has a knowledge of physiology and the body at a cellular level that dwarfs mine

the guy was right about the field growing, i just wrote a huge research paper on neuroradiology and i found that it's influences on MRI and Nuclear Imaging is astounding

it might take me a while to find some of the stuff and load it but i'll try to remember to, it's pretty amazing, it talks about how your mind has logical and illogical process and the illogical believes everything you tell it regardless and what it is and acts it out

so by saying that your fat or you'll never see abs your unconscious believes the negatives your telling it and trys to change your body to produce those unresults

Man that would be great, you have really sparked my interest now. The brain is so immensely complicated, Its like the last frontier of the body as far as our knowledge of how it works.

[legobricks]

Ill have this moved to the workout forum.

[Phate]

Ill have this moved to the workout forum.

thanks lego

[Lemonada8]

Please don't move i didnt get any responses in workout forum. what do you guys make of this article. muscle science asked me where i got it, i dont remember so dont ask lol. Question is do you guys think this is accurate

The primary difference between the effects of rep ranges on the adaptive response depends on whether the load affects neural factors (low reps) or metabolic factors (higher reps).

When you train with low reps (1 – 5), the adaptations that make you stronger are mostly neurological: You develop an increased ability to recruit more muscle fibers, you stimulate the higher threshold fibers that are not activated with high rep, low weight sets, you decrease neuromuscular inhibition, and there is increased coordination between the muscle groups. However, with low reps, the hypertrophy (size increase) of the muscle fibers is minimal. The neural factors are true, but that is only when you first start to work out, after a while of training the change in neurological adaptations decreases and the muscles get stronger, along with the decreasing of coactivation of agonist and antagonist muscles, changes in the neuromuscular junction also slows down. So this is partially true because when you first start working out, there are neural factors but they decrease with time and training. you get bigger because of A) the fibers increase in size (fiber hypertrophy) and increase in number (fiber hyperplasia). Fiber hypertrophy - aka bloating and water weight increases more intensely on AAS, thats what the big noticable gain is consisted of... but along with chronic training, the hyperplasia increases. (hyperplasia is when the muscle fibers slipt in half with intense weight training and then each half increases to the size of the parent fiber)

In other words, reps under 6 make you stronger, but they don’t necessarily make you bigger because the strength gains come from adaptations in the nervous system – the muscle fibers and other muscle cell structures do not hypertrophy (enlarge). This explains why certain athletes, powerlifters and Olympic lifters can be wicked strong but they don’t look as strong as they are. why are all the strongmen competitors freakin huge? look key word "certain"

When you train with medium reps (6-12) the adaptations are more metabolic and cellular and only moderately neurological. This is why 6-12 reps is the range most often recommended for bodybuilding and hypertrophy. You get bigger and stronger in this rep range, but your strength gains are not maximal. This explains why some bodybuilders look stronger than they are (and why they are often the brunt of jokes made by powerlifters and weight lifters; i.e. “big, weak, slow, useless muscles”, ha ha). power lifters do look stronger than they really are but that doesnt mean they are weak by any sense... they just have minimal fat on the muscles, along with thin skin, this makes them 'pop' out more. and that also depends on their muscle fiber composition, everyone is different and this is mostly geneitc, although its true that muscle fibers can change types, but with training slow twitch (type I) will go to FOG (fast oxidative glyotic, type IIa) and FG (fast glyotic, type IIb) will go to FOG. however this change isnt that much.

When you train with higher reps (13-20+), the adaptations are mostly metabolic and cellular. This rep range produces local muscular endurance, a small degree of hypertrophy in certain cellular components such as the mitochondria and the capillaries, and very little strength. local muscle endurance is basically the increase of oxidative enzymes in the cell with better storage of muscle glycogen

There is not a distinct line where neural adaptations end and structural/metabolic adaptations begin; rather it is a continuum, like temperature or colors of a rainbowthis analogy makes no sense... there are neural adaptations however you train (hi reps or low reps, etc) and the muscle cells will gain increased oxidative enzymes for CHO's along with more fat oxizing enzymes....

For example, when you train in the 6-8 rep range, the adaptations are still somewhat neural, but also metabolic/structural: In this rep range, you get excellent strength gains and also excellent hypertrophy. In the 8-12 rep range, there is still some neural adaptation, but less than the 6-8 range and much less than the 1-5 range. The advantage of the 8-12 rep range is that you get maximal hypertrophy (this is the best rep range for pure size increases when strength is not the number one concern). You will also get stronger, of course, but not nearly to the degree as you would training with lower reps. Now, what exactly happens inside the muscle to make it get bigger and not necessarily stronger? Quite simply, ALL the structures inside the muscle cell grow when exposed to the appropriate training stimulus. on average, *i wish i could cut and paste a graph from a study done here* but they did with variable nuber of reps (2, 6, 10) and differing sets (1,2,3) this was done for 3 training sessions a week for 12 weeks, the greatest strength increase was from teh 3 sets of 6 at a strength gain of 33%

Remember back in high school when you had to memorize those diagrams of cellular anatomy (or you would get an F in the class)? There were all kinds of organelles and cell structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum, the mitochondria, the golgi complex, ribosomes, centrioles, Lysosomes, and cytoplasm. Remember all that stuff?

If you’re anything like me, you defied your biology teacher to explain the reason why you had to memorize all that crap and what good it would do you in the "real world." Well, now that you're in the "real world" and you want strength and muscles, here you go:

A muscle cell has all the same cell structures as other body cells, and they all take up space. When speaking of the muscle cell, you mostly hear about the mitochondria (the cellular powerhouse where energy production takes place), the myofibrils (the actual muscle fibers themselves) and the fluid inside the cell (called cytoplasm in other body cells, or in the case of the muscle cell, its called sarcoplasm). yes they do have the same but they differ in one big aspect, they have the myofibrils (actin, myosin) these proteins increase, resulting in greater stregnth and greater size) training will forcibly seperate these connections between the proteins, so the body produces more, so basically you get stronger

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is caused most effectively in the 6-8 rep range. This contributes to the most visible increases in muscle mass and cross sectional width. However, that doesn’t mean you should only train in the 6-8 rep range. If you want to make the other "stuff" in the muscle cell grow as well, you should train in all rep ranges. The mitochondria and sarcoplasm also take up a substantial amount of space in the muscle cell and they are best stimulated with high reps. High rep training can also stimulate increased capillarization in the muscle (just ask former Mr. Universe and Mr. Legs himself, Tom Platz, about the effectiveness of high rep leg training done in addition to the low and medium rep training). better capillarization = better blood flow = better oxidation of fuel sources = come from any training however, so you will have capillarization with any type of training

In addition, there is more than one type of muscle fiber: you have slow twitch (type I) and fast twitch (type IIa and IIb). Slow twitch muscle fibers also hypertrophy from higher reps (although they have the least potential for size increases, which is why you should spend more time below 13 reps if it's muscle mass you're after).One thing i want to add, when the do a cross section, the type IIb fibers are the biggest, and these fibers (fast twitch glycoloyic) are only activated when roughly 85%+ of the muscle fibers are activated, so by doing heavy sets with low reps this will activate these fibers and by them being activated they will grow.

another thing that has to deal with the increase of strength is periodization ( which is the changing of the sets/reps) this will keep the person from over training, and your body is a adaptive structure... hence muscle confusion is a big topic now...
and you train what you want to do, if you are a distance runner, you run and get better by that, if you want strength you lift heavy with low reps and incorporate some eccentric lifts (neg lifts)... it all depends on your goals and such... you want a ripped bod? you have a good diet and cardio, along with a good workout regiment...

overall a decent article, but i am thinkin they are talking to someone who starts to work out, not someone who has been working out...