Ep. #364: The Definitive (and Practical) Guide to Muscle Hypertrophy

Muscle hypertrophy is a confusing subject.

Hell, it’s a confusing word. How do you even say it?

(Hi-PUR-trophy).

And what does it mean, exactly?

(It’s the technical term for muscle growth.)

Some people say that the best way to stimulate muscle hypertrophy is to use different rep ranges to develop different kinds of muscle fibers.

Some say that there are different kinds of muscle hypertrophy—"myofibrillar" and "sarcoplasmic"—and if you aren't emphasizing both in your training then you're leaving gains on the table.

If you want bigger muscles, you're told, you want to maximize sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and you do that by training with light weights and high reps, supersets, and so forth.

And if you want stronger muscles, you want to maximize myofibrillar hypertrophy, and you do that by training with heavy weights and low reps.

Then, others say that muscle hypertrophy is almost entirely genetic. They say your DNA determines whether you can build a lot of muscle or not, and how you train isn't going to make much of a difference one way or another.

Then, of course, almost everyone says that cardio is horrible for muscle hypertrophy.

When I started working out, I was your average tall, skinny dude, and for the first one and a half years, I followed run-of-the-mill bodybuilding magazine workouts.

It kinda worked. By the end of this period I was, uh, a little less skinny?

Fast forward about five and a half years, and while I had gained a fair amount of muscle along the way, it wasn’t exactly what I would have expected for seven years of dedicated weightlifting.

So I decided to educate myself on the real science of muscle and strength gain and implement what I had learned.

And in this podcast, I’m going to share with you the key lessons I’ve learned so you can follow in my footsteps.

Let's get to it.

6:14 - What is muscle hypertrophy?
7:31 - What are the two kinds of muscle hypertrophy?
15:16 - Can you grow new muscle cells?
19:58 - How do you increase muscle growth?
21:29 - What are the muscle fiber types and how do they affect muscle hypertrophy?
28:11 - How does strength training affect muscle hypertrophy?
33:05 - How does your diet affect your ability to gain muscle?
37:12 - How do genetics affect muscle hypertrophy?
40:28 - How does cardio affect muscle hypertrophy?
45:20 - What is the best way to stimulate muscle hypertrophy?

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