Preface
I originally wanted to write about progressive muscle-building workout schedules, but many people have questions about muscle-building and hypertrophy menus and hypertrophy exercises, so I feel that there will be a lot of people asking more basic questions.
So, in this article, I will start from the basics, such as the relationship between volume, training volume, frequency, and muscle hypertrophy. I find it quite interesting, and it breaks down many traditional muscle hypertrophy concepts. The article will be accompanied by research and finally put together to maximize the effect of muscle hypertrophy by incorporating these muscle hypertrophy concepts into the class schedule.
I also wanted to mention the periodized muscle-building schedule in passing, but I was afraid that if I wrote too much at once, you would not be able to absorb it (plus I'm tired of typing XD), so maybe I'll talk about it next time. If the main goal is to pursue muscle hypertrophy, the progressive muscle-building schedule can accompany you for a long time.
Principle 1: Mechanical tension
When your muscle cells feel resistance when contracting, they will send out signals to help muscle synthesis, such as stimulating the AKT/mTOR pathway, which is a very important muscle synthesis pathway and stimulates protein synthesis.
Reference source:
* Key point: Mechanical tension is directly related to training intensity.
The more weight you lift, the more you will be stimulated. However, it does not mean that being overweight will prevent you from controlling tension and losing it. I would suggest that in your muscle hypertrophy schedule, there must be training with a relatively heavy weight. Each part of the body can find an exercise with a relatively heavy weight, such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, shoulder presses, and pulldowns, and then choose a set of weights to do 6 to 8 reps.
* Key point: Tension during eccentric contraction is very important.
More weight can be loaded during eccentric contraction, and eccentric contraction stimulates the length of fast-twitch muscle bundles. Eccentric contraction mainly targets thickness, so both eccentric and concentric contraction must be done well to achieve long and thick muscles.
I would suggest that you control the eccentric contraction of each movement and find an exercise for each part to target the eccentric contraction for high-intensity training.
Principle 2: Metabolic stress
When metabolites such as lactic acid, hydrogen ions, and creatine accumulate in muscle fibers, your cells swell. This swelling causes the muscles to strengthen their structure, resulting in muscle hypertrophy.
Principle 3: Muscle damage
When the muscle is damaged, it becomes inflamed, and then white blood cells and the like rush over and stimulate repair cells to help the muscle repair and become stronger.
Metabolic stress and muscle damage are still controversial.
The more recent point that everyone is advocating is muscle fatigue, which is what causes muscle hypertrophy. It means that the last few reps close to exhaustion are effective for muscle hypertrophy.
This was said by Arnold long ago, but more recent studies have confirmed this theory. The difference between the giant and the small is only a few reps. To achieve true muscle fatigue, you can combine some giant sets, decreasing sets in the training menu, etc. There will be training examples for everyone to see. Here, I would like to suggest that not every movement or person should be completely exhausted because there is a very important next point for building muscle, which is training volume and progressive weight increases if every movement and every set will cause problems with nerve pressure and the secretion of stress hormones. At the same time, the muscles will find it difficult to progress because they have been damaged too much, and it will also take too much time to fully repair them. Therefore, in the long term, it is difficult to steadily increase the training volume.
The concept and practice of muscle hypertrophy
In my first year, I just randomly exercised, but my body still improved a lot, with an increase in muscle mass and a decrease in body fat. However, for about a year and a half after that, I didn't make any progress at all because I just continued to exercise in the same way as I had randomly exercised in my first year.
It wasn't until I started to seriously arrange my muscle hypertrophy menu last year that I gained about 4kg of muscle mass in six months, and my strength improved a lot. This made me seriously realize the importance of a well-arranged workout schedule.
Let me first talk about the mistakes I made at the time. If you have done any of these, you can improve.
Always use a different workout schedule
changing the exercises, changing the order, changing the weight too much
not recording the weight, sets, reps, just working until you're exhausted (too many sets)
At the time, I had the wrong workout concept and method:
I didn't need to build up strength, just felt it.
Muscle hypertrophy means doing 8-12 reps for a set, so I only did 8-12 reps for each exercise
Each part should only be trained once a week
not more than four days a week.
Common basic terms in fitness
- Intensity: weight, usually expressed as a percentage of 1RM. 1RM is the maximum weight you can lift. For example, if your 1RM is 100 kg, 1RM - 80% intensity is 80 kg.
- Repetitions: How many times have you done a set? Usually, I call a weight that can be done 1-5 reps as high-weight low-rep training, 6-12 reps as medium-weight medium-rep training, and 13-20 reps as light-medium high-rep training. High reps = low intensity, low reps = high intensity.
- Training volume: How many exercises were performed in total? The calculation is based on the number of sets x reps x weight. 100 kg for five sets of five reps is 5 x 5 x 100 = 2500
- Frequency: How often a body part is trained in a week.
Progressive Weight Gain
Progressive weight gain is the key to ensuring that muscle building is the key to muscle hypertrophy.
Some of the easier progressive loads to achieve include:
- Increasing the weight (from 5 reps at 100kg to 5 reps at 105kg)
- Increased reps (from six reps at 100kg to seven reps at 105kg)
- Increase in sets (from 10 sets of an area one week to 11 sets the next week)
- Increase in training frequency (from one session to two sessions)
- Improvement in posture (from doing half of a movement to doing the whole movement).
The first four are related to training volume and can be changed from the retraining schedule, but the fifth is a must.
Relationship between muscle hypertrophy and frequency and training volume
Link to study: https://goo.gl/T4gbcF
It is often said that a set of 8-12 repetitions is the best repetition for muscle hypertrophy, but research has proven that as long as the volume of training is the same, a set of 4-20 repetitions has the same hypertrophic (muscle building) effect.
For example:
- 100kg doing 6 sets of 4 reps = 6 x 4 x 100 = 2400
- 60kg doing two sets of 20 reps = 2x 20 x 60 = 2400
- 80kg 3 sets of 10 reps = 3 x 10 x 80 = 2400
Most people think that doing ten reps will only build muscle, four reps will only build strength, and 20 reps will only build endurance.
However, as mentioned above, the volume of training is 2400, and the effect of muscle hypertrophy is the same. The difference is that doing 4-6 repetitions with a high load can increase strength. The higher the reps, the lower the weight, the more you can capture the sensation.
The general recommendation is to use fewer repetitions, higher sets, and heavier weights for multi-joint exercises for large muscle groups (squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and shoulder presses) to improve strength. Medium repetitions with medium weights are necessary as they mainly increase our training volume. Higher repetitions can be reserved for smaller muscle groups or mechanically for sensory training, small muscle group training, and the like.
Everyone has different genetics and needs different stimulation for muscle growth. Using exercises with a wide range of repetitions (4-20 sets) will ensure a wide range of muscle stimulation to ensure hypertrophy growth.
Male and Female Training Differences
The biggest difference between men and women is hormonal, so muscle building and recovery will be different. Most people think that it's harder for girls to build muscle, but in fact, no research says that girls are less effective than boys(1) (proportionally speaking). Most of the girls go to the gym or muscle is not much, mainly because of the wrong training methods, to put it bluntly, are in the mix (sliding machine, clip thighs machine, watching Korean dramas take bicycle).
Girls have 8-9 times more estrogen than boys, so they are usually better able to prevent muscle breakdown and repair muscles much faster than boys (2).
What's even better is that girls don't get tired as much as boys do(3). I often find that girls are sore after eight repetitions, but they can push themselves to 15 repetitions without any problem.
I have discussed this difference in training with Coach Martin. The main reason for this is that girls train at a lower intensity and volume than boys, so it's normal for them to recover faster, not because they can handle more training.
However, what we do know is that girls should be training more frequently than boys, especially if they are super-developed in the lower body. If you use the right weight training menu and push yourself, you will improve quickly.
If you want to build up a slimmer waist and a better butt, you can click on the link to check it out!
Muscle building results for men and women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3173042
Fast muscle recovery for girls: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20625191
Girls don't get tired easily: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2443327.
Frequency and distribution of muscle hypertrophy training menu
If you divide the same number of sets into two days, the muscle hypertrophy effect will be better than if you do it all in one day. For example, if you want to do 16 sets of chest exercises for the whole week, If you do eight sets on Monday and eight sets on Thursday, it will be more effective than doing 16 sets on Monday. My workout has improved rapidly since I changed from the bro split to the push-pull legs method, and the reason is that the training frequency has increased.
Here are some common split methods:
Training menu - bro split: chest - legs - arms - shoulders - back - rest
Advantages:
It can strengthen small muscle groups
Easy to learn
Disadvantages:
In low frequency, each body part can only be trained once
Muscle mass increases slowly
Training menu - Push and pull leg split: push-pull - leg - push - pull - leg - rest.
Push is: chest + shoulders + triceps
The pull is back + biceps
Legs are legs; you can add core training.
Advantages:
The frequency is high, and you can train each part twice a week
Train muscle groups with the same function together
It only takes about 40-50 minutes at a time
Strength and muscle mass improve faster
Disadvantages:
You need to train five or six times a week
It is easy to get too tired
You need to plan the number of sets
Training menu - upper/lower body split: upper body - lower body - rest - upper body - lower body - rest
Advantages:
You only need to train four days a week
It is frequent, with each part of the body being trained twice.
Disadvantages:
It may take a relatively long time at a time.
It is more difficult to target small muscle groups
Training menu - daily fluctuation training method: muscle hypertrophy day - explosive strength day - muscle strength day
Advantages:
Powerlifting triathlon, big power bursts
Muscle mass grows quickly
Disadvantages:
It mainly focuses on the three exercises and is difficult to target small muscle groups.
After selecting the division method, you need to assign the number of sets for each preset body part.
If you plan to do 18 sets of chest (chest press x 6 + upper chest press x 6 + incline chest press x 6) in a week,
the division method for the chest is to do all 18 sets in one day.
Other division methods are to split the 18 sets and do them separately.
In short, each split has its advantages. It depends on how many days a week you can train and what your main goal is.
If you have a training schedule that allows you to train five or six days a week, I would recommend that you use the push-pull leg routine.
If your schedule allows you to train four days a week, you can use the upper-lower split routine.
If you can train three days a week, you can use the upper body - lower body - full body routine.
If you want to improve your strength, a training menu that allows for daily variation is great.
Muscle hypertrophy: Muscle-building exercise options
Research link: https://goo.gl/9QAP6V
Multi-joint exercises and single-joint exercises have the same effect on muscle growth. The difference is that multi-joint exercises can stimulate many muscle groups at the same time, while single-joint exercises usually target a smaller part of the muscle group. Half of the people think that bodybuilding must involve squats and deadlifts, but many people also think that bodybuilding does not necessarily involve the training of large multi-joint muscles such as squats and deadlifts. I think that if you can do these big movements well and you don't have any injuries or aches and pains, then I would recommend them. The main reason is that these big movements are the easiest to slowly increase the weight and, at the same time, involve many muscle groups. Therefore, in the long term, they are of great help to the overall training volume and provide sufficient stimulation to the muscles. However, if you do certain movements and have good posture, you will still be prone to soreness; then it's fine not to deliberately practice them.
The movement selection starts with multi-joint movements. The exercise sequence usually starts with multi-joint movements using free weights and ends with machines.
Here are some great exercises (the first two exercises for each body part are recommended for the gym schedule):
Legs: Squat, Romanian deadlift, lunge, split squat, leg press (machine), leg curl (machine)
Back: Deadlift, row, pull-up, wide-grip pull-down (machine), straight-arm pull-down
Chest: chest press, upper chest press, bird-of-paradise chest press (machine)
Shoulders: shoulder press, side flat lift, pulley side flat lift, rear deltoid (machine)
Arms: biceps curl, triceps pulley, or pick one that feels the best to go down and practice.
The first movement for each body part is the most important, as it is a multi-joint movement (except for the hands) that involves the largest number of muscles. It is important for overall development.
When should you increase the weight?
If you have not been training for long, there is still plenty of room for strength improvement. Generally, it is recommended to use a heavy weight for a low number of repetitions. As long as the movement is correct, you can increase the weight as much as possible.
Medium weight and medium reps (8-10 reps per set) will maximize both sensitivity and strength. Low weight and high reps (12 reps or more) will maximize sensitivity.
For example, for three sets of squats with five reps per set, it is recommended that you do five reps for the first two sets and not exceed this if you have the strength.
For the last set, you can use all your strength until you are almost done (it is recommended to ask someone to help you). Then, record the number of reps.
If you can do more than six reps for the last set, you need to increase the weight next time. If you can do less than five reps for the last set, you can keep the weight the same next time.
If you can't do more than five reps for the first two sets, you can do an extra set.
Key knowledge about muscle hypertrophy
Progressive weight increase is the key to muscle hypertrophy
The right amount of training can ensure steady muscle growth. If it is too low, muscles will not grow, and if it is maintained, there will be no improvement. If it is too high, it will suppress strength improvement and cause the opposite effect of overtraining.
The optimal period for building muscle is between 3 and 10 weeks of the same workout schedule. The first two weeks are mainly for muscle repair, with less muscle hypertrophy. So don't change your weight training schedule too often.
Training the same part frequently is effective for muscle hypertrophy.
The hypertrophy effect is the same for the next 4-20 sets of movements. The lower the number of repetitions, the more significant the increase in strength. Therefore, it is recommended that when exercising, you use a low number of repetitions for the major movements (the four strength exercises) to improve strength. Small muscle groups can be trained with a high number of repetitions for a greater sense of accomplishment.
Progressive muscle hypertrophy muscle building schedule
Combine the above key points of muscle hypertrophy and arrange them into a weight training schedule to achieve rapid muscle strength and muscle mass gains.
How to arrange:
The principle of a traditional progressive schedule is to deliberately lower the training volume (or intensity, RPE, etc.) at the beginning of the cycle and gradually increase it to the maximum number of sets allowed within the next 8-12 weeks.
Advantages:
Maximizes the effect of progressive weight gain.
Allows muscles enough time to adapt to the schedule to achieve muscle hypertrophy
Stable increase in muscle strength
Stable increase in muscle mass, stable muscle gain
Achieve muscle hypertrophy with the perfect amount of training without overtraining
Feels smart
Disadvantages:
A bit of a hassle, need to keep track of a lot
Sometimes, you feel like you haven't trained enough and want to squeeze in a few more sets
The following schedule is designed to increase the number of sets to control the training volume:
Default length (weeks): Think about how long you want to spend on the same workout schedule. Usually, 8-12 weeks is good. Assuming we have a total of 10 weeks, the first two weeks can be used as an adaptation period, and the training volume can be slowly increased over the next eight weeks.
Find out your maximum number of sets. The number of sets used in the first week = maximum number of sets - half the default length. For example, if your maximum number of sets is 20 and the default length is ten weeks (the first two weeks are the adaptation period), then in the first week, you would do 20 - (8/2) = 16 sets.
Choose a division method, start with exercises with high CP values, and then distribute the number of sets.
Stabilize the training volume (do more, increase the weight, etc.) and add one exercise every two weeks.
Finally, remember to schedule a rest week in the weight training menu
For example:
Here is an example using a medium hand for weight training.
The default is ten weeks
, and the maximum number of sets is 20. The first week starts with an average of 16 sets, and you can train five days a week. Choose to train with the push-pull leg method.
Assign parts (one cycle in eight days)
Push: chest press x 3, upper chest press x 3, shoulder press x 3, side flat lift x 3, pec fly x 3, triceps x 6
Pull: deadlift x 3, lat pulldown x 3, wide grip row x 3, narrow grip row x 3, biceps x 6, rear delt pull x 3
Legs: Squat x3, Romanian Deadlift x3, Quad Machine x3, Core Training
Rest
Push: Shoulder Press x3, Upper Chest Press x3, Chest Press x3, Side Flat x3, Pec Fly x3, Triceps x6
Pull: deadlift x 3, lat pulldown x 3, wide grip row x 3, reverse grip pulldown x 3, biceps x 6
Legs: squat x 3, Romanian deadlift x 3, single leg press x 3, core training
Rest
Total
Chest: 18 sets
Shoulders: 15 sets
Back: 18 sets (not including the deadlift)
Legs: 18 sets
2nd and 3rd head: 12 sets each
Record the weight and number of repetitions. For exercises with a heavy weight and a low number of repetitions, try to steadily increase the weight. For exercises with a light weight, focus on the sense of feeling, and don't keep increasing the weight.
Add 1 to 2 exercises per body part every two weeks, starting with the ones you feel are weakest. For example, if you feel that your side and back triangles are weak, add one set of back triangle exercises and one set of side triangle exercises.
After ten weeks, arrange a rest week and rest for 3-7 days, depending on your physical condition. During the rest period, you can choose to reduce the intensity or not train at all. After the rest, switch to a different exercise schedule.