«In order for lifting weights to result in significant hypertrophy, a stimulus must be applied frequently enough to create a new« environment », as opposed to seemingly random and acute insults on the mechanical integrity of muscular tissues »(The mechanics of Hypertrophy by Brad Schoenfeld).
In this article I will name the most sacred laws of hypertrophy according to Brad’s book.
1- Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (volume): If we only want to gain muscle mass, we must focus on a routine that is hypertrophy -8/12 repetitions to 3-4 series per muscle group.
2- Rest between series: 1-2 minutes
3- Training 4-5 times a week: The downside of taking a week off every time you train a muscle many of the acute responses to training such as increased protein synthesis, prostaglandins, IGF-1, and mRNA levels all return to normal in about 36 hours. So you spend 2.5 days growing and the rest of the week in a semi-anti-catabolic state getting back to normal (some people call this recovery), when research shows us that recovery can take place in 48 hours, even if a muscle is loaded again. The anabolism produced by training a muscle only lasts 2 days at maximum when the load is removed. The rest of the time you are simply balancing nitrogen retention without adding nitrogen to the muscle. By this rule it is that we must use routines of more than 3 training days a week.
4- Emphasize the eccentric portion: Control the weight on the descent (more mechanical tension)
5- Periodization (self-regulation): If you feel good, train hard – If you feel weak or tired, train a little softer . There is no use training super hard if our mental capacity is not prepared for this …
6- The principle of overload: If you train with the same amount of weight and / or repetitions in each workout, your muscles will no longer adapt (they will not grow). Therefore, you must increase the weight / sets / reps in some way for there to be a new adaptation.
7- Compound exercises: Compound movements are those that recruit the greatest number of muscle fibers. They are the basis of any training routine; the bench press, squat, and deadlift are the most common.
8- Train to failure = infrequent: Training to failure is a tool that we can use when training. We must use it infrequently (a maximum series for each muscle group). If we train to failure in all sets we can easily overtrain over time.
9- Use loads of 65% -85% of your maximum repetition (1RM)
10- The best training routine: Science tells us that there is no best training routine, this means that we do not It is useless to copy the routines that we see in magazines, nor those used by the best bodybuilders in the world. Each person is different, it all depends on our genetics, our level of physique and our capacity in training.
We have to create our own routine and evolve / test / change with it.