Hy-PER-Tro-Fee?
Hyper-Trophy?
Make muscles get bigger?
However you say it, it's a big part of what my clients want.
As an Everyday Athlete, muscle gain is a big part of the big picture.
The Everyday Athlete wants to be strong, be able to apply large amounts of force, and be resilient to all the training we want to do.
Muscle mass plays a large role in achieving those goals.
Plus, you want to have an engine and be able to go harder for longer when being active outdoors in our chosen sport or endurance activity.
But the Everyday Athlete wants to carry do so while carrying some valuable muscle mass that identifies you as both strong AND fit.
It's not a sole aesthetic goal like a true bodybuilder, but it remains a goal for the Everyday Athlete.
So here's how I'm programming hypertrophy work for my clients around the contrasting demands of getting stronger, and fitter, while gaining some size along the way.
Mechanisms Of Hypertrophy
By now you'll know that I like to relate things back to what the science says.
Because the Everyday Athlete has a lot of different things to do, so they need to be efficient in doing them. This means we're only really interested in what's proven to work, and get us to where we want to be with the least wasted effort.
A great place to start is with understanding the mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy (gains).
Brad Shoenfeld is a guy at the forefront of hypertrophy research. His paper on the mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training states there are 3 main factors that drive muscle hypertrophy.
Mechanical Tension
Metabolic Stress
Muscle Damage
Mechanical tension is a combination of force generation and muscle stretching/lengthening (i.e. lifting weights in a forceful but controlled manner).
Metabolic stress is caused by metabolite accumulation in a muscle through prolonged repeated use (training close to failure in a given rep range).
Muscle damage is a good thing when done to the correct extent, and causes localised increases in growth factors and to repair and grow the damaged tissues.
So we need to prioritise these 3 factors when targeting a hypertrophy response, and chose exercises, sets, reps and tempos which increase the chances of these outcomes.
Considerations
Now we know what we need to prioritise, we now need to get our dosing and timing right.
As an Everyday Athlete you're not aiming to look like a behemoth or full time bodybuilder. That would swamp our training time and compromise our other training goals with excessive soreness and bodyweight.
So we're looking more for the minimum effective dose of hypertrophy work to fit alongside our strength and endurance work.
I know it doesn't sound exciting, but focus more on the "effective", and less on the "minimum". You will get bigger, and it'll allow you to do other things at the same time.
And we also need to be smart with our timing, because alongside high mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage often comes soreness and high recovery demands. And we don't want this to affect our heavy strength and power work.
I'm currently placing hypertrophy work at the back end of a training week for this reason, away from the heavy strength work early in the week, and closer to but prior to the zone 2 endurance work that will be slow and steady regardless of soreness and fatigue. This goes alongside the current consensus that endurance exercise post resistance exercise does not negatively affect the hypertrophic response.
Week Structure
With the variables I'm considering in mind, here is how a training week might look for a 5x p/w Everyday Athlete. Items in BOLD CAPS are the main focus of the session, lower case are the secondary focus.
Day 1: STRENGTH/Anaerobic Conditioning
Day 2: ZONE 3/4 CONDITIONING
Day 3: HYPERTROPHY/Strength
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: ACCESSORY/Hypertrophy
Day 6: ZONE 2 CONDITIONING
Day 7: Rest
So we have two potential doses of hypertrophy training, with the associated strength work on day 1 which will also contribute.
Within those sessions, day 3 is the main dose as it follows the higher intensity work on days 1 and 2, and precedes a rest day.
Day 5 is a second dose prior to zone 2 work which will be less likely to be affected by fatigue, as we're trying to produce fatigue as an aim to the session anyway. If day 5 needs to be done in a fresher state, day 5's hypertrophy work can either reduce, or focus away from areas to be used in day 6 (i.e. upper body hypertrophy prior to long slow run).
Session Structure
As this is a 3x per week lifting layout, you're likely looking at a full body approach to the lifting sessions.
Day 3's hypertrophy work will likely include:
1x Lower Body Push (e.g. squat/lunge/split squat)
1x Lower Body Pull (e.g. RDL/hip thrust/stiff leg deadlift)
1x Upper Body Push (e.g. bench/overhead press/incline press)
1x Upper Body Pull (e.g. pull-up/bent over row/single arm row)
Plus a little bit of vanity arms and abs at the end.
Day 5's hypertrophy work will be determined more by the athletes weaknesses, and be built into their accessory work to improve those weaknesses whatever they may be (because more muscle is always the answer right?).
Exercise Application
Finally, we get to how I'm actually applying these movements to promote the mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage that we need to effectively grow muscle.
Remember I'm doing this with a minimum effective dose approach to allow energy and recovery for the other aspects of the Everyday Athletes training.
Currently I'm programming a lot of final set "intensification" methods to get as much out of one set of an exercise as possible. It will look like:
2x8-10 (RPE 7)
1x Intensification Set (RPE 9.5)
With the intensification set being one of:
Iso Reps (reps interspersed with isometrics)
Tempo Reps (exaggerated eccentrics and isometrics)
Rest-Pause (sets extended by momentary pauses)
Dropsets (sets extended by reducing load)
All of these approaches are great for promoting muscular tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage which in turn drive your hypertrophy gains.
You'll be aware you've done it with one hard set per muscle group, but you won't be sore for a week and unable to use your body for other exploits after this kind of session (unless it's your first time... sorry).
Which is why I'm programming hypertrophy work this way for my Everyday Athletes.
And they're getting bigger, but also stronger, and also fitter.
They're prepared for all things.
Ian.