Hypertrophy

Do you want to understand the mechanisms by which increases in muscle size are triggered?

Would you like to know how to write training programs that lead to maximum gains in muscle mass?

In this short book, Chris Beardsley gives you a theoretical framework to help you achieve all of this.

The book is divided into four sections.

The first section provides a radical new explanation for the mechanisms of hypertrophy that rests firmly upon the basic and most fundamental principles of muscle physiology. Currently, many researchers believe that muscle growth is caused by three mechanisms (mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage). This section explains why it is unnecessary to hypothesize roles for metabolic stress and muscle damage, and why mechanical tension is solely responsible for muscle growth, even when it is achieved by using very light external loads, because such loads can still cause very high mechanical tension on individual muscle fibers through the interactions of fatigue and the force-velocity relationship.

The second section interprets the most important concepts of hypertrophy training in the light of this framework, including training volume, time under tension, and progressive overload.

The third section covers the key training variables for any program, such as load, volume, frequency, exercise order, contraction mode, tempo, rest period duration, range of motion, proximity to failure, the mind-muscle connection, and the use of advanced techniques such as pre-exhaustion, forced reps, drop sets, and super sets. Other topics covered include what happens when we take breaks from training, periodization, and the interference effect of concurrent aerobic exercise.

The final section addresses the fundamental principles of exercise selection for muscle growth, which allows strength training programs to be designed in such a way as to maximize growth of individual muscles.