Muscle hypertrophy is one of the many adaptations that result from resistance training. However, there are specific training variables that we can manipulate in order to get as much muscle hypertrophy as possible from our resistance training programs. A hypertrophy-focused program certainly will provide us with the other benefits of weight training, such as increased strength, power, speed, and overall health. However, these recommendations are going to be specific to someone trying to maximize their muscle growth as much as they possibly can. So what are some of the training principles we can manipulate for muscle growth?

Progressive overload

Progressive overload is the most important principle when it comes to hypertrophy training. Progressive overload is simply the act of putting your muscles under more tension than in the previous workout. There are many ways we can increase the tension applied to a muscle in a single workout.

These include: Doing more reps of the same weight Doing more sets of the same weight Doing more weight Increasing the Range of motion of each set Doing each rep with better execution thereby putting more tension on the target muscle each rep.

As you can see, there are many ways to progressively overload resistance training. The beautiful thing is that progressive overload typically happens naturally. What I mean is that when we train properly and recover properly in between each workout, we will get stronger. Therefore during the next workout, we can do more weight or more reps of the same weight.

Frequency

Training frequency refers to the number of times per week you train a single muscle group. Training frequency is just the way that we distribute the total weekly volume of exercise we do for each muscle group throughout the week to allow for the best recovery and performance.

As long as we do the same amount of sets over the duration of the week, the training frequency isn't the most important variable. However, a training frequency of only once a week will likely not give us the results we are looking for. This is because when we do all of our sets on one day a week, we are doing so much volume in a single workout that our performance in the sets closer to the end of the workout is subpar to our performance in the sets at the beginning of the workout. However, if we increased our training frequency to at least twice per week, this gives us sufficient time to recover between workouts in order to get better workout performance over all of our sets throughout the week.

Muscles typically take 48-72 hours to fully recover. This means once they are fully recovered we have the ability to progressively overload during the next workout. And remember, progressive overload is the most important variable when it comes to muscle hypertrophy. The more often we can get in the gym and progressively overload, the more opportunities we have for muscle hypertrophy.

Typically the more frequently we can strength train for a given muscle group the better. However, we need to keep in mind that we need to have enough time between each session in order to fully recover (48-72 hours) so that during the next workout we can do more sets, reps, or weights in order to progressively overload and cause muscle hypertrophy.

Exercise selection

We can split strength training exercises into two main categories. These are compound movements and isolation movements.

Compound movements

Compound movements are exercises that train multiple different muscles at one time and involve the movement of multiple joints. An example of a compound exercise is a squat, a bench press, or a pull-up.

Isolation movements

Isolation movements are exercises that only involve movement at a single joint during the exercise, and will typically only involve one or two different muscle groups. An example of an isolation movement is a dumbbell lateral raise, a bicep curl, or a calf raise.

We want to include both compound and isolation movements in our workouts for the best hypertrophy results. However, being that a compound movement istypically more demanding and difficult than isolation movements, it is beneficial to put compound movements at the beginning of your workout because we will become more fatigued throughout the workout, which could reduce our performance and execution of the more complex compound exercises. Isolation movements are not as energetically demanding as compound movements, so we can perform them at the end of the workout without seeing as much performance loss from the previous exercises. The general principle is to do the hard stuff first, and save the easy stuff for last!

In terms of exercise selection, there are no movements that we have to do. However, if we want to maximize our hypertrophy, there are some movement patterns that I would suggest we include in every workout program.

Lower body Squatting pattern (leg press, back squat, belt squat) Hip hinge (Deadlift, Romanian deadlift, good morning) Single leg exercises (lunges, Bulgarian split squats, single leg press) Upper body Vertical press (Shoulder focused pressing movement) Vertical pull (Pull up or pulldown( Horizontal pull ( Dumbbell row or machine row) Horizontal press (Chest focused pressing movement)

Theoretically, machines are going to be a better exercise selection than free weights because the machines have been designed with the purpose of putting under tension throughout their entire range of motion, and are designed to be more stable. However, free-weight movements are still extremely useful to increase muscle hypertrophy and help us learn to stabilize ourselves on our own.

The more stable and exercise is, the easier it is for us to take a muscle group to muscular failure, which will provide us with the tension required for muscle hypertrophy.

Volume

Volume is the amount of work you do for each muscle group each workout, and over the entire week. I like to think about volume in terms of how many hard sets you did for a workout and throughout the week.

The reason I think of it this way is because the volume is typically calculated using the formula:

Reps×sets×weight

However, when it comes to muscle hypertrophy, a set of six taken to muscular failure provides us with the same results as a set of 20 taken to muscular failure. Therefore, I use the number of hard sets, regardless of the rep range, to calculate my total weekly volume.

The research seems to indicate that we want to do 10 sets at the minimum per week per muscle group. For the most part, the more volume we can do, the more hypertrophy we will get. However, when we begin to do more than we can recover from, then more volume no longer provides us with more muscle growth. Thus, the best volume is as much volume as one can personally recover from. This will typically be between 10-30 sets, and this will vary depending on how intense each one of your sets is, which we will discuss in a moment.

Volume doesn't always have to be equal between each muscle group. Some muscle groups can simply recover better than others. For example, our shoulders and our calves can typically recover from more volume than our quadriceps or hamstrings.

Intensity

Intensity is how close a set is too muscular failure. The most intense a set can be is when we do as many reps as the muscle can possibly do. When we stop a set one rep before failure, this will reduce the intensity of that set. The farther away from failure a set is, the less intense it is.

In general, the more intense we train, the better it is for muscle growth. However, the more intense we train, the less volume we can do. Both volume and intensity are important, and we want to get as much of both of these variables as possible. The literature seems to indicate that there are similar results between being 0-4 reps shy of muscular failure, as long as we make up for less intensity (farther away from failure) by increasing our volume.

Because compound movements are more fatiguing than isolation movements, we would benefit from staying one to three reps away from failure for compound movements and can go to muscular failure more often on isolation movements.

Rep ranges

For the most part, the specific rep ranges that we choose to train in are not extremely important, as long as they fit into the hypertrophy rep ranges. The best rep range for muscle growth is between 5-30 repetitions, given that the set is taken 0-4 reps away from failure. As compound movements are also energetically taxing, the more repetitions we do the more likely we are to stop the set due to being out of breath or tired. To avoid this, we should do compound exercises in a lower rep range, so we know that it is muscular failure that is causing us to stop the set. We can use higher rep ranges for isolation movements because these movements do not require as much energy.

Execution

Execution describes how we perform each rep of every exercise. There are some important variables to keep in mind to maximize our execution in order to put the muscles under the most tension.

Range of motion

Range of motion is the length a muscle travels during a rep. The larger our range of motion, the more tension we place on the entire muscle. The more of a muscle we can place under tension, the more of that muscle will hypertrophy. Thus, the larger our range of motion, the more growth we will get throughout the entire muscle. Additionally, it is the stretching component itself that does appear to be important for muscle growth. When a muscle has a lot of tension placed upon it in a stretched position, this is actually one of the very complex signaling mechanisms that eventually leads to muscle hypertrophy.

Tempo

Tempo is the speed at which we move during a rap. Each rep has multiple different portions, and we can change our tempo during each portion. For example, we can use a 4-2 -1 tempo during each rep. This means that we take 4 seconds to lower the weight, pause at the fully stretched position for 2 seconds, and try to explode out of that position back to our starting position in 1 second. One of the mechanisms for muscle hypertrophy is time under tension. This means the more time a muscle spends with weight applied to it, the more muscle growth will typically occur. This is because time under tension is another way we can increase total volume. This increases the volume of each set we do. When we slow down our tempo, we increase time under tension.

The great general recommendations for tempo for resistance training is to take more time learning the weight, pause at the bottom, and explode out of the bottom by contracting the muscle as hard as possible.

Rest

When we do not take enough rest time between sets, it feels like we're doing more work. This is because we begin to get more fatigued. This can be a useful tool to increase cardiovascular fitness. However, when it comes to muscle hypertrophy the main focus is putting the muscle under as much tension as possible, and progressively overloading. This requires us to be as recovered as possible in between every workout, and every set. I rest between 3-5 minutes between each set of compound movements. For isolation movements, I only rest between 2-3 minutes simply because they are less fatiguing.