Muscle Growth

[HolyCrapItsWes]

When you work out, are you growing new muscle or are we all born with X amount of muscle fibers and have to build them as big as we can?

[Frosty]

We can grow more muscle fibers but most hypertrophy is just that...hypertrophy of existing muscle fibers. Like most assumptions about the body it seems, are wrong. Like they used to say you can't reduce the number of fat cells, or your brain can't regenerate or anything....all totally wrong.

[Nitro Fueled Barbie/Mel Marx]

What is the way for a woman to build muscle. I feel as though I have not put that much (if any) on in the last 3 years training. With all the cardio I do before the shows, I feel as though I am losing muscle.
Do I literally have to eat way more than I'm burning off and if so, what types of foods? Carbs? Red Meats? Fats?

[Frosty]

Increasing training volume over time is a good way to increase hypertrophy. The body is a biological organism that adapts the best it can to the stress placed on it. If you can give your body time and enough calories, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, etc, you can gradually increase training volume which places a higher demand on the muscular system. Higher strength plus more time under tension of the muscle fibers will equal greater hypertrophy.

Volume training used to be the way, then it was HIT, but I think the pendulum has swung too far in the one direction towards low volume. Do you really think you'll get more hypertrophy from 5 sets once a week or 20 sets per week if you gave your body the time to adapt to this volume?

[Nitro Fueled Barbie/Mel Marx]

I was under the impression to lift to exhaustion. Meaning 5 super heavy reps where the 3rd or 4th set you cannot do.
I train now with moderate weight 3 sets of 10 reps. I think that is maintenance. If I want to build size I think I'll have to do the first.

[Nitro Fueled Barbie/Mel Marx]

But then again I am looking to accomplish sarcoplasmic hypertrophy where several reps take play.
If I were to do the first option I would accomplish myofibrillated hypertrophy and pretty much be doing what a power lifter does.

[Frosty]

If you want sarcoplasmic hypertrophy you have to increase nutrient requirements of the muscle fibers. This is done by higher rep ranges, say 12-15, incomplete rest intervals, say 30-45s, and a large number of sets, say 8-10 for compound lifts or more. This really taxes the ability of the muscle fibers to supply enough energy for the contractions and forces adaptations by increasing nutrient storage in the muscle tissue for future workouts.

[freak]

what could be done to increase hyperplasia other then high dose gh?

[Nitro Fueled Barbie/Mel Marx]

Isn't hyperplasia bad? I can be wrong.

[Nitro Fueled Barbie/Mel Marx]

If training is started while the trainee is still in the growing stage, for example teenagers, hyperplasia is more likely to occur. This is because of the characteristically high HgH levels present during these maturation years. Some research theorizes that HgH combined with high-intensity exercise is capable of stimulating hyperplasia, at least in teenagers. Before you run out to obtain HgH you should be aware that this effect appears to apply only to immature individuals. Ironically, these are the very people that are most harmed by use of exogenous growth hormone. In teenagers it is likely to produce a sometimes grotesque disorder known as acromegaly. The only significant conclusion that can be drawn from this is that one of the hormones produced in the growth cycle plays a role in producing hyperplasia. It should be understood that in spite of all the bodybuilding press to the contrary, HgH does not produce hypertrophy. It isn't even anabolic. If it were, every teenager would have large muscles. HgH is a very effective fat burner and during the re-building process that takes place during sleep it burns fat to provide the energy for repair. HgH is also anti-catabolic while it is present in the system. This anti-catabolic function is, however, primarily prophylactic. The presence of HgH suppresses Cortisol release. In sum, HgH is lipolytic and anti-catabolic but not anabolic under normal conditions.



Looks like your answer is high gh levels.

[Frosty]

Loaded stretching is one thing that can help with hyperplasia. IGF-1 is also related to hyperplasia, and high protein diets increase IGF-1, but I don't know if it's enough.

I bet ThePhysicalTherapist may be able to help us out on this one.

[HolyCrapItsWes]

Doesn't IGF create satellite muscles? Someone had told me that once but wasn't sure if it was true or not.

[freak]

Doesn't IGF create satellite muscles? Someone had told me that once but wasn't sure if it was true or not.

satellite muscles?!?! bahahahahaha

[Strikerrjones]

Doesn't IGF create satellite muscles? Someone had told me that once but wasn't sure if it was true or not.

I think that IGF helps to activate satellite cells which then supply their nuclei to damaged muscle fibers. The more nuclei each muscle cell has, the more work it is able to do.

[Tatyana]

satellite muscles?!?! bahahahahaha

He is correct, just a small error in the terminology.

Satellite cells are small mononuclear progenitor cells with virtually no cytoplasm found in mature muscle. They are found sandwiched between the basement membrane and sarcolemma (cell membrane) of individual muscle fibres, and can be difficult to distinguish from the sub-sarcolemmal nuclei of the fibres. Satellite cells are able to differentiate and fuse to augment existing muscle fibres and to form new fibres.