796 Shares The physique does not always represent the power it is supposed to be capable of, and vice-versa. As much as a bodybuilder looks jacked, more often than not he is not nearly as strong as you might think. They rarely if ever focus on functional hypertrophy. In fact, I’ve seen three Mr. Olympia contestants, in the off-season when they are strongest, who could not bench press 315 pounds for six reps – not exactly NFL standard! On the other hand, if you are in a sport with weight classes and either need to improve your performance by being stronger or want to move up a weight class, every pound counts. So better make this functional hypertrophy, or in other words hypertrophy that comes from the contractile part of the muscle cell.

Although most athletes simply want to jump into a workout that will help them build muscle mass and strength for their sport, it’s important to understand that there are many types of hypertrophy. What type of hypertrophy an athlete should focus on depends upon the nature of the sport – which means the training protocols of the reigning Mr. Olympia or even the legendary Arnold (as amazing and innovative as he was as a bodybuilder) may not be the best training protocols for every athlete. What You Hypertrophy Is What Matters Most The truth of the matter is that the methods used by many professional bodybuilders often do not produce the desired gains in strength and power specific to most sports. This is the difference between functional hypertrophy and non-functional hypertrophy.

Aug 1, 2016 - Find more articles and videos by Charles Poliquin at T Nation. Charles Poliquin 07/22/09. Charles Poliquin answers your questions about arm training. Check it out. Can you do high reps for hypertrophy? Is the leg press.

Functional hypertrophy, also called myofibrillar hypertrophy, is the increase in volume of the contractile elements of the muscle cell. They will thus be able to “pull their own weight”, so to speak. Non-functional hypertrophy is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. It comes for the increase in volume of the cell itself, but not from the contractile elements. The cross-section increases comes from stored fuel like glycogen, capillary density etc.

Of course, gains in both strength and muscle can happen, especially with beginners. Microsoft windows 7 sp1 rdp concurrent sessions enabler multi-na. This contributes to further the confusion, as for the beginner gains are easy to come. For a more advanced athlete, especially one limited by a weight category, the focus for increased strength must be neural adaptations and functional hypertrophy. Let’s take an example of a high school strength coach who is training a freshman lineman who is a novice at lifting weights. If he simply putting him on a standard bodybuilding program with basic movements such as presses and squat variations, he may make him a better athlete. But even though most likely he will run faster and be able to block and tackle more aggressively, very quickly these standard training methods will lead to a point of diminishing returns compared to other training protocols. More mass will not bring more strength.

Coach Poliquin showing former world champion in freestyle wrestling Les Gutches a new training method for functional hypertrophy Breaking Down Muscle Fibers Yes, there are some strong bodybuilders out there, but for them to focus on getting as strong as other athletes such as weightlifters would take away from their ability to develop as much muscle mass as possible. Likewise, for weightlifters to develop as much muscle mass as possible would take away from their ability to be as strong as possible for their respective weight class; and it would be even more detrimental for weightlifters in the non-super heavy category, as their success is based upon being as strong as possible while being as light as possible. Many sports require that athletes develop high levels of absolute strength, and these strength gains will result in increases in muscle mass. Powerlifter Roger Estep certainly knew a thing or two about functional hypertrophy, having built his muscle mass with multiple sets of 1 to 5 reps But for best results this strength should be functional.

From a neuromuscular standpoint, functional programs increase the neural drive to the muscles, improve the synchronization of motor units, increase the activation of contractile apparatus, and decrease inhibition of protective mechanisms of muscle. In layman’s terms, a functional hypertrophy program contributes more to the athlete’s power output and less to their ability to look good at the beach. This comes in part from the type of muscle fibers one choose to hypertrophy via his programs and periodization. It is commonly accepted that there are 3 types of muscle fibers • Type I – High endurance, low force output; runs mostly on the aerobic (oxidative) system • Type IIa – Somewhat tolerant to endurance task s, average/high force output; runs on the oxidative/anaerobic systems • Type IIx (formerly IIb) – Low endurance, very high force output; runs exclusively on the anaerobic systems This is a generality however, as science has identified up to 47 different types of muscle fibers with different characteristics.