Warrior Blog

 Hypertrophy - Repetition Range You're on a mission to gain size and muscle mass in the gym!  So - what does your workout look like?  How many reps are you doing inside your workout support maximal muscle hypertrophy?  Let's start with the general rule of thumb... for hypertrophy results, you want to be pushing a weight that allows you to complete 8-12 reps of each selected exercise.  If you lift heavier than that, you'll be building more strength / power.  If you lift lighter and get more than 12 reps, you start to move into building muscular endurance.  Nothing wrong with either of these ranges - they just aren't aligned with your hypertrophy goals. Next - you want to take on creating and periodizing your hypertrophy phase to keep your muscles reacting to the stress imposed by the workout.  You don't want to take on the same exercises / workouts over your whole building phase - you'll plateau out.  Consider taking on a 12-week Hypertrophy b...

Hypertrophy - Expectations & Goals So you've set your sights on muscle gains! What should you expect - how does the human body respond to hypertrophy training - were we are intentionally working to damage, repair and grow our muscle tissue? As with most external stressors, our bodies respond and react differently to the stress of hypertrophy training over time. You will greater gains in the early phases of your training period. We reference this as your "training age". During your first 6 months of training, if you're working a rigorous hypertrophy program, you can expect to gain 2 1/2 pounds per month for males and 1 1/4 pounds per month for females. As you progress on in your program, during months 7 - 36 you could expect to gain 1 pound per month for males and 1/2 pound per month for females. As you become a more experienced lifter, beyond 36 months of progressive overload training, you can expect to add 1/2 pound of lean muscle mass per month for males,...

 Hypertrophy - Muscle Mass Strategy Are you out to pack on more muscle?   Have you got plan in place to achieve that goal? There's more adding lean muscle than showing up every day at the gym.  You want to take on a targeted program design to maximize lean muscle gains.  This includes an exercise program that progresses weekly to break down muscle and promote both muscle cell repair / growth and new muscle fibre creation! It also includes a nutrition program that is geared towards hypertrophy.  In order to build lean muscle mass you need a calorie surplus - your body needs more energy than maintenance level in order to create.  Here's the critical part - you want to make sure your program is designed to provide "extra" calories without providing "too much"!  The goal here is lean muscle gain, without packing on fat at the same time.   You'll always gain some body fat as the lean muscle is added - and we want to keep that to a minimal lev...