Hypertrophy is the scientific term for muscle-building, and essentially it is used to describe the process of muscles repairing themselves more significantly and better than before. You might think that building muscle is a simple task – you have to lift heavy weights – but there is more to it than this. Read on to find out how muscle-building works and how to grow yours.
Making Tears in the Muscle
It sounds as though you might be doing something wrong with your training if you are making small tears in your muscle, but the truth is that this is what’s meant to happen. Every time you train, your muscle tears a little bit – it’s such a small tear that you won’t notice it, and it shouldn’t cause you any pain or limit your mobility. If you find you are hurt or can’t move your muscles properly, the tear could be much larger, which will often need medical care, so be aware of this.
With the more minor tears, the process of repair starts immediately. However, rather than simply repairing the muscle to its state before, the new muscle is bigger and stronger. This is hypertrophy – you make tiny tears in the muscle to ensure the muscle grows bigger.
How Does the Repair Process Work?
Muscles are made up of many fibres connected within the tissue. Most of the time, your muscle will contract and expand as needed. Still, if it suffers ‘trauma’ (which is essentially what happens when you work out) and is used unusually, tearing a little, as we mentioned above, your immune system will instantly trigger an inflammatory response. As a result, your body will work on repairing the muscle.
While this is happening, large quantities of testosterone will be released in your body, as well as growth factors. These two types of hormones will work together to make the repairs in your muscles much stronger. The testosterone will trigger protein synthesis, which means protein molecules are created to work on repairing the damaged muscle, and the growth factors get to work on thickening the muscle to make it stronger in the future. Thus, after working out for a long enough time, your muscles will be bigger and better than they were before.
What Are the Best Ways to Strengthen Muscles?
There is a fine line between doing what is needed to set this repair and growth process into action and doing too much and damaging your muscles in a way that hurts and takes longer to repair. This is why one of the best ways to begin strengthening your muscles is to buy your own set of Mirafit dumbbells.
Dumbbells are an ideal way to work on your muscle strength, as you can do dozens of exercises with them (working not just the arms, but your legs, core, shoulders, and much more besides), plus they are easy to keep at home and use when you have a few spare minutes. As well as this, you can add more weight to your dumbbells, so you gradually increase your muscle endurance.
