Muscle Building Series with Matt Roberts – Part 1

With the summer now over and autumn upon us, some may consider a shift in priorities in regards to their training. A move away from fat loss and a move towards hypertrophy. This is a technical term for building muscle. The upcoming series will cover the training, recovery, nutrition and monitoring necessary in order to maximise the amount of muscle you build!

First up, let’s discuss some key principles pertaining to your training.

PRINCIPLE 1 – CONSISTENCY

Building muscle is a process that takes time and therefore requires a certain amount of consistency and persistence. Without this even the most advanced programmes will yield little to no results. Throw some consistency and persistence into a very basic programme and you have a recipe for success! This cannot be emphasised enough. The principles in this series will only serve you well when executed in a consistent manner.

PRINCIPLE 2 – PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD

One thing we know for sure is that hypertrophy responds well to volume (how much work completed in a session). Knowing this, implementation of a high (-er) volume programme will act as a stressor to which our body will adapt to by stimulating muscular hypertrophy. In order to continue this cycle we need to progressively increase stressor by adding more repetitions/sets/weight over the course of time.

PRINCIPLE 3 – VARYING REPETITION RANGES

In recent years, research has been published that has begun to dispel the notion that hypertrophy could only be achieved by lifting weights in the 8-12 repetition range. A landmark paper by Dr Brad Schoenfield identified 3 primary pathways through which hypertrophy is stimulated. The first two – mechanical tension (the amount of force a muscle exerts) and muscle damage (the soreness you feel the days after your training) – are typically induced by moderate to heavy loads and repetition schemes of 3-12. The third pathway is via metabolic stress, also known as “the pump”, where repetitions of 12-25 are used in order to push as much blood as possible into the muscle causing it to swell.

Other recent studies have also shown hypertrophy to be stimulated by repetition schemes as low as 3 and some as high as 25, with the authors also highlighting different pathways in which hypertrophy was triggered. All in all, it’s not to say that 8-12 repetitions won’t work but to suggest that we’re not limited to it, and that in fact utilising a variety of rep ranges is optimal.

PRINCIPLE 4 – EXECUTIVE SELECTION (100)

There is a never-ending plethora of exercises available. Yet often the simplest programme is the easiest to perform consistently and, if we refer back to principle 1, this is crucial. An easy way to approach exercise selection is to choose 1-2 large compound movements per body part for 4-5 sets of 4-6 repetition and follow this up with 2-4 accessory and isolation exercises utilising 3-5 sets of 8-20 repetitions. This will ensure a variety of repetition ranges is used satisfying principle number 2. We will go into more specific detail about which exercises are best for each muscle group but as that’s such a broad topic it deserves its own series!

IN SUMMARY:

Whatever you do, do it well and do it consistently, Look to progressively overload via an increase in reps/sets/load (whilst maintaining form), Use a variety of rep ranges. Make use of heavy sets, moderate sets and light sets of high reps, Choose 1-2 big compounds for the heavier sets and 2-4 accessory and isolation exercises for the moderate and lighter sets

By William McLintock and Tiago Ribeiro from the Matt Roberts City and Mayfair clubs