Bodybuilding - Size Means Strength? Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy vs. Myofibrillar hypertrophy

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (common in bodybuilding) involves the growth of the sarcoplasm (fluid like substance) and non-contractile proteins that do not directly contribute to muscular force production. Filament area density decreases while cross-sectional area increases, without a significant increase in strength.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy occurs due to an increase in myosin-acting filaments. Contractile proteins are synthesized and filament density increases (Zatsiorsky 1995). This type of hypertrophy leads to increased strength production. Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy Muscle fibers adapt to high volume training by increasing the number of mitochondria (organelles in the cell that are involved in ATP production) in the cell. This type of training also leads to the elevation of enzymes that are involved in glycolytic and oxidative pathways. The volume of sarcoplasmic fluid inside the cell and between the cells is increased with high volume training. This type of training contributes little to maximal strength while it does increase strength endurance due to mitochondria hypertrophy. Growth of connective tissue is also present with sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy occurs due to increases in the number of myosin/actin filaments (sarcomeres) inside the cell. This leads to increased strength and size of the contractile unit of muscle. Ultimately this means greater force production. This is often referred to as functional muscle, while sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is referred to as non-functional muscle. ATP and Muscular Growth as we said earlier, increasing the number of mitochondria in the cell means increased ATP production. ATP is required for protein synthesis to occur. Low levels of ATP will halt muscular growth as well as inhibit other metabolic functions that take place inside the muscle cell. Siff and Verkhoshansky have shown that it is possible to increase your muscles contractile unit faster than the mitochondria’s ability to compensate for this growth. When actin/myosin filaments out grow the number of mitochondria, growth of elements besides the sarcomere is inhibited. The insufficient quantity of ATP results in the body’s inability to promote protein synthesis.

Wheat and gluten can hurt you even if you don’t realize it and don’t test positive for celiac….

It’s interesting that Celiac can strike at any time, and that even if you don’t test positive, you could still have an allergy….and that your symptoms could be mild or severe…and that you may never know the damage gluten is - or is not causing you.

Celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that can appear at any age and is caused by an intolerance to gluten.

Cooper tested negative for celiac disease, but the doctor advised her to try a gluten-free diet anyway.

“Within a week of eliminating [gluten], I started to feel markedly better,” says Cooper, now 36, from Melbourne, Australia. “It wasn’t a gradual feeling better; it was almost a crossing-the-street kind of thing.”

In fact, experts now believe that celiac disease represents just one extreme of a broad spectrum of gluten intolerance that includes millions of people like Cooper with less severe — but nevertheless problematic — reactions to the protein.

While celiac disease affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, experts estimate that as many as 10 percent have a related and poorly understood condition known as non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI), or gluten sensitivity.

“Gluten is fairly indigestable in all people,” Leffler says. “There’s probably some kind of gluten intolerance in all of us.”

Experts now think of gluten intolerance as a spectrum of conditions, with celiac disease on one end and, on the other, what’s been called a “no man’s land” of gluten-related gastrointestinal problems that may or may not overlap.

Celiac patients can also develop headaches, tingling, fatigue, muscle pain, skin rashes, joint pain, and other symptoms, because the autoimmune attack at the root of the disease gradually erodes the wall of the intestine, leading to poor absorption of iron, folate, and other nutrients that affect everything from energy to brain function.

People with gluten sensitivity sometimes experience these far-reaching symptoms as well, though it’s less clear why.

How Much Of A Person's Body Weight Should They Be Able To Bench Press?

a 22 year old man must be able to lift 106 percent of his body weight to be considered average. If he weighed 200 lbs, he would have to lift at least 212 lbs. Men between the age 20 and 29 must lift 106 percent of their body weight for an average ranking and 148 percent for a well above average ranking. Men between 30 and 39 must lift 93 percent for average and 124 for well above average. Men between 40 and 49 must lift 88 percent for average and 110 for well above average.

Women between the age 20 and 29 must lift 65 percent of their body weight for an average ranking and 90 percent for well above average. Women between 30 and 39 must lift 57 percent for an average ranking and 76 percent for well above average. Women between 40 and 49 must lift 52 percent for an average ranking and 71 percent for well above average.

I thought I was strong for being able to bench my weight. Sadly I am average.

Marathons can hurt you more than they help you...

regular exercise reduces cardiovascular risk by a factor of two or three. But the extended vigorous exercise performed during a marathon raises cardiac risk by seven-fold!

it puts an extraordinary stress on your heart, one that your body was not designed for.

A related article talks about how older marathoners develop scar tissue in their hearts.

But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring [fibrosis]. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.

I believe that marathons are not the healthiest thing in the world, and I believe in doing traditional aerobic exercise and high intensity training as I posted about here.

try to “inflate” your stomach as you breathe in, while keeping your chest relatively still. Then contract your abdominal muscles on the exhale. Not only will this give you more oxygen per breath, it will eventually strengthen the diaphragm. A stronger diaphragm means you get more oxygen with each breath, so your brain won’t need to divert any away from your muscles, meaning that you get tired less easily. … A study on cardiac patients showed that this type of breathing leads to improved exercise performance and decreased shortness of breath, and it’s also been linked to lower blood pressure. This is the reason that so many coaches recommend breathing practice as a shortcut to sports-based superpowers.
When upright, most people are habitual chest breathers: We use a shallow form of respiration that makes use of only the top part of the lungs. In reality, most of the blood vessels that take up oxygen are in the bottom, neglected half. Since so much lung power is going to waste, we get less oxygen, and as a result, we’re all breathing more rapidly than nature intended us to.
Chest breathing also tends to upset the blood’s oxygen/carbon dioxide balance and can lead to headaches, fatigue, anxiety and even panic attacks. According to one expert, you’re also potentially suffering from sweaty palms, difficulty relaxing, heightened pain perception and general fatigue.
7 Basic Things You Won’t Believe You’re All Doing Wrong | Cracked.com

You actually can get large muscles from lifting light weights. Here’s how:

It turns out that lifting a weight that’s 90% of the maximum weight you can lift until you can’t lift any more (failure) is less effective at muscle building than lifting a weight that’s 30% of the maximum weight you can lift until you can’t life any more (failure). It turns out you lift the lighter weight a lot more times and that builds more muscle. here is that study: via

We report for the first time that low-load high volume resistance exercise (30FAIL) is more effective at increasing muscle protein synthesis than high-load low volume resistance exercise (90FAIL). Specifically, the 30FAIL protocol induced similar increases in MYO protein synthesis to that induced by the 90FAIL protocol at 4 h post-exercise but this response was sustained at 24 h only in 30FAIL. …  There were three groups: 90% 1RM to failure (90FAIL), 30% 1RM which matched the external work to the 90FAIL group (30WM), and 30% 1RM to failure (30FAIL). 

The fact is that most people when lifting a light weight don’t lift it enough times to reach failure, so that’s probably why this study is a bit counter intuitive.
The reality is if you push yourself to near failure any weight and rep combination, you’ll likely get results.