Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here. If you think that
Speaker 1: getting stronger means slinging around the most iron possible at
Speaker 1: the local gym, and think again. If you think of
Speaker 1: building muscle is only for buff guys and tight tank tops,
Speaker 1: think again. And if you think the term hypertrophy is
Speaker 1: too science to even say for your own health and
Speaker 1: well being, you again need to think again. Hypertrophy is
Speaker 1: an enlargement of existing cells that leads to an increase
Speaker 1: in the volume of bodily tissue. For our purposes, hypertrophy
Speaker 1: is an increase of muscle tissue. In other words, building muscle.
Speaker 1: Don't back away, don't shake your head and mutter that's
Speaker 1: not for me. Building muscle is for everyone at just
Speaker 1: about every stage of life. It's a critical part of
Speaker 1: staying healthy, and you don't need to pump iron to
Speaker 1: do it. You don't need bulging veins, you don't even
Speaker 1: need to know the difference between a trapezis and adultoid.
Speaker 1: You just need to work your muscles. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Brad show Enfeld, a renowned fitness expert who has published
Speaker 1: more than a hundred papers and academic journals on exercise
Speaker 1: and sports nutrition. He said, it's not only growing muscle,
Speaker 1: it's losing muscle. If you don't resistance train, whereby you're
Speaker 1: looking to build muscle, it's really a static choice because
Speaker 1: you end up losing muscle. A resistance training is simply
Speaker 1: working your muscles against some kind of resistance. That resistance
Speaker 1: can come in the form of weights or stretchy bands
Speaker 1: commonly called resistance bands or exercise bands, or even your
Speaker 1: own body weight. If you're doing a push up, you're
Speaker 1: using your body weight to force certain muscles to work,
Speaker 1: and that counts. Schoenfeld said. After about the age of
Speaker 1: thirty five, the average person who's not lifting weights is
Speaker 1: gonna lose roughly a half percent of their muscle mass
Speaker 1: per year, and that percentage starts to accelerate when you
Speaker 1: get into your late fifties early sixties, and then it's
Speaker 1: exponential after that. So what's the big deal with losing
Speaker 1: a little muscle? Being physically active, which by definition means
Speaker 1: building and maintaining healthy muscles, improves mental health, lowers the
Speaker 1: risk of stroke, improves cognitive function, improves sleep, increases joint flexibility,
Speaker 1: and improves balance. Thereby reducing the risk of falls in
Speaker 1: the elderly, and that's just a few benefits. Stronger muscles
Speaker 1: help strengthen bones and control blood sugar and cholesterol levels,
Speaker 1: thus building muscle. Muscle hypertrophy is a much researched subject,
Speaker 1: and over the course of history, recommendations based on that
Speaker 1: research have changed. The key question is how to most
Speaker 1: efficiently build muscle given a few variables, such as the
Speaker 1: number of repetitions or reps, and the number of sets
Speaker 1: of any particular exercise. A set being a predetermined number
Speaker 1: of reps, so ten reps of say push ups maybe
Speaker 1: one set. An exercise program may call for more than
Speaker 1: one set of that single exercise. The level of resistance
Speaker 1: or the load, say the weight on a barbell in
Speaker 1: the gym, or the attention in a resistance band or
Speaker 1: your body weight if you're doing push ups is certainly
Speaker 1: a factor too. Schoenfeld said, I think there are misperceptions
Speaker 1: about what actually builds muscle. A lot of times people
Speaker 1: think they have to lift heavy weights to build muscle.
Speaker 1: There's actually a lot of good research showing that muscle
Speaker 1: growth can be developed over a wide array of repetition ranges.
Speaker 1: So throw out the old notion that heavy weights build
Speaker 1: strength and lots of reps somehow tone the muscles. You
Speaker 1: can get equally full muscles without pushing eye bulging weight,
Speaker 1: as long as you do enough reps that the final
Speaker 1: ones are challenging to complete. I think difficult, too impossible.
Speaker 1: In the end, the goal is too literally, on a
Speaker 1: cellular level, build more muscle. When muscles are exercised enough,
Speaker 1: cellular level damage occurs, triggering a process in which proteins
Speaker 1: are dispatched to repair or replace the damaged cells. That
Speaker 1: process builds on existing structures like myofibrils and sacomers, a
Speaker 1: bigger muscle is born. Of course, all of that is
Speaker 1: just so much science gobbled egook. For those sertned only
Speaker 1: with looking better at a T shirt or keeping their
Speaker 1: blood sugar from skyrocketing, or simply getting down the stairs
Speaker 1: without a hip shattering tumble. Hypertrophy can also just be
Speaker 1: doing enough exercise to be strong enough to get those
Speaker 1: jobs done. Schoenfeld said using weights is one of the
Speaker 1: best way to do it. The way that you're going
Speaker 1: to ultimately over time build muscle is by consistently challenging
Speaker 1: your body. But you can just do push ups, and
Speaker 1: other body weight exercises, things like squats, lunges or toastands
Speaker 1: that will at least early on, have positive effects on
Speaker 1: strength and muscle growth. Over time, it gets harder to
Speaker 1: challenge your muscles, but there's ways if you're inventive, that
Speaker 1: you can just use body weight or resistance bands. The
Speaker 1: National Institute on Aging suggests its strength building exercise session
Speaker 1: two or more days a week without working the same
Speaker 1: muscle group two days in a row. Everybody is different
Speaker 1: and finding out what works for you may require some experimentation,
Speaker 1: especially when you factor in other variables like diet. It's
Speaker 1: a good idea to consult a health professional before starting
Speaker 1: any new exercise or nutrition program. But the overall message
Speaker 1: on hypertrophy is clear. It's not something reserved for gym
Speaker 1: rats and wanna be Schwartzenegger's building muscle is crucial to
Speaker 1: good health and aging well for all of us. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other topics,
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