Muscular Hypertrophy Essay

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Muscular growth is when a muscle increases in mass and size. Muscular growth is also commonly known as muscular hypertrophy. Elizabeth Quinn defined “Muscular hypertrophy [as] a term for the growth and increase of the size of muscle cells.” (Quinn). Many people work hard to achieve muscular hypertrophy especially bodybuilders, football players, weight lifters, etc., but, how does muscular hypertrophy actually happen? For muscle hypertrophy, the muscle must undergo three basic stages: a stimulation in the muscle, also known as a contraction, stress which would cause microfiber tears or metabolic stress and then the muscle would have to repair itself. Also a muscles hypertrophy could also have factors that impact its success. Muscular hypertrophy …show more content…

There are two ways a muscle can hypertrophy: from micro tears in the muscle or from a metabolic stress. Microtears happen when the muscle goes through overloading stress or is continually contracted. Damage to the muscle fibers happens by creating microscopic tears on the muscle fibers, also known as micro tears, that then let out inflammatory molecules called Cytokines (Siegle). The Cytokines alert the immune system by releasing hormones (Insulin Growth Factor, Testosterone, Hepatocyte growth factor, Fibroblast Growth Factor) that activate the Satellite cells, also known as the muscle stem cells (Hongyi). The Satellite cells, which “are located between the basement membrane and the sarcolemma muscle fibers”(Hongyi), repair the microtears in the muscle fibers by fusing with the muscle fibers and sharing nuclei. Satellite cells actually only have one nucleus, but can replicate by dividing so, when it fuses together, it continues dividing and is able to share new nuclei with the muscle fibers (Hongyi). The muscle fibers use the nuclei to create more proteins and myofilaments (actin and myosin) to create more muscle cells. As it creates more muscle cells to fix the tear, the muscle hypertrophies, grows in size. When a muscle goes through reparation of muscle fibers, it actually strengthens the muscle as well. To achieve this kind of muscle strength, specifically when weight lifting, the goal should be lower repetitions (one to two) with maximum overload or maximum weight someone can do (Quinn). The other way muscles can hypertrophie is by going through metabolic stress also known as sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Basicly, swelling happens around the muscle and the connective tissue (Sarcoplasm fluid in muscle cell) because of the addition of muscle glycogen. This is “one of the ways that people can get the appearance of larger muscles without increasing

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