Muscle hypertrophy aka hypertrophy is the increase of muscle size due to growing myofibrils (actin and myosin) within fiber muscle fibers.
As an athlete, our goal is to maintain lean mass to help improve personal performance, which was my goal in playing athletic sports such as baseball, basketball, football, track, etc.
Every athlete wants to be in their best physically to perform. So when I transferred into bodybuilding, the goal was the same with hypertrophy, just increasing lean mass and decreasing body fat to have that lean muscular appearance. 2 types of muscles can hypertrophy type I and type II muscle fibers more so in type II muscle fibers.
Benefits:
Building muscle mass creates more significant potential for developing maximal strength.
Therefore strength through resistance training and muscle hypertrophy helps decrease body-fat composition. This also helps to resting metabolic rate, physical activity, and the thermic effect of food. Resistance training causes an increased energy expenditure 24-48 hours following activity as well as during exercise. Increasing an individual’s muscle mass also results in an increased resting metabolic rate, which accounts for approximately 65-70% of an individual’s resting metabolic rate.
An individual’s percent body fat can be improved by inducing hypertrophy. Body composition is measured as a percentage of fat-free mass to fat mass. Ask your certified personal trainer to help track your body composition—a great tool to see improvements and changes in your physique. Personally, as an athlete and bodybuilder, starting training at a young age of 12 just to get stronger & through my teens all the way to college as an athlete, my goal was to gain as much lean mass as possible to be able to perform better physically on the field. Anyone that wants to improve can do this with hard work in the gym.
Summarizing the information, any person that is interested in getting stronger, performing better, whether it be on an athletic field or just doing the daily physical task of the day will benefit from a proper exercise program, including hypertrophy, as well as rest and adequate nutrition will also make you feel good with the bonus of looking good as well.
