Gorbov A.M. Muscle Growth Secrets

Gorbov A.M. The secrets of muscle growth |
The most important principles of forming the strategy and tactics of the training process from the book "Comprehensive Powerlifter Training: Winning the Tournament" (2006) are proposed. These principles underlie any scientific scheme of athletic training..
1) For optimal physical development, training should include exercises involving various muscle fibers in the work. A muscle fiber is a giant muscle cell surrounded by a sheath - a sarcolemma, inside which contains a sarcoplasm, which includes intracellular elements - nuclei, mitochondria, myofibrils, ribosomes, etc. In turn, muscle fiber can be divided into two components - contractile (myofibrils) and energy (mitochondria).

2) To ensure both myofibrillar and mitochondrial (sarcoplasmic) muscle hypertrophy, an athlete must use various training methods in classes that cause specific adaptive processes in muscle fibers. The processes of adaptation to various inadequate conditions, namely, intensive power training, lead to the restructuring of the body's vital functions. It is especially important for us that in urgent adaptive reactions there is an increase in the formation of metabolites and hormones, as well as adaptive protein synthesis. Due to this, the functional power of working cells and their structures increases, that is, the fitness of the muscles and the body as a whole increases. Thus, all adaptive changes lead to an increase in muscle volumes and their strength, and they occur not during work, but during recovery.
3) The processes of muscle growth are triggered not by volume (duration), but by the intensity of the load: training should be relatively short and fairly intense.

4) There should be adequate rest between workouts so that unnecessary activity does not interfere with the unfolding processes of compensation and supercompensation. Compensation is the period of restoration of working capacity, reduced as a result of tedious work. Supercompensation is a period of increased efficiency. Supercompensation leads to a thickening of muscle fibers, an increase in muscle mass, an increase in the thickness of motor nerve fibers, the number of nerve branches, the number of myofibrils in muscle fibers, etc. All this is defined by the term working hypertrophy.
5) In order to prevent overtraining, as well as the loss of the phase of supercompensation and a decrease in physiological shifts, the volume and intensity of training should be varied by periods. If after maximum load light work follows (for example, jogging lasting about 20 minutes), then lactic acid is mostly oxidized in skeletal muscles and is used by the heart muscle. Then recovery is faster. In addition, lactate burns in slow muscle fibers, which are practically not subjected to stress during strength training, so such a run has a training effect, and you are more trained. A similar effect is achieved if the athlete performs the same work with less intensity in the next lesson, that is, during a series of trainings he builds the load in a wave-like fashion, giving himself the opportunity to recover. Of course, the ability to recover is largely genetically determined, but highly qualified or trained athletes recover much faster than less trained ones. So recovery processes are also trainable.
6) In order to ensure hypertrophy of muscle fibers, an athlete must eat well to satisfy the needs of both energy and plastic metabolism. A special role is played by complete proteins rich in essential amino acids.
Source: Comprehensive Powerlifter Training: Winning a Tournament / Comp. A.M. Humps. Moscow; Donetsk, 2006.