I have my own very specific ideas of what is best for hypertrophy. I like to use DC training as my example, not because it's the program I follow, but because its core concepts do the best job elucidiating what is all necessary to reach genetic potential.
There's basically two different models for hypertrophy: energetic and mechanical/microtrauma.
Energetic, which is what Zat is speaking about, says that you have to stress the ATP-CP system within a given rep range in order to stimulate myofibrillar hypertrophy. The energetic theory is basically the link between food and exercise.
Mechanical says you have to strain the muscle (mostly by using progressive loading) in order to stimulate hypertrophy. Mechanical is basically the link between exercise and muscle.
The only mainstream system that's really good at doing both is DC. But there are ways to change up other systems in order to maximize both. Or, you can periodize schemes that favor one or the other and combine them into one bulk mesocycle.
That is kind of where the complication lies, when somebody is trying to reach their potential while avoiding looking like a sumo. If you do one form of training, you have to eventually do the other in order to balance things out. You can try combining the two, but then you'll need significant expertise or a really well designed program in order to do this.
It's sort of a paradox. The most important thing for muscle is strength. But the important thing for size is food. Well, aren't they the same thing to a bodybuilder? Yes, but you still have to choose which is the relationship you want to focus on, in order to design a core philosophy.
Which is why I favor the Food Factory approach. In such an approach, you essentially give yourself reasonable weight gain goals over a period of a bulk. Then, you eat a lot. So, for a 10 week bulk period, you eat your way to a gain of 6-8lbs. For a 2-3 year period, you eat your way to 250. It's the reverse of a cutting model, basically, and not unlike what sumos do.
Basically the idea goes that you want to improve the energy state of hypertrophy as much as you can. All of these factors contribute to this (though it's true they do cancel each other out a bit) -->
1) Caloric surplus (Insulin vs. glucagon levels)
2) ATP-CP stress/response
3) Lots of protein
4) Lots of specific amino acids
5) Muscle glycogen levels way above 100mmol/kg
6) Carb/food intake matching turnover rate
7) Adequate bodyfat levels
The difference between bulking and cutting is whether you cover step 1. Step 5 is accomplished by doing moderate carb loads one or two days per week or so, usually on the last day of exercise. It's also best to evaluate your weight gains after this carb load, since it'll usually be a lbs or two difference. One significant advantage to step 5 is that it puts less stress on step 1. That is, you don't have to eat as much each day, since your glycogen levels will already be near saturation. Also, you'll feel stronger and switch out of the immediate catabolic effects of exercise. However, an effective carb load is a marraige of steps 2 and 5. How is step 2 accomplished?
Conditioning like an athlete. What I mean by this is mainly improving the mitochondrial density and secondarily improve the cardiovascular efficiency of your system. This is where lactate threshhold training comes into play. By buildling your mito profile in all of your major muscles, you build a better food factory. Your ability to convert food into muscle is significantly improved.
As a result, one way to go about this is to pogo between density or lactate training and strength programs to create a bulk cycle, and then adding a 2-week layoff between bulk cycles in order to resensitize muscle to progressive loading again. It's the simplest because you can basically take programs off the shelf and then concentrate on just one thing for that. And it also gives you a built-in mechanism to cut/body recomp during the bulk cycle periodically in order to keep BF levels low.
If somebody has been primarily training for strength for a long time and now percieves issues with gaining size without gaining a lot of fat, the default is to allot 6 weeks toward density training. Again, he could match this conditioning phase with his cut, or if he is already lean, he can bulk up during the conditioning.
Or to put it another way . . . to be as big as possible, it helps to be in the best shape of your life.
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