Pro wrestlers, your favorite masked (or caped) superhero, and your older sibling all have something in common
at a young age, they probably seemed larger than life. A big part of that kind of heroic image comes down to being in fantastic shape.
Hypertrophy is the process by which you grow muscle. For bodybuilders, it’s literally everything. For strength athletes, it is a tangential but welcomed benefit of dedicated physical training.
No matter your motivation for gains, you need to know how hypertrophy works before you can get after it.
In the simplest terms, hypertrophy is synonymous with “getting bigger.” In the medical and scientific communities, hypertrophy describes the growth or enlargement of any organ or tissue.
If you’re a sucker for specificity, there’s another distinction worth noting — muscular hypertrophy is about enlarging your existing muscle tissue, and not necessarily creating new muscle from scratch.