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seriousmaxxing , only talk serious
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Many of us train with the goal of gaining muscle size. However, the biological processes that occur from this training occur to improve muscle functioning and not size, although this improvement will involve some degree of size gain. My point is that muscular training in fundamentally focused on function not size biologically even if you are focused on gaining size. The question is how can we train for size instead of function. I am only training my masseters, and I do not care about increaseing the functioning of my masseters only the aesthetic aspect.
I don't know how useful muscle hyperplasia is to muscle size, but its interesting as its separate from standard muscle hypertrophy. I've done some research on muscle hyperplasia (increase in number of muscle fibers) and intraset stretching is suggested to induce this more effectively. I have discovered three techniques to potentially stretch the masseters.
1. Open the jaw wide and push downward on the chin to cause your jaw to open further than it naturally can, causing tension to the masseters.
2. Reach into the interior of your cheeks with your thumbs and then tense your masseters and feel them with your thumbs. Now, you can stretch the masseters useing your thumbs either while your masseters are tense or relaxed by pushing laterally on the masseters.
3. Not sure if this is mainly stretching the masseters or a separate muscle, but i feel stretching in something in the masseter region. Open jaw, either fully or partially, and then jut as hard as possible. You should feel a stretch.
So to do intraset stretching you could do either of these methods of stretching between sets of a masseter training method of your choice. There's 4 methods of training masseters I am aware of.
1. Chewing (food, gum, dog toys etc)
2. Clenching (Constant clenching, pulsateing clenching, clenching on a weighted item)
3. A chewing motion but applying resistance with hands to the upper chin downward or the lateral sides of the mandibular body downward instead of haveing the resistance between the teeth. This bypasses any stress on teeth that chewing and clenching causes.
4. No added resistance speed training. Opening and closeing jaw as rapidly as possible to train for speed instead of strength. Remember, none of these methods directly train for size but for function.
I've looked into muscular hyperplasia and satellite cells (a type of stem cell) seem important.
Two suggested methods of hyperplasia:
“For muscle hyperplasia, uninterrupted continuous stretching seems to be the initiating stimulus, since the muscle fiber is not given sufficient time to regenerate. This stimulates increased satellite cell activation, which leads to the formation of new muscle fibers [8]. Another explanation is that reaching a critical muscle fiber size by hypertrophy effects leads to the splicing of the muscle fiber into several muscle fibers. This could be responsible for hyperplasia [8, 10].”
So stretching helps with satellite cells. (in animal studies stretching muscles continuously for hours leads to hyperplasia, so you could try that instead of intraset stretching.) But the hypertrohpy possibility is one I've not heard about outside of this excerpt.
So for hyperplasia if satellite cells are important what could help with that besides stretching or muscle damage? Well, it turns out its suggested Wnt plays a crucial role.
"Evidence exists that suggests Wnt/β-catenin signalling promotes the proliferation and self-renewal of satellite cells"
Interesting side note: I've noticed Wnt helps to maintain stem cell pools of other types.
For Wnt, lithium is good. Lithium activates Wnt (inhibits GSK3 which activates Wnt). I take lithium orotate for mental health so this is a nice benefit to help with muscle hyperplasia.
And for muscle hypertrophy (which was suggested also to potentially lead to hyperplasia once the muscle fiber reached a "critical muscle fiber size"), apart from obviously training useing the 4 methods of training masseters I outlined, red light before training aids in muscle growth. (to tie back to my point at the start of the post how training is fundamentally for function with size gain being a side-effect biologically, this is really interesting as it shows red light helps specifically with muscle size)
So, basically take lithium for Wnt (Wnt helps satellite cells potentially needed for hyperplasia), stretch masseters for hyperplasia, use red light with training to gain more size.
I don't know how useful muscle hyperplasia is to muscle size, but its interesting as its separate from standard muscle hypertrophy. I've done some research on muscle hyperplasia (increase in number of muscle fibers) and intraset stretching is suggested to induce this more effectively. I have discovered three techniques to potentially stretch the masseters.
1. Open the jaw wide and push downward on the chin to cause your jaw to open further than it naturally can, causing tension to the masseters.
2. Reach into the interior of your cheeks with your thumbs and then tense your masseters and feel them with your thumbs. Now, you can stretch the masseters useing your thumbs either while your masseters are tense or relaxed by pushing laterally on the masseters.
3. Not sure if this is mainly stretching the masseters or a separate muscle, but i feel stretching in something in the masseter region. Open jaw, either fully or partially, and then jut as hard as possible. You should feel a stretch.
So to do intraset stretching you could do either of these methods of stretching between sets of a masseter training method of your choice. There's 4 methods of training masseters I am aware of.
1. Chewing (food, gum, dog toys etc)
2. Clenching (Constant clenching, pulsateing clenching, clenching on a weighted item)
3. A chewing motion but applying resistance with hands to the upper chin downward or the lateral sides of the mandibular body downward instead of haveing the resistance between the teeth. This bypasses any stress on teeth that chewing and clenching causes.
4. No added resistance speed training. Opening and closeing jaw as rapidly as possible to train for speed instead of strength. Remember, none of these methods directly train for size but for function.
I've looked into muscular hyperplasia and satellite cells (a type of stem cell) seem important.
Two suggested methods of hyperplasia:
“For muscle hyperplasia, uninterrupted continuous stretching seems to be the initiating stimulus, since the muscle fiber is not given sufficient time to regenerate. This stimulates increased satellite cell activation, which leads to the formation of new muscle fibers [8]. Another explanation is that reaching a critical muscle fiber size by hypertrophy effects leads to the splicing of the muscle fiber into several muscle fibers. This could be responsible for hyperplasia [8, 10].”
So stretching helps with satellite cells. (in animal studies stretching muscles continuously for hours leads to hyperplasia, so you could try that instead of intraset stretching.) But the hypertrohpy possibility is one I've not heard about outside of this excerpt.
So for hyperplasia if satellite cells are important what could help with that besides stretching or muscle damage? Well, it turns out its suggested Wnt plays a crucial role.
"Evidence exists that suggests Wnt/β-catenin signalling promotes the proliferation and self-renewal of satellite cells"
Interesting side note: I've noticed Wnt helps to maintain stem cell pools of other types.
For Wnt, lithium is good. Lithium activates Wnt (inhibits GSK3 which activates Wnt). I take lithium orotate for mental health so this is a nice benefit to help with muscle hyperplasia.
And for muscle hypertrophy (which was suggested also to potentially lead to hyperplasia once the muscle fiber reached a "critical muscle fiber size"), apart from obviously training useing the 4 methods of training masseters I outlined, red light before training aids in muscle growth. (to tie back to my point at the start of the post how training is fundamentally for function with size gain being a side-effect biologically, this is really interesting as it shows red light helps specifically with muscle size)
So, basically take lithium for Wnt (Wnt helps satellite cells potentially needed for hyperplasia), stretch masseters for hyperplasia, use red light with training to gain more size.
