Characteristics And Causes Of Metabolic Stress

Are you familiar with the concept of metabolic stress? Do you associate it with physical activity? This concept refers to an organic process and at the same time to a factor that allows people to gain muscle mass (make the muscles grow). Thus, it is a process that leads to muscle hypertrophy.

Muscle hypertrophy is muscle growth. In other words, an increase in size, in the number of myofibrils (formed by actin and myosin filaments) that make up the muscle, or both. But what else should you know about metabolic stress? Why is it happening? What are the consequences of this? Is it enough to increase muscle mass? Are there other processes you can resort to?

Metabolic stress and muscle hypertrophy

As you read in the introduction, metabolic stress is an organic process that facilitates muscle hypertrophy. It can be said that hypertrophy is what bodybuilders or people who work to increase muscle mass are looking for. To summarize, they can achieve this effect through:

• muscle damage
• metabolic stress
• mechanical load

Mechanical stress produces muscle damage and inflammatory response, which improves the release of muscle growth factors. This enlarges the muscles.

In addition, a person can achieve maximum gain in muscle mass through metabolic stress without losing mechanical tension, at least according to some studies.

How does metabolic stress occur?

Metabolic stress occurs when you increase the amount of work on a muscle or a specific group of muscles. It causes a progressive increase in muscle growth.

On a chemical level

When you strain a muscle, a process called anaerobic glycolysis begins. It produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy needed for exercise. This process is what allows people to get the energy needed to perform muscle contractions from glucose molecules in a state of deprivation or insufficient oxygen.

Why is it all happening? This is because the rate at which a person needs this energy is greater than the rate at which glucose oxidizes with oxygen. Thus, it is a basic anaerobic process.

Metabolic stress and accumulation of metabolites

In particular, metabolic stress is attributed to exercise as a consequence of the accumulation of metabolites. These are compounds produced by the breakdown of nutrients.

Their function is to give the body the kind of energy it needs, especially during endurance training. All of this would cause a muscle hypertrophic response.

Lactate is the major metabolite that accumulates through the process of metabolic stress. It is a glucose metabolite produced by body tissues under conditions of insufficient oxygen supply. Other metabolites in this process include phosphate, hydrogen and glucose metabolite (anaerobic glycolysis).

Consequences

Therefore, what happens when these products build up in the body ? According to a 2000 study by Takarada et al., This may increase the secretion of more anabolic hormones. These are testosterone, somatotropin or growth hormone (STH or GH) and insulin.

According to a 1989 study by Ebbeling et al., An increase in waste products can lead to muscle damage along with a lack of energy substrates (ATP).

The importance of replication

Repetition is one of the recurring exercises for athletes during workouts, especially bodybuilders. In addition, their training level is quite intense. You may be wondering what happens when people train at such intense levels. Well, the oxygen demand exceeds the supply.

In fact, some believe that hypoxia, the lack of oxygen in certain muscle cells, is a key factor that explains why certain intervals for repetition of exercises lead to increased muscle growth or muscle hypertrophy.

For this reason , it is interesting to do repetitions during the exercises, as well as reduce the breaks (to a few minutes) if you want to increase the build-up of metabolites along with the anabolic response to them. Thus, the hypertrophy you achieve would also be greater.

Final reflections

As you can see, one not only addresses metabolic stress when it comes to gaining muscle mass or achieving muscle hypertrophy, but also to other processes. Exercising muscle tension and causing muscle damage that is intense enough to stimulate muscle growth rt among them.

Metabolic stress is an organic process that will partly explain why the increase in muscle size occurs. You have just learned a little more about how this process works. However, it is best to go to a professional who specializes in the subject if you want to exercise in the healthiest and most effective way.