I believe Hyperplasia and Hypertrophy occur in extremely stressed situations. I believe hypertrophy occurs first and if this is not enough to adapt the body to its new environment then hyperplasia occurs; then, hypertrophy occurs again if adaption is to occur and then hyperplasia again. This leads to a neverending cycle of hypertrophy then hyperplasia; however, if the athlete no longer introduces is body to new stimuluses then the cycle is stopped. This is by no means a fact, just my personal theory!
BTW, there have been numerous studies on hyperplasia but they have all been done on animals! One interesting thing about hyperplasia is that Fred Hatfield in his book, “Power A Scientific Approach” mentions is that “Laboratory animal studies, together with research on champion swimmers, suggest that high-speed/high-tension exercise is the only way to promote hyperplasia. While high-tension/slow-speed movements make the muscles bigger, they also tend to make it slower in contraction speed. Hyperplasia does not occur in laboratory animals engaged in high-tension/slow-speed training…To derive the benefits of potential hyperplasia, you should incoporate both traditional muscle building exercises as well as compensatory acceleration training, which requires explosive movements against heavy resistance.” (pg 49).
Can anyone say Jay Shroeder, Plyo bench press, Mel Siff?
"Champion swimmers’ deltoids were scrutinized by electron microscopy, and the findings of that study stand to this day as the most compelling argument for the occurrence of hyperplasia in humans. While the swimmers’ total muscle size was obviously greater than the average person’s, the individual cells comprising their deltoids were smaller and more numerous.
The empirical conclusion that can be drawn from this startling fact is that hyperplasia took place in the deltoid muscles, giving them greater overall size and strength.
Why the split cells did not achieve the level of hyperplasia possible is unsplit cells remains, for the moment, an intriguing mystery. Some results from each cell having only half the number of nuclei it had before splitting. The cells’ nuclei regulate virtually all their many functions, including their potential for growth."
“What Can We Learn From Animal Research?”
Cats, rats, and other animals are different from humans in some very important ways. For example, have you ever seen a heavily muscled rat? With few exceptions, lower animals are incapable of developing the kind of muscle hypertrophy that humans can. It seems quite possible that compensatory cell splitting is the animals’ unique way of adapting to the stress of overload training.
Forget size for a moment and consider speed of muscle contraction. Rarely will you see a slow cat! Animals that display capabilities of muscle hyperplasia are generally faster afoot and in reaction time than humans, a fact that can be explained by comparing differences in the anatomy and the chemical makeup of cells between the respective species.
Rats, for example, have 11 different kinds of muscles cells, as opposed to four in humans. On the basis of cell variety alone, the possibilities of speed of movement and contraction, reaction time, endurance, and other muscle functions are probably much greater in such animals than in humans.
These differences notwithstanding, the swimmers’ deltoid study comes out more intriguing than ever! Is is possible to get those split cells to grow larger? If so, has that muscle’s size potential increased in proportion to the increased cell count? And what about the strength factor? Judging form the increased performance capabilities of the swimmers, hyperplasia seems to account for increases in all threee areas of muscle contraction!" (pg 48)
MAYBE TONY CAN HELP WITH THIS IF HE READS THIS) I was wondering if people feel this occurs and under what conditions (ie:Hypertrophy, extrem streched…ect.)!
By doing is the EQI’s with weight you are really stressing the crap out of the eccentric so is this a linear stretching of the muscles that might cause Hyperplasia?