Naturally with proper training And proper nutrition muscles grow by 10 kg in the first year, by 5 kg in the second year and by 2 kg in friction a year.
How many days does a muscle grow?
Workouts can be light or hard, short or long. From the lungs and short workouts muscles grow 12 hours, from heavy and long to 10 days.
How to eat to grow muscles?
The main rule of nutrition for muscle growth is to eat until you are full. And it’s better to do it according to the regime. If your appetite is suppressed by unfavorable environmental factors, such as partying, then your perception of satiety will be greatly distorted and you will unnoticeably eat less than you need for muscle growth.
When do muscles start to grow?
Muscles begin to grow immediately after training if you give your body water, food and rest.
Do muscles grow during exercise?
The swelling of muscles during training is their filling with blood. After training, this blood leaves the muscles and the muscles become smaller because they have depleted the nutritional reserves that were stored inside the muscle cells. That is why, for urgent muscle recovery, the body needs to be nourished with water, food and given rest.
Do muscles grow in your sleep?
The main muscle growth occurs during sleep, when the body restarts all its systems and carries out reforms in all organs and tissues.
Do muscles grow during the day?
Muscles grow during the day, if you have eaten well and are in a light sleep, nothing and no one bothers you. As long as you are excited and stressed at work in the office or at home, your muscles continue to sag.
How do you know that muscles are growing?
If you wake up in the morning with a pleasant presence in the muscles that you worked out, then they are growing.
If muscles hurt, does that mean they are growing?
Pain is the highest form of pleasant muscle release after exercise. Such happiness becomes more and more difficult to achieve with time and experience.
Do muscles grow if they don't hurt?
With proper training, your muscles should not hurt. Muscles ache from rare training, which is carried out using the “cavalry charge” method. Best growth muscles are achieved by people who train without long breaks and slowly increase the load.
Muscles grow in a week
Over a week, muscles grow from 50 to 200 grams, depending on the length of training. It is impossible to track such growth in everyday conditions using a centimeter tape.
The muscles stopped growing!
Unfortunately, slow muscle growth or its absence can only be observed over a period of 3 months. Every 3 months you need to take measurements and watch how your body circumference changes.
In the first three months you can increase 3. This is approximately 1-2 cm in the circumference of the biceps. This is a noticeable and good muscle gain.
Does protein make muscles grow?
Protein helps muscle growth when it is part of a well-thought-out protein intake plan. Protein intake alone may not be beneficial if it is not coordinated with a nutritional and training plan.
What to drink to grow muscles?
To grow muscles you need to eat food and drink water. And it is better to do this in a timely manner and in the right quantity, according to body weight, volume and intensity of training.
How much protein do you need to grow muscles?
Typically, two grams of protein per kilogram of dry weight is enough. If an athlete has 80 kilograms of dry mass, then 160 grams of protein is enough. However, don't confuse your scale readings with your lean body mass.
Muscles grow, but fat doesn't go away
To prevent fat from growing, you need to limit its consumption in the diet. Usually it is 70-90 grams. But many people, in pursuit of weight, consume up to 300 grams of fat, so they gain fat. Check your dietary fat intake.
How to exercise to grow muscles?
To grow muscles, you need to spend 3 hours a week training in the first year, 4 in the second, and 5 in the third. For a conventional training hour, you need to do at least 25 approaches with an intensity of at least 50 percent.
Do you grow muscles at home?
Muscles grow in any environment: at home, on the street or in the gym. It's not where you do it that matters, but what you do.
Do push-ups make muscles grow?
If you have reached the lactate threshold, your muscles will respond with growth. Going beyond the lactate threshold with push-ups is as easy as shelling pears, which means the muscles grow from push-ups.
Do running muscles grow?
Running promotes muscle growth if it is in addition to strength training. Running improves muscle trophism and promotes muscle hypertrophy, that is, growth.
Until what age do muscles grow?
Muscles grow as long as you have a normal endocrine system and normal production of anabolic hormones, the most important of which is testosterone. If you are still tormented by an erection in the morning, then your muscles will grow from strength training.
Many men, even at 70 years old, prove that everything is fine with their endocrine system.
Why do muscles grow fast?
If a person’s muscles grow unnaturally quickly, not from year to year, but from week to week. If 10 kilograms stick to the body in a few weeks, it means the person has started taking anabolic stimulants muscle growth.
How long does it take for muscles to grow?
The most noticeable muscle growth occurs in the first three years, and then muscle growth proceeds very imperceptibly and slowly until it stops completely. Usually this stop occurs after 7 years. Natural bodybuilder has been growing for 7 years.
Muscles grow unevenly
This usually comes from uneven training planning. different muscles. For example, if you do 30 sets of push-ups and 15 sets of pull-ups in a week, your chest will grow faster than your lats. The imbalance in the volume and intensity of training is the main reason for the uneven development of favorite and unloved muscles.
Mr. Universe 1998 according to the Russian version in the village of Odintsovo
Let's be friends
Very often from people involved in gyms, you can hear the following question: “Why do I pump, but my muscles don’t grow?” And this can apply to any muscle group - biceps, abs, calves, gluteals, etc. There may be several reasons for this, but they are all suitable for any type of muscle. So, let’s find out why it may not increase. Let’s consider both genetic and other reasons.
Genetic causes
Why don't muscles grow? Perhaps it's a matter of genetics. As you know, muscles are made up of different types of fibers. Conventionally, they can be divided into two types - oxidative and glycolytic. The latter are most prone to expansion. They are capable of doubling or more. Therefore, for people whose muscles are dominated by glycolytic fibers, there is no difficulty in pumping up a muscular body.
But if you have more oxidative fibers, then there will be problems with the set. This is why muscles grow slowly. The fact is that oxidative fibers are much thinner, and their ability to increase is insignificant. The mechanism for gaining muscle mass involves the regeneration of small damage that fibers receive during training, but oxidative structures are very resistant to mechanical injury, which makes the situation even worse.
Signs that you have predominant oxidative fibers include:
- muscles are pumped unevenly, despite the same load;
- increased endurance when performing exercises;
- mild soreness (muscle pain that occurs several hours after training) under heavy loads.
How to deal with this?
So, if the answer to the question “why don’t they grow calf muscles or any other" has become available in your muscle tissue large number of oxidative fibers, then there are two solutions to this problem.
The first tip is based on the fact that muscle fibers cannot change. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the number of repetitions of exercises to 14-20 (higher is possible). This is due to the fact that any training should be aimed at the dominant group of fibers. And the energy exchange processes of oxidative muscles are based on aerobic glycolysis, which is possible only with high loads.
The second tip is based on the hypothesis that muscle fibers can change. And if you continue training intended for glycolytic muscles (5-10 repetitions), then gradually the oxidative fibers are transformed. Thus, you need to train with a medium repetition range, working with heavy weights.
Both options are used in practice and work - it all depends on the individual characteristics of the body.
Carbohydrate metabolism
Another reason why muscles do not grow is increased carbohydrate metabolism. Carbohydrate metabolism is the conversion of carbohydrates into energy. In muscle tissue, these substances are represented by glycogens, which provide energy for its normal functioning. The speed of such exchange is individual and genetically determined.
On average, glycogen reserves are consumed in muscles within an hour. If the metabolism is increased, then the energy may run out within 30-40 minutes. And then, to support the work, the body will begin to process it into glycogen. adipose tissue, glucose from the blood or the muscles themselves.
And if you still don't know why your butt muscles aren't growing, then perhaps you're not consuming enough calories to sustain long-term exercise. How more intense workout, the more energy will be consumed. And performing exercises in the absence of accumulated glycogen does not contribute to an increase in muscle mass.
However, you should not confuse increased carbohydrate metabolism with fat metabolism - these are completely different processes. Intense fat metabolism has virtually no effect on the growth of muscle mass, but allows you to quickly lose extra pounds.
Main features:
- the occurrence of sore throat with minor loads;
- ectomorphic (lanky, thin person who has practically no fat layer and poorly developed muscles).
How to fix this?
Why don't the arm muscles grow in people with a similar problem? The fact is that their body is simply not able to accumulate enough energy. Therefore, for training to be effective, they should be reduced to 30-40 minutes. The number of approaches per muscle group should not exceed 3 times. It is also necessary to increase the respite between approaches and not exercise to the limit of your capabilities. It is necessary to avoid training in the morning - at this time the highest carbohydrate metabolism is observed.
Motor unit
Why don't muscles grow after training? The reason may be as follows. There is a so-called motor (motor) unit, indicating the number muscle fibers, which are involved during loads, since not all of them are active during operation. This unit depends on the intensity of the exercise: the lower it is, the more inert the fibers are, and the higher it is, the more of them are included in the process. However, even at maximum loads it will not be possible to use all of them.
(DE) can be strong, moderate or weak. Accordingly, the greater the number of fibers working, the higher the indicator. MU is a genetic trait that depends on the degree of interaction between the central nervous system and muscles. And if you haven't yet understood why they don't grow pectoral muscles, then there is a high probability that the whole issue is low DU. The main sign that this is the cause of your problem is low strength indicators even with long and serious training.
Troubleshooting methods
So, we found out why muscles do not grow from training. Now let's see how to fix this.
For people with a low motor unit, low-volume training is recommended: a minimum number of approaches and exercises per muscle group. But at the same time, classes should be frequent - 2-3 workouts each for a muscle group. It will be helpful to take frequent breaks. For example, 5 weeks of classes, then a week of rest, again 5 weeks and rest, etc.
Number of muscle fibers
Why do muscles grow poorly? From our school biology course we know that they are made of fibers. And the more there are, the larger the muscle itself. And since the number of these fibers is an individual indicator and does not depend on whether a person plays sports, it is not surprising that some manage to increase muscle mass faster than others.
Indeed, there are athletic people who may not actively engage in sports. Usually their body type is endomorphic or mesomorphic. At the same time, there are people who look dystrophic, but as soon as they go to the gym, their muscle mass increases. In this case, we can talk about a significant number of fibers that have not been used up to this point.
The amount also depends on genetic predisposition. And if you are trying to understand why the arm muscles do not grow, then it is quite possible that the reason is precisely in the insufficient number of fibers. By the way, if the girth of one arm differs from the girth of the other by 1-2 cm, then this may just be evidence of the case we described.
Medicine adheres to the point of view that the number of muscle fibers is constant. And therefore, it occurs only at the expense of existing ones. If you add in a low motor unit, this becomes a significant problem for a bodybuilder.
Signs of a small number of muscle fibers:
- disproportion between muscle volume and strength indicators (you press a lot, but your arms and rib cage like a beginner);
- ectomorphic anatomical features (narrow shoulders, thin bones etc.).
Way out
If you understand why muscles don't grow, then it's time to start solving the problem. To do this, you need to start alternating short (2-3 months) periods of training for different groups muscle hypertrophy- sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar. In this case, classes should be held in the style of abbreviated trainings. IN individual exercises there will be no need to use your hands - the load that your back and chest-shoulder girdle receives is enough.
Hormones regulate metabolism, they are also responsible for protein synthesis, that is, they control the growth of muscle tissue. For bodybuilding, the main hormone is testosterone. It is the main androgen and is responsible for the intensity, duration and speed of anabolic processes. Therefore, low testosterone may be the answer to the question: “Why don’t the muscles of the legs, lower back and other groups grow.”
Hormonal levels depend on age and individual characteristics. However, it can go down and up from external influences. So, at high physical activity testosterone increases. Maximum effect this is achieved through intensive work in performing basic exercises, such as deadlifts and squats.
It is believed that the highest is observed in the first 40 minutes of training and is maintained at this level for 2 days. If you exercise for longer than the specified time, testosterone will naturally be suppressed by the catabolic hormone.
Signs of low testosterone:
- tendency to lose weight and lack of muscle growth;
- weight gain in spring;
- long muscle recovery ( extreme fatigue, prolonged sore throat);
- even with significant weight loss, there is no muscle definition;
- fat deposits on the waist with general thinness (in this case, the cause will be increased estrogen).
To solve this problem, it is necessary to perform basic exercises with a small number of repetitions (4-6) at the highest possible loads. In this case, the training duration should be 45 minutes, and the frequency should be one day every two. Muscle groups are trained once every 1.5-2 weeks in shock mode.
Myostanin activity
If you don't know why your pectoral muscles aren't growing, it might be due to myostatin, a protein that inhibits the growth of muscle tissue. This substance is designed to prevent muscles from growing indefinitely. From the body's point of view, an excess of muscle tissue is just as harmful as fat tissue.
Some people have elevated myostatin levels. Then muscle growth will be suppressed, regardless of body structure and how intense the training is. Thus, myostatin acts as a natural destroyer of muscle tissue.
Signs:
- rapid decrease in muscle mass;
- muscular dystrophy;
- lack of muscle tissue growth during training of any intensity and even the best and most balanced diet.
What to do in this case?
There are no techniques that can block the production of myostatin. Nevertheless, as a result of scientific experiments, it was possible to reveal that constant physical activity can solve the problem.
We looked at the congenital reasons why muscles don't grow. Now let's look at the errors training process that may cause this phenomenon.
In 90% of cases, lack of muscle growth can be explained by insufficient calorie absorption. In order for the body to maintain its current weight, it needs a specific amount of energy. This number is called BMR - basal metabolic rate. This indicator is different for each person, as it depends on age, physical activity, body weight, etc. If you consume fewer calories than the BRI, this will lead to weight loss, including loss of muscle. If a person consumes more OSI than required, then his weight will increase.
Not getting enough calories, therefore, may leave you wondering, “Why isn’t my muscle strength growing?”
To understand the problem, you must first find out how many calories the body requires. To do this, you can contact a nutritionist who will not only tell you how much energy the body needs, but also help you create the right menu. Or use a large number of existing calculation methods, for example the Harris-Benedict equation, and find out the result yourself.
Returning to our goal, we note that to increase muscle mass it is necessary to consume more what you spend. Or rather, add 500 kilocalories. This is the amount of energy the body needs every day to build muscle tissue. That is, you need to add 500 to the OBI, and based on the resulting figure, calculate the diet.
The right products
To compose for yourself correct menu, you need to clearly understand how much protein, fat and carbohydrates (BJC) are needed to increase muscle mass. The optimal BZHU ratio is considered to be: 30-20-50. Thus, 30% of the total diet should be proteins, 20% fats, 50% carbohydrates.
An example calculation looks like this: Let's say your RBI is 3000 kilocalories, then:
- 30% of the total would be 900 kilocalories of protein. Divide the resulting number by 4 (that’s how many kilocalories there are in a gram of protein) and we get 225 g of protein per day.
- 20% - 600 kilocalories of fat. Divide them by 9 and get 67 g of fat per day.
- 50% - 1500 kilocalories of carbohydrates. Divide by 4 and get 375 g.
Meal frequency
But if all the above tips are followed, but there is no effect, then why don’t muscles grow after training? There is another reason, which is also related to nutrition. The point is that “when” and “how much” you eat are just as important as “what.” Three meals a day are a thing of the past. Doctors have proven that frequent but small meals help speed up metabolism, thereby increasing the body's ability to lose and increase its weight.
Thus, it is advisable to take food at least 6 times at regular intervals. It is best if all 6 daily servings have the same calorie content. Of course, in conditions modern life It may seem unrealistic, but with a little effort and time on the weekend, you can stock up on snacks and lunches for the entire week. And for those who cannot do this, there is an excellent solution to the problem - sports mixtures. For a diet aimed at increasing muscle mass, there is nothing better protein shake. And it is very simple to prepare - you just need to dilute a few tablespoons of the powdery substance in water. Typically, 1 serving of this mixture contains about 600 kilocalories, consisting of a large amount of protein.
Why don’t muscles grow when playing sports if everything is in order with nutrition and genetics?
Here are a few more rules that must be followed if you want to build muscle mass:
- Maintenance water balance in the body. It is necessary that he does not experience the need for liquid as in training days, and in ordinary ones. This point is especially important for those who take sports supplements(for example, creatine), as they promote the removal of water from the body. To solve the problem, it is recommended to carry a water bottle with you at all times.
- Do not forget that the body needs rest. Muscles do not grow during training. On the contrary, they are damaged, and during the resting process they are restored and enlarged. So don't go to the gym too often.
- Try to get enough sleep. This point is directly related to the previous one and is no less important.
- Be sure to eat after your workout. This should be a full serving with a high protein content.
And in conclusion, we note that the most common reason for the lack of muscle growth is incorrect selection or incorrect execution. Therefore, before looking for serious reasons for failure, you need to make sure that you are doing everything right.
Building muscle by next Friday is the secret desire of many guys. Needless to say, slow progress is the scourge of everyone who presses iron or likes to hang out on the horizontal bar. Is it possible to somehow accelerate muscle growth?
Of course - and here are five secrets that make muscles grow faster. But first, secret number zero (which is not a secret at all) - you need to eat well. And now - to the point.
Rule 1. Press quickly
Working at a slow pace is good for developing strength and honing technique. But here's the problem - muscles grow better from fast, explosive movements. Speed mobilizes the entire body: the brain understands that the muscles are under stress and gives them the go-ahead to grow.
Of course, the working weight will have to be reduced a little. But the explosive style fills literally every muscle with blood - it will be immediately visible!
Rule 2: Do unilateral exercises
Never heard of these? Unilateral movements are the secret weapon of advanced athletes. The point is to load only one side of the body: for example, squat not with both legs, but only with the right or left. Or bend one leg instead of two in the simulator.
It is known that one hand can take more load than in the usual - two-handed - style of execution. The coaches assure that this is great way shake up the muscles accustomed to everyday life.
So, analyze the exercises you do and decide whether they can be made one-sided.
Rule 3. Mega warm-up
You don't forget to warm up, do you? Well done. Now let's make it much more useful - for example, include several sets of isolated exercises.
For example, you decided to bench press well today. This hard exercise, and it is better to do it at the beginning of training so as not to lose strength. But we will go the other way - first we will lightly press with a narrow grip to pump up the triceps, and then we will proceed to the bench press.
This stimulation of individual muscles before the main one, basic exercise- this is a kind of super warm-up that not only warms up, but also pumps up the muscles at the same time. Just don't chase the record - the weights should fly!
Rule 4. Magic touch
It's very simple - touch your muscles more often, stretching them and stroking them. Touch is a signal to the brain to activate work with this muscle, which makes it recover and grow faster.
Scientifically, this fact is nothing, but many people use touch even without prompting. A muscle is damaged during training, and in nature, massage of the damaged area is the first “first aid”.
Rule 5. More work in less time
During the previous workout, were you able to do 4 sets of 12 pull-ups? Wait to add load. Try to do the same thing, doing it not in 40 minutes, but in 30. Here, all methods are good - either speed up the style of execution (see rule 1) or shorten the break between approaches.
If you couldn’t do it in half an hour, try it next time - and everything will definitely work out!
In this article we will look at several important aspects regarding muscle growth in athletes. It is extremely important to understand what a muscle is, why it grows, and what it needs to grow.
Any professional bodybuilder will tell you: in order to build muscle mass, you need to understand the process itself, its nature! Only then can positive results be achieved in the future.
Muscle is the most economical part of our body. She tries to lose as little of the substances she needs as possible and, accordingly, gain as much as possible.
Also in the human body there is a mechanism ideal weight. Your body itself determines for itself the peak at which it should stop when gaining weight, so as not to create problems for itself. If you are not satisfied with this pick, then you need to have a “fight” with it to change the situation.
From birth, every person is genetically endowed with a certain amount of fiber, the quantity of which you cannot increase, but the quality is no problem. Muscle grows by increasing the thickness of the fiber structure. This means that all you have to do is make it (the fiber) grow.
Operating principle
During training, your fibers are partially destroyed (torn), and during rest, the muscle recovers and strives to exceed the limit that was initially set. This process also got its name – “super compensation”.
The process of fiber thickening is accompanied by the synthesis of myofibrils (protein filaments). They absorb nutrients that you eat through food.
The more you train, the more protein threads there will be, the better the blood supply to the muscles. It follows from this that if you do not supply your body with the necessary substances (proteins, calories, minerals, vitamins and much more), then development is out of the question. There is no way your muscles will get bigger, and the fact becomes clear: training without proper nutrition leads to zero effect.
What is muscle fiber hypertrophy?
During exercise, your muscle becomes engorged with blood, which causes it to enlarge, as noted above. This process in bodybuilding is defined by the term “pumping”.
Hypertrophy, in essence, is a disease of your muscle, its non-standard and unusual state. The fiber increases in size due to an increase in the number of myofibrils. The level of protein in the muscle increases.
The Role of Protein Synthesis in Muscle Gain
Each cell in the human body contains only 1 nucleus, while muscles - large number, which allows them to synthesize new, high-quality proteins that consist of a certain amount of amino acids. The nuclei of muscle cells signal the ribosomes to synthesize the required type of protein.
If you don't supply your muscles with the necessary building material, they simply will not be able to grow. Once again, as you can see, it all comes down to nutrition.
Muscle tension and its effect on muscles
The tension created by the muscle during exercise is another essential element. It is responsible for launching the protein synthesis mechanism, signaling the muscle cells to feed the “affected” fibers.
Thanks to this, new tissue appears, muscle mass and volume increase. Receptors in cells are very sensitive to maximum loads and high voltage. This is why all professional bodybuilders advise exercising as long as your strength allows.
It is necessary to cross the pain threshold to start the process of protein synthesis and supercompensation.
The role of hormones in the training process
Muscle growth is built on 3 “pillars”:
- Testosterone
- Insulin
- Growth hormone
Each of these hormones has a powerful effect on muscle cells. Insulin speeds up the process of delivering protein to the muscles. The potassium-sodium pump carries out the process of transferring amino acids to muscle tissue. The other two hormones, on the contrary, act on muscle fibers and cause them to disintegrate. This whole process is only possible under powerful loads.
The role of amino acids
An amino acid is a protein particle. The necessary protein is built from them. 1 type of protein contains several types of amino acids. Your weight gain results depend entirely on how much protein you consume in your diet.
The required amount of protein is determined by the level of intensity of the training process. Also besides protein important role play calories, which supply the necessary energy for complex physical exercise.
Cycles of muscle growth and loss
In bodybuilding, any bodybuilder must remember 2 important processes:
- Anabolic cycle (constant muscle growth if all training conditions are met + proper nutrition)
- Catabolic cycle (insufficient nutrition, resulting in decreased muscle growth and fatigue)
Necessary conditions for muscle growth
If you decide to build muscle mass, then you need to follow 3 main components:
- Powerful loads and a properly structured training process.
- Proper and regular nutrition that will supply your muscles with all the necessary substances.
- Complete rest.
This is important
It must be remembered that our body is “smart”; it gets used to a certain load, which is repeated for a long time. You should “surprise” him with new exercises, changing loads, duration of training and many other tricks.
For full muscle growth, it is optimal for you to develop not only fast fibers, but also slow ones. That is, sometimes alternate loads (strength and weight). Proportional growth depends on this.
What affects muscle volume?
The compaction and thickening of muscle fiber is influenced by factors such as:
- Fiber thickness
- Number of blood vessels
- Sarcoplasma
- Number of fibers
- What fibers are developed?
- Fascia
In this article we have looked at the most important points related to building muscle mass. Remember, in order to gain quality mass, you need to study this process.
Of course there is prerequisites, which every bodybuilder must follow, but everyone has their own exercises for building muscles, and the program should also be individually suitable for you. If you have the opportunity to consult with a specialist, then do not miss it.
Try making a few programs and see how they affect you. And what about nutrition, everything is simple here: if there is no full supply of all the necessary substances, there will be no mass.
Watch a video about how muscles grow and how you can influence the growth of muscle mass.
And the second video is how to speed up the growth of muscle fibers
Good luck! It's all up to you.
I just returned from my training. I’m tired, but I still have the strength to write this article for you. I decided to write it because many athletes have a vague idea of why muscles grow and how to influence muscle growth.
Have you ever wondered why people with the same strength levels have different muscle volumes? Because muscle growth- it's not only strength training, but the whole system that we will talk about now.
You've probably heard hundreds of times that muscles grow from... large scales that you need to eat right, someone recommends taking sports nutrition and much more. I don’t know about you, but this has already set my teeth on edge and I won’t repeat it again. The article will be detailed, so be prepared to read it to the end to understand why muscles grow and what affects muscle growth.
Muscle growth ensures an increase in training intensity.
When they tell you that muscles only grow when your working weights increase, then know that they are telling you the absolute truth! Without increasing the weights, your muscle mass will not increase.
But what we mean by intensity is not how much weight you lift, but how hard you do it. I can bet that if you work with a weight of 50 kg for 10 reps, then I will make your arms ache in just 1-2 sets, despite the fact that the weight will only be 35 kg. And this will provide colossal muscle growth! How do you like it?
The thing is that ordinary athletes do repetitions quickly and the entire path from the bottom point of the amplitude to the top takes them no more than 2 seconds. You've probably noticed more than once that if you stay at one point longer than usual or do repetitions more slowly, the exercise becomes much more difficult to do. So why is this?
The whole secret is that by doing the exercise slowly (10 seconds up and 10 seconds down), you significantly increase the intensity of the training, thereby ensuring muscle growth and figure improvement.
You've probably already heard about this method; it's called " High intensity training(VIT).” I will not dissuade you from the effectiveness of other methods (I personally use others), but let the facts speak for themselves.
Main advantages of VIT:
- Light weight – less risk of injury
- With less weight, the likelihood of cheating (violation of technique) is significantly reduced, which means you train exactly the muscles you want to train
- If there is not a large number of burdens, then this best option, because you can train even at home, where not everyone has a 100-kilogram barbell!
- More muscle fibers are involved in the work, because the muscle is under load for more than 30 seconds. Read more in the article
But we will go further! To provide incredible muscle growth, there is still something you can do! HIT is good, but strength training, why should we give it up? Of course not! I offer you the best option to combine these two approaches. This is what it looks like.
First, you take your usual working weight, with which you can do 5-8 repetitions to failure without breaking the technique, and then take a smaller weight and continue doing repetitions. Having reached the next failure, lose weight again and finish the muscles to the end. These are called drop sets.
But where is VIT? Now I’ll explain: do repetitions with a lighter weight slowly (10 seconds for example) and at the end you can even add negatives, when you can barely move at all. That's exactly what I do.
Negatives this is the use of only the negative phase of the amplitude of movement, i.e. in our case, lowering the bar ().
You need to lower the weight very slowly over 10 seconds. This is one repetition. Do this 3-5 times and you will simply be amazed at how intense your training has become!
Physiology of muscle growth
Why do muscles grow? We have already discussed how to stimulate muscles to grow, now let’s talk about what remains behind the scenes, about what happens inside our body.
The process of muscle hypertrophy (growth) begins with an unusual load, i.e. you are stepping out of your comfort zone. You haven’t run before, but today you ran 5 km at once. Your muscles received a load higher than usual and you sent a signal to the body - grow, adapt to the load. But if this load is not repeated in the near future, then the rollback process begins and your muscles return to their original state, as if you had never trained.
The body is essentially very lazy and does not want to do anything until you force it! He always tries to get rid of what he doesn't use. Let you build up 10 kg of pure muscle mass through training, but if after some time (for example, a year) the body does not receive loads, your muscles will simply deflate! The body will eat them! He believes that since you don't use muscles, you don't need them.
This is called the catabolic process or the process of muscle tissue breakdown. This is the reverse process of anabolic growth of muscle tissue.
There is an interesting pattern - the body willingly burns muscle, but is in no hurry to increase muscle mass. Therefore, after the first workout, even if your muscles hurt, do not expect that these actions are enough for noticeable muscle growth. To stimulate muscles to growth it is necessary to constantly stimulate them, give them regular, ever-increasing loads! Only then will your muscles begin to grow.
If there is no regularity of load, then, as you already know, a rollback begins and you return to the starting point. You shouldn’t be offended by your body and say that it doesn’t allow you to be big and strong. On the contrary, knowing these mechanisms, you will be able to consciously control your body and muscle growth!
Muscle growth process
As you know, muscle growth is always accompanied by pain. I always calm myself down with this, because my muscles hurt 7 days a week, sometimes one or the other, but at least one muscle group it still hurts.
I often remember the words of my friend: “If it hurts, it means it grows!” And these words always support me. By the way, Pasha, if you are reading this article now, thank you!
Why do muscles hurt?
Let's move closer to the meat. Muscles are made up of fibers that contract, becoming thicker and shorter. Under the influence of load, some of the fibers are damaged and crack. These cracks in the muscles cause pain.
If you hit your foot and get a bruise, it means that you are bleeding inside your body and soft tissue is affected. Of course, this place hurts you.
It’s the same story with muscles, but you don’t have to hit them. By the way, you probably noticed that if you hit a muscle hard, the pain afterwards is almost the same as after physical activity.
Micro cracks must heal, only then will your muscle fully recover.
Due to the fact that muscles are damaged under heavy loads, they begin to hurt! Muscles do not hurt due to lactic acid. If someone tells you this, then don’t believe it, because it’s complete nonsense. Lactic acid is produced by the body during exercise and makes your muscles feel tired. It is responsible for muscle fatigue. After all, if you don’t feel tired, then you can continue the load and seriously damage your muscles, which will make you incapacitated and vulnerable.
The body protects you. After all, if you have damaged your muscles and cannot move, then someone can eat you. IN wildlife survival of the fittest. And if you haven’t forgotten yet, we are all from there.
Muscle growth and number of fibers involved
Have you ever noticed that what more muscles s, the more they hurt? The thing is that not all muscle fibers are involved during exercise. The weakest and hardiest fibers work first, when they get tired, stronger fibers are connected to them and the main part of the muscle is turned on only at the very end.
This phenomenon takes its roots from our past. Let me remind you once again that we are just animals and by design we should be able to survive in nature. And if we once use up all our reserves of energy and strength, then what should we do in case of danger? It is for this reason that weak but hardy fibers work and only then the strength fibers are included in the work.
As you know, there are two types of muscle fibers in our body: fast and slow (endurance). Just as a prudent coach does not let all his strong players onto the field, our body keeps strong fibers in reserve. What if they are not needed? The body is very economical and if you can get by with less energy consumption, then why pay more?
When a muscle is under constant load, it has to involve increasingly stronger fibers in the work, otherwise the weaker fibers will not withstand. It is for this reason that I recommend doing all exercises slowly, so that the muscles are under load for more than 30 seconds. I wrote more about this
How long do muscles hurt?
Let's get back to muscle pain. If you have used all the muscle fibers, then your muscle will hurt completely or almost completely, and the larger the muscle, the larger the “damage” area. Therefore, after a good strength load, muscles ache from 3 days to a week in trained athletes. And if you lifted the barbell for the first time or after a long break, then up to 2 weeks!
In addition, not just muscle cracks may occur, but partial disintegration of the muscle fiber. In this case, the “affected” muscle may swell and become very painful, more severe than usual. In this case, the muscles hurt for a very long time.
After aerobic exercise, For example, long run, the muscles do not hurt very much, since not all muscle fibers are involved and the pain is rather superficial. Strength training is another matter, especially if it is long-term and high-intensity, as I described above. In this case, many fibers are involved and the muscles hurt not only on the surface, but also deep inside! When the fiber partially disintegrates, you may notice that the muscle has become soft.
In order not to be unfounded, I will say that I checked these facts on my own skin and I can assure you that it is true! I was involved in running and football for several years and for me running 10 km every day was a regular activity. After running, muscles never hurt as much as after doing 20 reps of barbell squats.
What happens during muscle growth.
Muscles respond to stress by growing. When microcracks heal, each damaged fiber becomes thicker and stronger in order to continue to cope with such a load.
The number of fibers in a muscle can vary. Once as a child, after watching one program on TV, I decided that the number of muscle fibers is always the same, only their strength and thickness changes. It turns out that when adapting to new load New fibers can also grow.
Your muscles also become thicker due to the storage of various substances in them. For example, glycogen and creatine phosphate.
The larger the muscle, the more it can store these substances in itself. It is believed that pumping (pumping) during training allows you to increase the space for storing nutrients, thereby increasing muscle volume.
Hormones and muscle growth
When researching the issue of muscle growth, one cannot ignore hormones. After all, they are the ones who shape our body. In women, muscles practically do not grow even with power loads, while in men muscle growth normal phenomenon. It's the fault of hormones. Or rather testosterone.
In men, the level of the hormone testosterone is several times higher than in women. It was research on the production of synthetic testosterone that led to the emergence of anabolic steroids.
Since we are talking about growth, we cannot ignore growth hormone. It is these two hormones that allow our muscles to grow. The higher the level of these hormones in the blood, the faster the rate of growth of meat on your bones.
Hormonal explosion
After you have shocked your muscles with a monstrous training, the release of hubbub into the blood begins. The stronger the load, the more hormones and the faster your muscles grow.
But not any training allows you to get a hormonal explosion. Let's look at your workouts through your body's eyes.
First case. You did an exercise of 10 reps and got rejected. Two more such approaches. Your muscles have received a heavy load and you are really tired. Time under load 20 seconds.
Second case. You did the same 10 reps, but after failure, you took less weight and continued until the next failure, and then decreased the weight again and failed again. And two more such approaches. As a result, you have 15-20 repetitions and 40-60 seconds under load.
In which case do you think more fibers are involved? After which workout will your muscles hurt more? The second case is correct.
So, the more muscle fibers are involved, the stronger the release of hormones. But by number of fibers I mean not only separate muscle, and the whole organism as a whole. Barbell squats use more muscles than barbell raises? Well, of course.
Only heavy multi-joint exercises allow you to achieve a hormonal explosion and, as a result, muscle growth. At least once a week you must do a heavy leg exercise: deadlift classic or straight legged, squats with a barbell, leg press or their equivalents. Without these exercises rapid growth muscles never will be.
But in addition to the hormonal explosion, you can simply increase the level of hormones with the intensity of the training. I already mentioned this, see above. The main thing is to get as many fibers as possible involved in the work!
Results on muscle growth.
- Muscles grow when they are subjected to force.
- The load should be regular and constantly increase
- It is necessary to use the largest number of muscle fibers
- Do one basic multi-joint leg exercise at least once a week to get a hormonal explosion
- If your muscles don't stop hurting, give them some more time. Never load sore muscles!
Now you know what it depends on muscle growth, how to make muscles grow, what exercises to do and the process of muscle growth itself from the inside.
If your muscles are growing well, you should have fun too. So watch this hard prank in a student dorm.
