deepstash
Beta
How long it really takes to build muscle (it's not fast)
Building muscle
Many people start workout routines to appear toned or lean. However, building muscle is a very slow process.
It is useful to understand the factors that influence your ability to get stronger, leaner and fitter from weight training.
57 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
4
Key Ideas
Building muscle
Many people start workout routines to appear toned or lean. However, building muscle is a very slow process.
It is useful to understand the factors that influence your ability to get stronger, leaner and fitter from weight training.
How muscle growth happens
Each muscle is made up of thousands of tiny muscle fibers. When you do body weight exercises, your muscles develop tiny tears in the fibers. When you rest, your body begins repairing your damaged muscle cells by fusing torn muscle fibers back together and laying down new proteins within each muscle cell.
Your nervous system, circulatory system and endocrine system all contribute to muscle repair and growth. The continued repair process creates bigger and stronger muscles.
Factors that affect muscle mass
- Your protein intake. Your muscles need adequate protein to repair themselves.
- Your calorie intake. Even if you eat a lot of protein, you won't build muscle if you don't eat enough calories daily.
- Your sleep schedule. You won't be able to optimize muscle growth when you don't give your body a chance to recover.
- Your lifting routine. Two key strength training concepts to pay attention to are frequency (how often you train a muscle group) and volume (the total load you place on a muscle.)
- Your training age. The more you advance, the less muscle growth you'll see. The closer you get to your maximum genetic potential for muscle growth, the harder it gets to build more muscle.
- Your real age. Building muscle gets harder as you age.
Muscle-building starts the moment you challenge your muscles to do something. Real beginners will see improvement within six weeks and advanced lifters within six to eight weeks of switching up their regular strength training workout.
Building muscle doing cardio
Most people won't build much muscle from traditional cardio such as walking or jogging.
But cardio that involves high-intensity exercises like plyometrics or high-volume weight training can help you build muscle to an extend. Beginners can build some muscle with hiking, skiing, and other outdoor cardio.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
12
Key Ideas
Calories In Calories Out Principle Is Out
This myth is usually followed with “X makes you fat, not calories”. That X is usually a macronutrient such as carbs or fat. Sometimes it’s a chemical found in the foods.
Eating Small Meals And High Metabolism
The rationale behind this myth is the fact that when you eat, your energy expenditure goes up during digestion.
The problem with this myth is that the amount of extra calories you burn during digestion is directly correlated with the calories you consume. That means eating ten 200 Calorie meals increase the metabolism at the same rate as eating two 1,000 Calorie meals.
Diet Sodas And Weight Gain
Although there are many potential health effects of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners, weight gain is not one of them. Your body can’t store fat out of nothing.
For some people, consuming certain beverages may trigger a craving for another food. If you know when you drink diet soda, you are going to crave some other food, avoid it.
9 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Erasing bad eating with exercise
Your eating has to be in check. About 80% of what you look like is based on diet.
It’s a calorie game, people often overestimate the amount of food they burn in an hour-long sess...
Toning muscles
Your muscles are already toned or you wouldn’t be able to move around. They’re just not visible because of the layer of fat covering them.
Different exercises for men and women
Both sexes have the same body structure but different hormonal make-ups which may mean a difference in muscle strength but does not mean they should work out any differently.
“Men tend to focus on abs, chest and arms, and women tend to focus on gluts and legs,” Maik Wiedenbach notes. “They’re each forgetting one half of their bodies.”
7 more ideas
6
Key Ideas
Exercise and carbohydrate-rich diets
In exercise, carbohydrate-rich diets are often recommended to promote recovery and maximise performance.
However, research suggests such foods may not help exercise recovery. There is a...
Typical sport nutrition guidelines
Since late 1960, the energy status of muscles is deemed to be important in exercise performance.
Since carbohydrate is the preferred energy source for muscle contraction during intense exercise, sports nutrition guidelines recommend eating carbohydrate-rich food to maximise performance. The guidelines suggest eating one gram of carbohydrate for every kilogram of your body mass, each hour for four hours.
Nutrition affects performance and recovery
- Recovery describes the processes inside the muscles that are stimulated by the stress of exercise sessions. These processes build up and result in increased endurance and muscle growth.
- Exercise performance describes the ability to perform exercise at a specific intensity and duration.
The current nutritional recommendations for performance may not be ideal for promoting recovery.
3 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Pain after workout
Over time, the body adapts to a given workload, so the number of microtraumas — the reaction of your muscles to unusual strain that causes post-training pain — is reduced as the muscles ...
Calories burned by stair climbing
Walking up the stairs is perceived by the body as effort. Even a person who plays sports will sooner or later feel the typical tension in the muscles.
If you have reached the point when simply walking up the stairs is too easy for you, use weights or try skipping one or two steps (if there are no medical contraindications).
Exercise vs. Diet
Fitness coaches all over the world are unanimous in their opinions that success in building a beautiful body is 30% dependent on exercise and 70% on nutrition...
Exercise vs. Diet
Fitness coaches all over the world are unanimous in their opinions that success in building a beautiful body is 30% dependent on exercise and 70% on nutrition.
However, even the most rigorous workout can only cover the caloric value of one chocolate bar, at most.
7 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Sore Is Not Always Good
While it feels satisfying to have sore, aching limbs, and a sign of a good workout. This is entirely unnecessary and one can eliminate the soreness by doing slow reps, or avoiding eccentric (muscle...
Heavy Lifting For Bulk
One can get stronger by increasing the size of the individual muscle fibers, and by recruiting more of the muscle fiber to work together when needed.
A bulky body is also considered a negative in certain sports. Getting bulky is a specific, targeted training which includes high-volume exercises, calorie intake, and protein supplements, and cannot be attained by simply lifting heavier weights.
Using Scales
Scales are actually useful in providing you with information about your general progress and direction.
7 more ideas
7
Key Ideas
Protein Intake
Protein intake is considered a no-brainer. As obesity rates have doubled over the last 20 years, this is what we have been told to eat. It is common knowledge that we have to avoid sugar, refined o...
Protein is Essential
A high-protein diet is essential for us to help our body grow and repair. We have been told to eat approximately 55 gm of protein daily for males, and 45 gm for females, based on average weights.
Not eating enough of protein can also have side effects like hair loss.
Health Fad
The protein supplement market had a valuation of USD 12.4 billion in 2016.
The way protein is packed in everything from candy bars to ‘high protein’ versions of staple products, it is becoming clear that it is an ongoing health fad. Many experts believe that products with ‘inflated protein’ are a waste of money.
4 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Eat Plenty of Protein at Every Meal
Eating food increases your metabolism for a while because extra calories are required to process your meal. This is called the thermic effect of food (TEF).
Protein increases your metaboli...
Drink More Cold Water
Drinking water may speed up your metabolism for about an hour. This calorie-burning effect may be even greater if you drink cold water, as your body uses energy to heat it.
Drinking water can also help you fill up and help you eat less, especially if you drink it half an hour before you eat.
Do a High-Intensity Workout
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves short, intense bursts of activity and help you burn more fat by increasing your metabolic rate.
7 more ideas
5
Key Ideas
Supplements and Metabolism
Myth: Supplements can speed up your metabolism.
Over-the-counter products that claim to boost metabolism often don’t have calories, don’t directly impact your metabolis...
Skinnier People
Myth: Skinnier people have faster metabolisms.
It’s more about body composition than body size when it comes to metabolism. Metabolism depends on the composition of protein mass you have—muscle is more metabolically active, meaning the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn when you’re resting. This is why lifting weights is one of the best ways to speed up your metabolism, it adds muscles.
Metabolism and Genetics
Myth: Metabolism is genetic, can't be changed.
Your genes do influence your metabolism, but, unusual genetic conditions aside, lifestyle habits affect it more. The amount of exercise you get and the choices you make when you feed yourself are more important factors.
2 more ideas
2
Key Ideas
Why it takes time for our muscles to strengthen
Strength training is more physiologically intricate than initially realised. When we start to lift weights, our muscles are not the first to strengthen and change. However, our nervous syst...
The cellular effects of resistance training
Scientists have known for some time that early increases in strength involve changes in the connections between the brain and muscles.
Particular bundles of neurons and nerve fibers carry commands from the brain's motor cortex to the spinal cord to the muscles. When the neural input to your muscles increases, the commands become more forceful, and the muscles should respond similarly. When strength training, the initial gains are about strengthening the reticulospinal tract. Only later do the muscles start to grow.
2
Key Ideas
Macronutrient Dieting
If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) is a new diet that counts the daily macronutrients in the food and drinks we intake, mainly the fats, carbs and proteins. It provides flexibility and choice ...
Counting Calories Vs Counting Macros
Calorie counting does not take into account the type of nutrients consumed, reducing the many types of food into numbers. It essentially makes no distinction between cottage cheese and a chocolate bar, apart from the number of calories they have.
The advantage of counting the macros (fats, proteins and carbs) is that many essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals) are naturally incorporated in our food intake.