Should we build muscle?
Whether you are a professional athlete, bodybuilder or just a casual gym junkie - building muscle (hypertrophy) allows you to be faster, stronger, sexier and live longer.
There are also many other amazing benefits of having more muscle which makes it essential to your health and fitness journey.
Lets figure out how to do it...
How Do We build muscle?
First and foremost - If you aren't in a caloric surplus then you won't build muscle. If you're not too sure how to do that then read this.
Now that your nutrition is on point, you have 3 primary mechanisms to building muscle that you need to address and those are...
- Mechanical Tension
- Muscle Damage
- Metabolic Stress
By training in a way that allows you to progressively increase the stimulus across all three of these mechanisms, you can optimise your bodies ability to build muscle mass.
Lets take a look at each of these mechanisms...
Mechanical Tension
Mechanical tension occurs when you contract your muscles to lift something heavy.
The heavier the load the more maximal mechanical tension created. An example of this is where powerlifters produce maximal mechanical tension by lifting the heaviest weights they can possibly lift in one single, maximal lift.
Another important factor is the total amount of time you spend in mechanical tension. When you lift something for more repetitions, the total amount of time under tension increases with each extra rep that is performed. Bodybuilders purposefully manipulate the time they spend in mechanical tension by increasing their reps and also the amount of time they take to complete each rep. In doing so they accumulate more time spent in mechanical tension.
Training for both maximal tension and time under tension require two different approaches but by incorporating both into your program you can maximise your chance of muscle growth!
Muscle Damage
The soreness you feel after training is generally muscle damage, also referred to as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness).
DOMS "appears to be a product of inflammation caused by microscopic tears in the connective tissue elements that sensitise nociceptors and thereby heighten the sensations of pain" as according to Brad Schoenfeld. It is generally brought about by the muscles being used in ways they aren't used to.
This is why it's a good idea to use a variety of exercises and loads as introducing your muscles to varying stimuluses will help innervate different subdivisions and motor units of muscles and produce more muscle damage.
Metabolic Stress
You know that burning feeling you get as you finish off your set? Yep that's metabolic stress.
During intense, repeated exercise our muscles become depleted of the substrates that help them contract (ATP, Creatine and Glycogen) and they struggle to obtain enough oxygen and time to create more substrates.
When there isn't enough oxygen available for our muscles to sustain repeated contractions, they must turn to non-oxidative processes known as Anaerobic Metabolism to help keep them contracting.
Anaerobic Metabolism also produces by-products known as metabolites. These metabolites include lactic acid, hydrogen Irons, potassium etc and if there is no oxygen available to help clear them from the muscles then they build up and eventually interfere with the muscles ability to contract. This is why we cannot maintain the same performance during high intensity exercise forever!
The muscles also have to deal with what's commonly known as "The Pump". This is where constant tension compresses veins which take blood away from the muscles, whilst arteries, which allow blood to enter, stay open. This works exactly the same as blowing up a balloon does and eventually the muscle cells "swell" and create another form of metabolic stress.
Metabolic stress signals many physiological responses that produce muscle growth but many of them aren't clearly defined yet. If you want to dig deeper then have a read of this but appreciate the fact we might not know exactly how it all works - just that it does.
How do we Put it all together?
"Mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage are interrelated, and they signal hypertrophic responses through multiple, redundant pathways" - Bret Contreras.
Here's an example...
To complete a particular lift in the gym, you have to produce mechanical tension through particular muscles. Whilst these muscles are under mechanical tension they are lengthened and shortened which will cause muscle damage. As you continue to complete further repetitions of the lift, metabolites build up within the muscle and blood rushes in and cannot leave, all of which causes metabolic stress.
As you can see, all three mechanisms work together and all you need to do is make sure your varying your reps, sets, intensity (weight) and exercises across your training so your muscles are introduced to progressive and new stimuluses. This is how you build muscle.
If you're not too sure where to start then have a read of this and just make sure you vary your rep ranges across these exercises!
What else should we consider?
Getting stronger
You adapt to your training very quickly so you must continue to increase the intensity if you wish to continue building muscle.
This can mean increasing the weights, the amount of sets and reps or decreasing the amount of time in between sets or workouts.
Basically, being stronger will allow you to lift heavier weights which illicit a higher amount of mechanical tension and produce more muscle damage and metabolic stress.
So just get stronger yeah?
Simple But Effective
Building muscle and the science behind it is a very complicated topic. This post has only touched on the very basics but the basics work.
In fact, the basics have worked for such a long time that we have pictures of finely sculpted men and women of yesteryear to prove this beyond question.
So as much as you enjoy learning, questioning and debating the science - just don't forget that none of it happens unless you follow the simple rules I've mentioned and you get in the gym and push the body a little further than you have before.
Focus on getting stronger and (most of) the rest will take care of itself.
And read this should you want to dig deeper!