Mia
Growing your muscles and muscle-building are the terms you often encounter on Instagram or some other social network, and they are most likely the number one reason why you started your fitness journey and lifted heavyweights in the first place. But have you ever thought about what it actually means? Scientifically viewed, building muscle simply describes the process of tissue stimulation and repair, which is also known as the physiology of gains. On paper, the principle is quite simple and straightforward. You should lift progressively and eat more to reach a calorie surplus. Get a lot of rest, and your body will grow bigger and stronger so it can cope with the increasing loads. To truly make use of your time in the gym, it can be quite useful to explore muscle-building principles. So, we have prepared a list of six proven methods and principles that can help you on this journey.
Volume: Optimization of Muscle-Building
For you to grow your muscles, you need to lift heavy and let your muscles grow over time. Yet, volume plays a crucial role when it comes to building your muscles. First things first, it represents the total number of exercises performed over a specific time span, i.e., you spend half an hour or two hours lifting heavy. There are some pieces of evidence indicating that higher training volumes are responsible for maximizing anabolism. To this end, multi-set protocols with high volumes optimize muscle growth.
Use Compound Movements
The most important aspect of making long-term progress in the gym is not only staying injury-free but also using compound movements. These exercises will activate your muscle fibers and muscle groups in the most effective ways. And there are a lot of exercises you can incorporate. At the top, you will find dumbbell experiences for almost every muscle group:
Lower chest – decline bench press with 93% of muscle fiber activation
Upper chest – incline bench press with 91% of muscle fiber activation
Quads – squats with 88% of fiber activation
Hamstrings – Stiff legged deadlifts with 63% fiber activation
As you age, kettlebells and dumbbells will be much better options for the majority of your training than machines and barbells. To that end, at sites such as muscleandhealth.com , you will find a whole load of exercises and neat ways to target specific muscle groups. Targeting specific muscle groups can sometimes be quite challenging, and it will demand some guidance.
Frequency: Muscular Adaptations
The number of sessions performed in a certain time period or the number of times one muscle group is exercised each week. The routine splits are key in this because they enable you to do more training each week by incorporating two or three sessions and improving your muscle adaptations. You may split your training routines by body area, body component, or activity when it comes to frequency.
Load: Lifting Heavy
The intensity of lift, which is in the majority of cases considered to be the most important factor in the hypertrophy response, should be on point. However, the psychology of lifting heavy weights does not always mean that you must do it all the time. Instead of being overwhelmed with heavy weights, you can also try training across the wide range with one to 20 plus reps. This will help you maximize the avenues of muscular growth and will also put a specific focus on the six to 12-rep range.
Rest Is Essential for Growing Muscles
You need to consider the time taken between sets. Despite the commonly accepted belief that rests when growing your muscles should be as short as possible, such as 60 to 90 seconds between sets, which is considered a moderate rest, holding at least two minutes between the sets for the multi-joints and 60 to 90 seconds for isolations is the most favorable.
Proper Nutrition and Sleep
One of the most important factors in building muscle is proper nutrition and a lot of sleep. For the best results, you should focus on lean-bulking meal plans with the proper caloric intake and keep fat gains to a minimum, if it is possible. On the other hand, recovery is vital, but the right recovery plan is even more important. Restful sleep and active recovery will get you far on your muscle-building journey.
Lifting weights and planning your meals will certainly give you some positive results. But if you intend on gaining a lot of muscle fiber, then you will need to put some effort into finding the best ways that will elevate your muscle growth and reward you with desirable results.
