Physiological facts about training to grow muscle mass

Heavy lifting is necessary for good muscle mass gaining.

The muscles regulate the power they use by engaging a smaller or larger number of muscle fibres. To make all your muscle fibres grow, you must lift so heavy that most of the fibers are used. You must therefore lift a so heavy weight that it is near to the maximum you manage, in order to make your muscles grow.

Also the slow-twitch fibres are also first engaged. When the weight exceeds a certain percentage of your maximum capasity, the fast-twich fibres get egaged and the heavier the weight, the more or these are engaged.

For maximum muscle growth, you ideally should use all the power you have, but this implies some risk of hurting muscles or tendons. Therefore it is prpobably wisest to lift near to you maximal capasity, but not 100% of your capasity.

You must however warm up before training with heavy weights. This can be done by using light weights first and then add weight.

There is a theory stating that you can tire out the slow-twitch fibres with many repetitions, and then the fast-twitch fibres get engaged instead. This is probably wrong. With many repititions you are training the same fibres even more, but most of the fibres are not trained at all.


Heavy lifting strengthens your bones and tendons.

By using heavy weights you get your bones and tendons to grow too, and your bone density increases. Thereby you get a body that is not so easily injured during your sport activities or during your daily life. You also counteract the bone wekening that often comes when one gets older.

Some people prpagate advices about not doing sqats and other exercises that lay a heavy burdon on the knees and other fine structures in the body. But such exercises are necessary to strengthen the knees and other critical areas of the body. They should however be done in a controlled way, and you should should gradually negotiate the weight your knees tollerate.


You are born with a certain amount of each muscle fibre type

When you are born you allready have a certain amount of each type of muscle fibres, the slow type I and the fast type II. Some persons have most of the first type and others most of the other.

It is difficult, or perhaps even impossible to alter this amount. The politically correct knowledge says it is impossible, but practical life tells us that such absolute wisdom seldom is totally true. It is however at leat difficult to increase the amount of fibers of each type. Therefore it is also difficult to alter the basic body type you possess.

You can however make the muscle fibres thicker and thereby stronger by training. When you do so, the amount of contractile proteine filaments within each fibre are increased. Those filaments are fibres inside the fibres that actually excert the muscular force.


A high level of testosterone and growth hormone helps you to build muscles

Testosterone is necessary for building muscles. The muscle mass of every human being increases as the testosterone level increases during the growth. This happens both in girls and boys. Boys, however, have a much greater increase in the testosterone level during puberty. Therefore boys usually get a greater muscle mass than girls. The testosterone level increase until some time after puberty, and so do also the muscle mass, even without training. Some time before the age of 30 the muscle mass do not increase any longer by itself. in order to get the muscle mass gtow further, weight training is necessary.

By training intenisvely so that as much muscle mass as possible is enaged during a short time, the testosterone level aslo increases. This will in turn help the muscle mass to grow even more.

You should therefore do your workup with a certain degree of intensity. This is achieved by performing exercises that engage great muscle groups at a time, for example squats, deadlifts, pullups, and dips. It is also achieved by lifting near to you total capasity. And it is achieved by avoiding rest periods longert that one minute.

Also growth hormone is necessary for the muscle growth during childhood and puberty, and to maintain and further increase muscle mass later on. Also the level of growth hormones tend to peak some years after puberty and then level off.

On the market you can find natural drugs with the aim of increasing the the bodie's own production of growth hormones and testosterone.


Protein is needed for growing muscles, but you need energy too

In a good body-building project, you must focus poth on needed protein amounts for the building process and needed amounts of energy, or calories. A recommended amount of proteine for a muscle building program is at least 2 grams (2.2 pounds) of protein per each kilograms of muscle mass. A man of 75 kilos will then need at least 150 g proteine each day. You easily get enough proteine by consuming some fish, lean meat, lean cheese or poultry in each meal.

But this proteine need to be combined with some energy supplies. If not the body will burn the protein to get energy. Thereefore each meal should contain some bread or other cereals, potatoes, some sweet fruit and also some fat of the right type.

The amount of energy rich food you need, varies according to your activity levels. However, you need so much that you do not go from the meal feeling hungry.


Do not have a too extensive running program

A running program is good for your condition and your general health, but an extensive running program can make it difficult for you to grow muscle mass. It is probably wise of you to have a running program, a swimming program or another condition training program because of the health effects these type of exercises give, but they should not be too extensive if you want to grow a big muscle mass

When you are running, you manly are using your type I fibres. The running will make these fibres more efficient, but also smaller. By running you usually do not need great force, but you need to have as light muscles as possible that are also effective. Running provides muscle development of this kind.

Extensive running will also make the type I fibres immune to weight training. The tyepe II fibres will not be influenced by the running, but they comprize probably only 50 % of your muscle mass. Therefore extensive running will decrease your muscle development.