Muscle building – strength training for muscle growth

Introduction

Muscle building is a physical process that is due to a strain on the muscles. Excessive muscle exertion tells the body that the available muscles were not sufficient for this task and therefore the muscles have to grow in order to be better prepared for the next strain. Muscle building is based on this simple principle. While our ancestors needed muscle build-up as a survival advantage, nowadays a muscular body is regarded as an ideal of beauty and provides a certain degree of stabilization of the trunk and joints.

What is the best way to build muscle?

Strengthening and developing your muscles is, in short, not a great art and works to a certain extent through any kind of training. However, there are factors that clearly favor muscle building. To name the main components in this interaction: Training type, training intensity, recovery period, nutrition.

In the following, the corresponding components for a muscle building training will now be considered:

• Training type: Weight training is the type of training that promises the greatest muscle growth. It is true that muscle growth can also be achieved to a certain extent with your own body weight. However, in order to get beyond this, you have to work with additional weights.
• Training intensity: This should be adapted to the physical capabilities of the user.

  A different training intensity is recommended for a beginner than for an advanced user. While at the beginning of the muscle build-up, the main focus should be on correct exercise, as the increase in strength and muscle growth comes almost automatically, advanced users need a more precise plan of the muscle build-up training. Here the muscle build-up is mainly achieved by the athlete adding a variance to his training in order to send new growth impulses to the muscle again and again.

• Recovery period: Even if beginners in particular find it difficult to give the muscle a regeneration break, experienced athletes know how important this time is.

  After all, the muscle can only grow during the time of non-exercise. Provided, of course, that you have stimulated it accordingly through training. It is also important not to let the physical exhaustion become too great, because otherwise the performance will decrease.

  Athletes therefore insert a relaxation phase shortly before this point of performance loss, in which they only train with light weights to allow the muscles to regenerate. In addition, protein synthesis within the muscle is increased up to three days after a training load, so that training the same muscle every four days would be sufficient to achieve muscle growth.

• Nutrition: This point should not be neglected, since the food we eat is the basic material for the muscle components. Since the muscle is made up of proteins, and these in turn are made up of amino acids, the body must be provided with a sufficient amount of protein or proteins to enlarge the muscle. Another basic pillar of nutrition is the daily calorie intake. While it is important to consume enough calories to meet the body’s needs so that existing muscle is not broken down, too many calories means that excess energy is stored in the form of body fat.