Building Muscle; What it really takes.

When it comes to building muscle there's a lot of information out there. In fact, there is too much information out there.

And for those looking to start their journey in strength training or even consider building muscle for physique purposes, there is so much out their clouding the internet, which will in turn cloud the way we think about training.

Even with a quick Google, these are the results that come up in the search bar, & telling me that there are about 1,090,000,000 results in 0.71 seconds of search. That is a lot of information to take in, and a lot of information to consider.

Whether you're looking for eight tips on building muscle mass, what to eat when building muscle or even how long it takes, it can be overwhelming.

So I thought I would talk about this topic from experience, without creating more overwhelm, and hopefully simplifying a few things down.

My Journey

After starting powerlifting a few years ago, I personally believed I had started too late and that I wasn't really going to get anywhere - which I was wrong about.

Not only did I see strength training results quickly, I started to see the benefits it held not only physically but mentally too. Newbie gains, refer to the rapid increase in muscle and strength, which normally happens with those who have little to no experience when it comes to lifting weights.

The reason for this is due to the body being hyper responsive to these new movements, as the body begins to utilise compound movements and heavy weights, along with a progressive overload.

Because of this the body begins to adapt faster than those who have been training for years, with research even showing that?beginner lifters gain around 4 to 7 pounds of muscle in their first three months of lifting.

I could go into the scientific elements around the why, however I want to keep this as simple as possible - but more often than not, these gains occur due to the body taking on a new set of goals and will also depend on the type of strength training that you're doing.

These so called newbie gains are something I experienced when implementing strength training on my journey into power lifting, which got me thinking about how many others could benefit from joining into the powerlifting world.

Which is where Brawn Power began, a fitness app that connects not only a community of powerlifters, but brings both new and old lifters into one platform.

But this article isn't about Brawn, it's about gaining muscle, so lets go back to that...

Gaining Muscle

Seeing as gaining muscle might seem to more simple compared to becoming the next big 'thing' in social media, it doesn't necessarily happen as fast as some may life.

For some it can take months and for others it can take years and this is due to every single person having a different genetic disposition.

One training program will not be effective for every individual, you must ensure diversification.

Which leads me to talk about a research paper which was released by the University of Cambridge, that looked at the use of a mathematical model that can predict the optimum exercise regimen for building muscle.

This particular model has been created to tell researchers how much a specific amount of exertion will cause a muscle to grow and how long it would take for that particular model.

The reason I've brought it up in this particular article is because this model could create a way to optimise our exercise regime just by entering details about our individual physiology (how our body functions and is built).

The work by the University of Cambridge and reported by the Biophysical Journal found that there is an optimal weight for each individual to utilise during resistance training for muscle growth. Along with that it stated that muscles should only be near their maximum load for a small period of time, and during that time a cell singling pathway will be activated leading to the creation of new muscle proteins.

Now, this is research has it flaws, mainly because every individual is different and there is no control element, what it is stating is that the weight you lift is particular to each person.

Whilst we do have a basic understanding of this, seeing as we look to progressively overload in training and slowly increase weight depending on time spent in the gym, it's so key to understand that each person is different.

This research may have opened up a lot of pathways for strength training programs, to ensure that we don't waste time doing low value training sessions, the one thing to take away when it comes to muscle growth is that;

The weight you lift in the gym will be different to the weight I lift in the gym.

This can come down to many factors of weight, diet, height, genetics, upbringing, lifestyle stressors and more.

However the overall outcome I wanted for this article was to not only highlight that strength training is necessary for muscle growth, but also to just start, because comparing yourself to others will never work in the long run.

We are all on our own strength training journeys, and what you lift is to be celebrated, even if it's more or less than what I lift.

If you do want to learn more about what was referenced in this article, click here:?https://phys.org/news/2021-08-mathematical-muscle.html

& if you would like to know more about Brawn Power, contact me directly.