Muscle Building Information

What Causes Muscle Growth?


In order for muscles to grow, three things are required:

1. Stimulus - exercise is needed to make the muscles work, use energy and cause microscopic damage to the fibers.

2. Nutrition - after intense exercise the muscles need to replenish their stores of fuel.

3. Rest - it is during the rest or recovery phase that the muscles repair the microscopic damage and grow.

Muscle size increases due to hypertrophic adaptation and an increase in the cross section area of individual muscle fibers. Intensive exercise impacts more on the strength influencing fast twitch type II fibers, therefore the increase in muscle size is accompanied by greater strength.

This will deplete the muscle's energy stores and cause microscopic damage to the muscle tissue. During recovery, these stores of glycogen and phosphocreatine will replenish from carbohydrates and creatine ingested as food or supplements. Amino acids supplied in the diet will trigger the protein synthesis that repairs the damaged muscle and lead to the creation of bigger muscle fibers.

To achieve continuous improvement you will need to keep reaching for higher levels of training intensity otherwise the improvement process will grind to a halt. Fortunately, this is relatively easy to plan for provided certain basic principles and rules are clearly followed. Subsequent articles in this series will examine these principles in detail.

In the meantime you can find out more about building muscle by visiting the site listed below.

Richard Mitchell is the creator of the bodybuildingadvisor.com website that provides guidance and information to athletes at all levels of bodybuilding experience. Go to Bodybuilding Advice to learn more about the issues covered in this article.

  


MORE RESOURCES:

Wodraska: Get on the ball to build strength
Salt Lake Tribune
... effective exercise that builds upper-body strength and encourages good posture. The only equipment you need is a stability ball. With this one piece of equipment, you can work abdominal muscles such as the rectus abdominus (your “six pack” muscle), ...

and more »


Well with Michelle: Lifting weights a winner
The News-Press
These principles will teach you how to make sure you're using enough weight, determine your sets and reps and insure you're always progressing in your workouts. 1. Overload: To build muscle, you need to use more resistance than your muscles are used to ...

and more »


Burn fat, build muscle
Cincinnati.com
Trainer Trisha DeHall helps her clients, many of them middle-aged women, lose body fat and gain muscle through a system she calls “controlled confusion.” Her specialty at Fit Body Boot Camp in Blue Ash is a 45-minute structured, group session that ...

and more »


Burn fat, build muscle
Cincinnati.com
Trainer Trisha DeHall helps her clients, many of them middle-aged women, lose body fat and gain muscle through a system she calls “controlled confusion.” Her specialty at Fit Body Boot Camp in Blue Ash is a 45-minute structured, group session that ...

and more »


GigaOm

Cloudscaling wants to make OpenStack webscale
GigaOm
The company, which has helped build public clouds for the likes of Korea Telecom and Internap, is putting its consulting muscle behind a new OpenStack-based software platform that is built with webscale in mind. For the uninitiated, OpenStack is a set ...

and more »


Build Muscle Memory on the Go with Pocketstrings
The Gadgeteer
The idea is to work on chords and build muscle memory, not to mention some handy calluses, in places where having an actual guitar would be inconvenient. There is no way to strum though and no prerecorded “correct” chord sounds, so it's truly only a ...



Massage Improves Post-Workout Recovery
Men's Fitness
Other studies have shown that treatments for sore muscles—such as ice baths and anti-inflammatory medications—can reduce inflammation. These tend to block muscle repair and growth. Massage, however, appears to not only make you feel better, ...

and more »


Evidence big football players face heart risks
Fox News
Often, professional athletes' muscle mass can make for a high body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of weight in relation to height. And there's the argument that a high BMI based on muscle is not so bad, Baron pointed out in an interview.

and more »


It's all about the calories
WWL
But he suspects they did not gain good, lean, solid muscle, since you need to workout and lift weights to use the extra protein to build muscle. But while overeating any type of calorie causes weight gain, there are some things you need to know.

and more »


AAOS Launches National 2012 Public Service Announcement Campaign
Sacramento Bee
With these ads, we highlight how parents can protect their kids' growing bones, muscles and joints and also remind adults of the choices they can make to protect their own health," said Leon Benson, MD and vice chair of the AAOS Communications Cabinet.

and more »

Google News

Article List | Index | Site Map
All logos, trademarks and articles on this site are property and copyright of their respective owner(s).
The comments are property of their posters, all the rest is Copyright © 2006 CanadaSEEK.com - All Rights Reserved.