Building muscle is a technical task rather than a matter of strength. How can we spend more time and increase muscle size faster? Here are four truths about muscle growth. Understanding them can help you gain more muscle!
Truth 1: One hour of weightlifting is more efficient than two hours.
Is longer weightlifting training time always better? You should know that muscle growth is not simply determined by the duration of training. Excessively long weightlifting sessions may lead to excessive fatigue and increase the risk of injury due to overtraining.
Research has found that after more than one hour of fitness training, attention and concentration begin to decline, which in turn affects muscle recovery and growth, and one’s own strength will also be lost.
Two hours of weightlifting training may deplete the body’s glycogen reserves, and the body will start to break down protein to provide energy, which is unfavorable for muscle growth.
One hour of high-quality weightlifting can fully utilize the body’s glycogen reserves and provide sufficient energy for muscles for high-intensity contractions and stretches.
We can be fully concentrated and focus on completing effective movements and sets. Each movement can be performed standardly and in place to fully stimulate the target muscle group. For example, when doing barbell bench presses, one can accurately feel the exertion of the chest muscles instead of being perfunctory in a tired state.
Truth 2: Insufficient sleep also affects muscle gain speed.
During sleep, the body secretes a series of growth hormones. These hormones are like magical architects responsible for repairing damaged muscle tissue and promoting the growth of new muscle fibers.
Scientific research shows that getting at least 7-8 hours of high-quality sleep per night is beneficial for muscle growth and recovery. If you have long-term sleep deprivation, your body will be in a state of stress, and cortisol levels will rise. This will not only hinder muscle growth but may also lead to muscle breakdown.
People with the same training volume and diet but different sleep schedules will have different body changes. Compared to those who sleep less than 7 hours a day, if you can sleep 8 hours a day, you will feel more energetic and have more obvious muscle lines. On the other hand, the person with insufficient sleep will have a greatly reduced muscle gain effect and may even experience physical exhaustion.
Truth 3: Do more compound movements.
For those who don’t have much time for exercise, it’s better to do more compound movements, that is, movements that involve multiple joints and muscle groups. Actions such as squats, deadlifts, rows, bench presses, pull-ups, squats, lunges, back extensions, and parallel bar dips are all golden compound movements in fitness.
Compound movements can drive the development of multiple muscle groups at once, allowing the body to release more growth hormones and effectively improve muscle gain efficiency. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced person, it is worth repeating these movements, which can help you develop muscle lines faster.
Truth 4: Load level determines the limit of muscle growth.
The so-called load level is simply the weight or resistance we bear during exercise. If you perform training with the same load for a long time, muscle growth will stop after reaching a certain limit.
Scientific research shows that moderately increasing the load level can stimulate more muscle fibers to participate in exercise and thus promote the synthesis of muscle protein. However, this does not mean that the greater the load, the better. Excessive load may lead to muscle strains and body injuries.
If two fitness enthusiasts, one always maintains the same low-load training, while the other gradually increases the load. After a period of time, the friend who continuously challenges higher loads will clearly see significant muscle growth, while the other progresses slowly.
If you want to break through the bottleneck of muscle growth, you must perform progressive load training according to your actual situation, allowing the muscles to continuously surpass themselves in continuous challenges and reach the ideal growth limit.
