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It’s common knowledge that you have to build muscle if your goal is to become bigger with lean cuts and popping muscles. However, you should know the overall principles behind building muscles.
While it’s not rocket science, it’s not a cakewalk either. You should be aware of how muscles work, what diet helps, which macronutrient is important, and how you should build a training programme.
Let’s dive into how to build muscle, keeping in mind the above factors:
How Do Muscles Grow?
The tissue that adapts the most in the body is the skeletal tissue. When you focus on resistance training, the muscle fibers go through muscle trauma. That's often known as muscle injury as well.
Such muscle fiber injuries trigger the activation of satellite cells on the outside. These cells focus on repairing the fibers by joining together, making them thicker and stronger.
Additionally, resistance training allows the body to release certain growth hormones via the pituitary gland. The amount of hormones released depends on the volume and intensity of the workout.
The growth hormone function is to ensure that the amino acids present in your nutrition, especially protein, can be used to make the fibers thicker.
How To Build Muscle?
To build muscle, you need to focus on putting stress on your muscles. The way to do that is to focus on bodyweight and resistance training. The more weights you lift, the more you will stimulate the fibers to become thicker.
You don’t need to lift for hours and hours to become bigger. You can start by adding a couple of training sessions to your workout routine.
When you exercise, the protein synthesis process begins and can be elevated for a while following the session. Furthermore, lifting weights can increase metabolism, which is a huge assist during the muscle-gain process.
Effective Tips for Building Muscle
When you're trying to build muscle, it’s not just understanding how muscles grow, but also learning the tips to grow muscles. The following are some tips in this regard:
Resistance Training
While the importance of resistance training has been emphasized upon above, let’s reiterate the same again.
Resistance training isn’t one-size fits all. Some may focus on bodyweight training, while others can focus on weight lifting. However, the eventual goal is to put stress on the muscle fibers and enable them to become bigger.
Have protein
The most important macronutrient for building muscles is protein. If you do not consume enough protein, the cells will not be able to go through the process successfully. Of course, other macronutrients - carbohydrates and fats - are important too.
Take Rest
Recovery is of utmost importance when you’re trying to build muscle. After your workout session, your muscle fibers need time to recover.
If you constantly keep your muscles activated, it won’t be possible for the cells to join together for overall development. Therefore, the recovery and rest period is mandatory for this process.
What To Eat To Build Muscles?
You should not be under the misconception that muscles are built at the gym. They're also built at home and in the kitchen.
As mentioned above, you need to have protein to kickstart the process. You can find protein in meat, cottage cheese, tofu, chia seeds, and several other options. You can supplement (if you need it) using protein powder as well.
However, in terms of diet, you should be on a slightly calorie surplus diet to build muscle. Otherwise, it could be a slower process than what you would expect. However, if you are not into bulking but just want to have some muscles, it’s possible using a calorie deficit diet as well.
In such situations, your body will be in a calorie surplus right after you have a meal, which means the cells will capitalize on the protein to repair the muscle fibers.
