The key to building new muscle
When you’re looking to add some new muscle to your body, it all comes down to muscle fiber contraction. That is, in a nutshell, the direct action that occurs every time any muscle in your body moves. When you stand up, the muscle fibers in your legs, back, hips, and buttocks contract by the thousands. When you yawn in the morning, the muscles in your arms, shoulders, neck, and jaw contract. And in the gym there are a lot of contractions of muscle fibers!
It is not muscle fiber contraction alone that is responsible for adding new muscle to your body. After all, these muscle fibers have been firing since you were born, and we don’t see many babies crawling around the nursery looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, do we? Your muscles must contract without enough force to challenge them! They must be ripped and torn, bent and bruised, pushed to their absolute limits. This is done with a lot of weight, of course!
When you enter the gym, warm up thoroughly with 5 to 10 minutes of slow walking on the treadmill. You don’t want to risk damaging muscle fibers without some blood flowing to those muscles. Then move to the weights and get pumping! Start with free weights and end with free weights. Take on the bench press, squats, rows, deadlifts, and overhead presses, then end the day with barbell bicep curls. Complete sets of low and high repetitions. Do some slow sets, some fast sets, and the rest at a moderate speed. You’re working to hit each and every muscle fiber like it’s not used to being hit.
Now that they have contracted with a lot of weight, the muscles have suffered a great deal of damage. It’s not time for them to grow up. You’ve done the damage, but now you must provide the tools your muscles need to recover and heal. First, you will need to give your body protein! Initially, you should consume 40 grams of whey protein (about two scoops) within 10 to 15 minutes of completing your workout. Then wait about 45 minutes and then start what will be a solid meal every three hours. For the rest of the day, the week, the month and the year. This is your new diet regimen! The continuous transport of nutrients to healing muscle fibers gives them the fuel and nutrients they need to grow back bigger and stronger. Don’t forget to rest too. You don’t grow in the gym, you grow when you sleep at night after a brutal workout.
If you want to build new muscle, you have to work hard to force every muscle fiber to contract in the gym every time. Then go home and force protein into the muscle fibers and groups you are targeting. Get plenty of rest and sleep to recover, and your body will have no choice but to grow!