How muscles grow after training. How our muscles grow: mechanisms of activation of muscle growth. What happens during muscle growth

How do muscles grow, what triggers their growth and how can we use this in training?

The body does not like change and strives to remain in the comfort zone - that is, to maintain homeostasis and maintain a constant internal environment. But if there is a need, he knows how to adapt to new conditions and develop new qualities in order to endure unusual stress more easily.

Lifting weights is a stress and threat to the body, which it tries to adapt to by increasing muscle size and making a person stronger.

This overload principle - the most important thing for muscle growth, which is why we have to go to the gym several times a week, for years, and constantly increase the load so that controlled stress is maintained. If we stop loading the muscles, the body will get rid of all the extra, unnecessary fibers that no longer work - it is not economically profitable for it to support and maintain what is not used.

Many beginners believe that muscles grow during training, although, in fact, during training the opposite happens: there they are destroyed. It's like renovating a house: you have to take down the old to install the new. And muscles grow on rest days. During training, we stress the muscles (create a stimulus), and repair and strengthening occurs within 36-72 hours after. During this time, the muscles are not only restored to their previous level, but also grow a little more, “with a margin”, so that next time it will be easier - this is called supercompensation.

Today, science knows three main mechanisms of muscle growth that are triggered by training. All of them are controlled stress:

Mechanical tension in the muscle in response to heavy load.
Metabolic stress (cell acidification with glycogen breakdown products).
Damage to muscle fibers.

Muscle tension

When we lift heavy weights, it's hard for us. Sometimes you can feel that the muscles are ready to tear away from the bone - this is a lot of mechanical tension in the muscle, and it is considered the most important in muscle growth.

A large load means the risk of damage and death of both a specific muscle cell and the entire organism. In response, the brain decides to strengthen the body and, with the help of anabolic hormones, signals muscle growth and improves neuromuscular connections (strength).

But it seems that there is a threshold in the magnitude of the load beyond which muscle growth ceases, and then other factors become increasingly important. This is why bodybuilders have larger muscles than powerlifters, even though they train with lighter weights, while powerlifters are much stronger.

It is also known that working with light weights, but repeatedly and to failure, is also effective for muscle growth: as the fibers responsible for endurance get tired, white (fast) fibers are connected, which usually immediately connect when working with heavy weights and well grow.

Fiber damage

12-24 hours after an intense workout, the muscles often begin to ache slightly (or not slightly, if there was too much stress). The reason is damage to the contractile proteins inside the muscle cell, and sometimes in the cell membrane. Some mild (!) soreness can indirectly affect muscle growth.

The body's response to muscle damage can be compared to an acute inflammatory response to an infection. Immune cells (neutrophils, macrophages and others) are sent to the damaged tissue to remove cell debris and help maintain fiber structure. The body also produces signaling molecules - cytokines. All of this leads to a response that triggers muscle growth so that it can be more resistant to future damage.

However, muscle pain is by no means a necessary condition for growth. Over time, the muscles connective tissue and the immune system become increasingly effective in combating fiber damage. The longer and more intensely you train, the less pain you may feel (unless, of course, the load suddenly turns out to be too heavy).

If after training it hurts to walk, sit, raise and lower your arms, you have exceeded your body's ability to recover. The goal is to stimulate, not destroy.

There are people who never experience any discomfort after training, but they also grow because microdamages can occur without pain.

Metabolic stress

Even if not everyone knows what it is, everyone is familiar with a strong burning sensation in the muscle during exercises of ~12 repetitions per set and above.

What is metabolic stress? Long muscle contraction compresses the blood vessels and “locks” the blood in the cells. New blood with oxygen does not temporarily enter the cell and metabolic products (lactate, hydrogen ions, inorganic phosphate) do not leave it. A kind of chemical poisoning of the cell occurs, there is a risk of its death, and in response to this the body again decides to strengthen itself.

There is a version that muscle growth can also be affected by “pumping” - swelling of the muscle after training, giving it volume for several hours. Scientists suggest that excess water in the cell stretches it. The cell perceives this again as a threat to its integrity and sends anabolic signals that trigger growth.

How to apply this in practice?

Although moderate-to-heavy weights (different for each person), also called submaximal, are one of the most important factors in muscle growth, they are not the only one. Otherwise, the strongest people on the planet would be the most muscular, but this is not so.

For muscle growth, it is more effective to become strong in a variety of rep ranges: low (up to 6), medium (6-12) and high (12-20 reps to failure).

Some exercises are better for creating pumps and metabolic stress. Usually these are exercises where the muscle experiences maximum tension while being in a contracted form. This is a different isolated work on the muscle with light weight, on simulators, with rubber bands - many repetitions and with short rest between approaches. An example for the buttocks is the gluteal bridge. Example for shoulders: dumbbell lateral raises.

Other exercises are best at creating maximum tension in the muscle. Usually these are squats, deadlifts, lunges, pull-ups, etc. In them, the muscles experience maximum load, stretching. It is these exercises that most often cause muscle pain in the morning.

All this can be combined in one workout: start with heavy basic exercises and finish with isolation until it burns. You can split it into different workouts: make one heavy, with complex exercises. The other is an “easy” multi-repetition exercise (of course, it won’t be easy - enduring a burning sensation in a muscle is sometimes more difficult than lifting heavy weights).

About the load

We remember: in order for muscles to grow, you need to do a little more all the time than what the muscles are accustomed to. Then they become stronger and larger so that the load is easier to bear. If a person is used to lying on the couch, then squats with body weight are already a decent load. If you lift a barbell of the same weight for a long time, your muscles get used to it and stop growing - this is a new comfort zone. Any changes in the body are the result of adaptation to unusual, difficult conditions.

The following are responsible for the training load:
– training volume (number of repetitions and especially approaches per muscle);
– intensity (working weight, muscle load per unit of time). Both can be increased over time. Here's what it might look like (numbers for example):
⠀
You do the exercise: 3 sets, 8 reps each until failure, weight 10 kg (total tonnage 240 kg).
After some time, the muscles get used to it, it becomes easy, and you can do it 10 times with the same weight: 3 sets x 10 reps x 10 kg (300 kg).
After some time, you can do 12 reps with the same weight: 3 sets x 12 reps x 10 kg (360 kg).
If there is no goal to go beyond 12 repetitions, you can increase the working weight and return to eight repetitions: 3 sets x 8 reps x 13 kg (312 kg)
Now you again gradually work your way up to 12 reps with this weight:
3 sets x 12 reps x 13 kg (468 kg).
⠀
Then you can increase the weight again, return to eight repetitions and go up:
3 sets x 8 reps x 15 kg (360 kg)
⠀Or not increase the weight, but increase the load through repetitions and approaches:
4 sets x 8 reps x 13 kg (416 kg)
…
4 sets x 12 reps x 13 kg (624 kg)
⠀
Of course, you don't have to increase the load every workout, but there should be a general tendency to "do more" over time, and keeping a training diary is important for this.

(9 ratings, average: 4,89 out of 5)

Inspired by the idea of finding a beautiful body, many people mark time for several years, but the muscles still do not grow. Today's article is about muscle growth, how to make muscles grow from a training perspective. You will receive comprehensive information about what kind of load you need to give your muscles and how to do it in order to finally get your progress off the ground.

Information on muscle growth from a training perspective

What is muscle growth?

Before moving on to the concept, let's look at various types trainings, and what problems they solve:

Powerlifting. Work with very heavy weights, lots of rest between sets. Task: develop maximum strength and muscle power.
Kettlebell lifting. Work with lighter weights, little rest. Task: develop muscle endurance and rapid energy resynthesis.
Body-building. Something in between, moderately heavy weights, short rest periods between reps. Task: height muscle mass.

Each type of training solves its own problems based on the principle of specificity: what we train is what we get!

So what is muscle growth? This is one of the ways our body adapts to strength training. When external conditions disturb the balance, the body is forced to change (adapt, adjust) in response. Let us list the indicators that begin to develop in our body:

Muscle energy (creatine phosphate, ATP and glycogen stores increase).
Nervous units (central nervous system and motor structures).
Coordination of muscle contraction (coordinated work of myofibrils and muscles as a whole).
Increase in the volume of contractile structures (number and size of myofibrils).

The types of adaptation listed are in order from easiest to most difficult. Those. First of all, muscle energy develops. At the same time, muscle growth (4th point) is the most energy-consuming adaptation (muscles need to be constantly fed, even at rest) and the least beneficial for our body.

Muscle growth is primarily an increase in the number and size of muscle cells (myofibrillar hypertrophy), and secondly an increase in muscle energy resources (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy).

What is needed for muscle growth?

Having once adapted to changed conditions, the body is ready to meet similar stress and resist it steadfastly. If stress CONSTANTLY do not increase, the body will not need to increase its adaptation (read increase muscles).

Fundamentally an important condition muscle growth is the progression of loads. This is a condition where the applied stress constantly increases, forcing our body to constantly build up more and more new muscle structures.

You can progress the load in bodybuilding in various ways. The most interesting thing is that some of them will make muscles grow much better than others.

How to progress the load?

Increase working weight. The most effective and easiest way.
Increase your training volume. More approaches and exercises increase muscle performance.
Increase energy expenditure during the approach. Use more repetitions, cheating, negatives and dropsets. Aimed at increasing muscle endurance.

So how can you properly progress the load to make your muscles grow? Large muscles mean high strength performance. Those. muscles must be universal - show both decent strength and good endurance with a large volume of training. You must successfully combine all methods of load progression, but take into account two points:

If the training is too intense (volume), then there may be more damage than necessary and there will be no talk of any growth.
If the training is too easy, there may be very little damage for subsequent growth.

To make muscles grow you need to use:

quite heavy weights,
short rest time between approaches,
Do a lot of sets with heavy weights.

At the intersection of these three factors, you will be able to obtain the most expensive adaptation - muscle growth. This is why bodybuilders' training is the hardest, because... you need to work quickly, efficiently, a lot and hard.

In practice, this means a repetition range of 6-12, the number of working approaches (excluding warm-up ones) is at least three. This rep range will allow you to perform the set for quite a long time, which means it will force your muscles to turn on (use adaptation) anaerobic glycolysis (resynthesis of energy when ATP reserves are depleted).

The key role of glycolysis is that during this reaction a number of anabolic hormones are produced (hydrogen ions, messenger RNA, sex hormones, etc.), which begin to launch a program for the synthesis of new muscle structures in our body.

With short and explosive work (1-3 repetitions), the combination of your “ATP + creatine phosphate” will be sufficient to provide energy for the contraction and energy resynthesis will not occur. During prolonged work (15-20 repetitions), the body uses a more suitable method of resynthesis - through the oxidation of nutrients (this is aerobic glycolysis, which has little in common with muscle hypertrophy).

Why this scheme there won't be work for beginners?

The body of a beginning athlete does not have much adaptation. Any extensive training will only drive him into. The body will try to eliminate the worst damage without leading to muscle growth.

A smart way for beginners would be to gradually increase the load from the tiniest one, in order to understand where your limit is. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with detailed information, without which long-term progress in sports will be impossible.

Conclusion and conclusions

Muscles are an expensive commodity for our body. You can get them only through hard work and the development of such qualities as high strength performance. Follow the principle of progression of loads, add more intensity with each new workout, but be sure that your body is able to digest new stress. Through trial and error you will find optimal conditions training that will work for you.

In this article, I will tell you when muscles grow, after what, due to what, etc. etc.

In the process of building muscles, 3 components are important (success depends on them): TRAINING, NUTRITION and RECOVERY. All 3 components work in conjunction (together). By themselves = they do not give anything.

So, today's topic - when muscles grow - touches on the 3rd component (recovery).

Recovery is muscle growth.

That is, answering the topic of the article - muscles grow during rest (recovery). That's it.

Look, I will show you the whole chain - how everything happens (so that you understand).

When you train in the gym, you do not grow muscles (as many people mistakenly believe), on the contrary, you injure them (that is, destroy them) in the process of performing various exercises on one or another muscle group. Why are we doing this? To stimulate (activate) future muscle growth.

That is, simply put, training creates the prerequisites for future muscle growth. Without training = activation of this process = that is, muscle growth = will not happen.

Whether this muscle growth will be realized depends on other components (nutrition and sleep).

This is why all 3 pillars (components) that I mentioned at the very beginning are important.

So, after training, the healing of injuries that were received during training begins, this is called “compensation”, and only after these training injuries are eliminated will muscle growth begin (this is called “supercompensation”).

This is the basic theory. I introduced you to it so that you understand (a) = growth occurs during rest (recovery).

This is why rest (recovery) accounts for 10% of success in muscle growth.

I repeat, if you think that muscles grow during training, YOU ARE WRONG!!!

During training, muscles are destroyed, and they grow during REST (recovery) and only with appropriate (correct) nutrition.

If there is CORRECT TRAINING and RECOVERY (rest), but there will be no proper nutrition(construction materials) = nothing will come of it (no growth).

And all because the ORGANISM needs building materials (proteins + fats + carbohydrates + water + vitamins and minerals) in order to heal injuries (which were received during training) during rest (recovery).

And if there are no food nutrients, THEN THERE WILL BE NO GROWTH, even if there is rest (recovery). Do you understand this or not? There will be no way to heal injuries, because... there are no building materials (nutrition) for healing and subsequent muscle growth. Understand?

You cannot build a house without building materials. Even if you have WORK (training) and a lot of time (recovery). I hope this analogy clearly demonstrates to you that you cannot build a body (muscles) without proper nutrition (building materials). Even if there is RECOVERY (rest).

CONCLUSION: MUSCLE GROWTH IS A RELATIONSHIP:

TRAINING(30%)<= ПИТАНИЕ(70%) =>RECREATION(10%)

In my experience, most people underestimate the role of recovery.

In most cases, there is only talk about training and nutrition (this is normal), but recovery is also important = we must not forget.

We won’t talk about training and nutrition today. Today we are talking specifically about the topic of the article.

And we must not forget because everything may be perfect for you in terms of training + nutrition, that is, you have created (a) all the prerequisites for muscle growth, BUT remember and do not forget that growth does not occur during training, but precisely during RECOVERY AFTER TRAINING ! That's the point.

If you do not create conditions for proper rest (recovery), then growth will slow down or stop completely. So the choice is yours. I'm just telling it like it really is.

SLEEP is the most important factor affecting overall recovery.

At night, you need to sleep at least 8-10 hours.

Ideally, in addition to this, sleep for another hour or two during the day (if possible and willing).

Also try to go to bed and get up earlier (for example, go to bed at 9-10 o’clock, wake up at 7-8), because this also has a beneficial effect on the level of your sex hormones.

With a lack of sleep, weakness, fatigue, drowsiness, etc. occur.

What kind of training is there... strength indicators, strength endurance and neuropsychic activity drop... And in general, without sufficient (without good) sleep, both your mood and your composure, determination, desire to train, etc. disappear.

If for an ordinary person (i.e., not involved in sports) sleep is so important for normal life, imagine the role of sleep for a person involved in sports (in the gym)…

If you lack sleep, your muscle tissue (your muscles) will begin to break down, and all because lack of sleep or no sleep at all increases the manifestation of catabolism (destruction).

What is our goal? That's right - muscle growth... and not destruction, so draw your conclusions.

RECOVERY is generally a complex concept (not just sleep), which is influenced by absolutely everything in your life. Any STRESS outside of training slows down recovery.

Remember this when, for example, you are nervous, lacking sleep, walking at night, etc., etc. the same nutrition (correct, sufficient, etc., etc. or not), stress level during training (severity of injuries), genetics, gender, etc.

However, along with proper training + nutrition = what is said in this article will be enough.

eat lift sleep repeat

That is, if you have everything correctly (competently) organized in terms of training and nutrition = and in addition to this, there is high-quality recovery (rest, sleep, absence of stress outside of training, etc.) = there will be growth.

Therefore, take care of organizing all 3 components = otherwise you will not see success.

P.s. It is important to understand that this article is only a piece of information. That's not all. This is just a small part =)

You can get the most current and complete information, based on the latest scientific data regarding muscle pumping (for both men and girls), in my courses:

for men

for girls/women

Congratulations, administrator.

People who work out in gyms progress differently. Some people manage to gain weight quite quickly, while others do not grow muscles. What affects muscle growth and how to speed up this process today we will try to understand all the details.

Physiology of muscle growth

Muscle tissue in the human body is the most economical, as it tries to retain a maximum of nutrients and gradually increase in size, adapting to physical activity. There is also a so-called ideal weight mechanism: the body itself determines maximum quantity muscle fibers necessary for a comfortable existence.

The number of fibers from birth is determined at the genetic level, but their quality can be increased with the help strength training, proper nutrition and other important factors. Muscles grow due to an increase in the thickness of the fibers, but how to stimulate this process?

What influences fiber thickening?

Training programs for gaining muscle mass are aimed at partial destruction and rupture of fibers, and during the process of rest, the muscles are restored and increase in volume, exceeding their previous volumes. This process is called supercompensation.

Thickening of muscle cells occurs as a result of the synthesis of protein threads that absorb nutrients entering the body as part of food. How more people trains, the more protein threads there are in the body and the more efficient the blood supply to muscle tissue. Accordingly, you need to give your body enough protein, vitamins, minerals and calories in general. Without this condition, the volume of muscle groups cannot be increased, since they will not have the building material for growth.

When performing exercises, the muscles fill with blood and increase in size. Athletes call it . In this case, microscopic fibers are damaged, and when they are restored, growth is caused.

How to speed up muscle growth?

Natural training for muscle growth involves creating stress for the muscles. They are an important condition for growth and maintain homeostasis in the body. This happens when certain conditions are reached.

Muscle tension

It is during loading that the muscles receive the mentioned stress, to which they are not yet adapted. You have to do whatever it takes to shock them. To do this you need to increase the working weights. Complex chemical processes take place in cells that determine muscle growth processes. For example, an intracellular protein is activated - a signaling element that promotes the development and hypertrophy of muscle fibers.

Tissue damage

After exercise, everyone has experienced muscle pain - this is a sign of local muscle damage, namely microscopic fiber tears. These local damages activate the cell's satellites. Note that pain is not a necessary indicator of muscle growth, but in order to make muscles grow, it is necessary to damage them. If we talk in simple words, during recovery, the fibers thicken and due to this the volume of the muscles increases.

Metabolic stress

Experienced athletes know what pumping is and how to achieve it. This is what they call the filling of a muscle with blood during work. This happens under the influence of metabolic stress. Many athletes believe that it is the pump that makes your muscles grow. Scientists conducting many studies partially confirm this fact.

In reality, under metabolic stress, muscles do grow, but cells may not. This is due to glycogen entering the muscles and enlarging them with the help of connective tissues. This is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, in which muscle volume can increase without increasing the working weight during training.

The role of hormones in muscle growth

Why don't muscles grow when doing all the exercises regularly? The reason may be hormones. They are necessary for cell growth and regeneration after exercise. The most important hormones that help achieve the desired result are:

testosterone;
IGF-1.

Many focus on stimulating the production of testosterone, which triggers protein synthesis, slowing down its breakdown. It activates satellite cells and promotes the production of other anabolic hormones by the athlete’s body.

As a result of strength training, testosterone production is stimulated, and muscle cell receptors become sensitive to free testosterone. IGF-1 regulates muscle size and stimulates protein synthesis, and also helps satellite cells work to enlarge muscle fibers. It's all quite complicated, but the point is that you have to do the hard strength exercises, otherwise the hormone will be produced in insufficient quantities. As a result, you will find that the muscles do not grow or grow slowly.

The Role of Nutrition and Amino Acids for Muscle Growth

Amino acids are protein particles necessary for the construction of protein needed by muscle fibers. Each type of protein contains different amino acids. Accordingly, meals directly affect the supply of nutrients to the body, from which new muscle cells will be built. The emphasis in proper nutrition is on protein foods, but the caloric content of the diet plays an important role so that the body has the energy to perform strength exercises.

Try to have 5-6 meals a day. One or two meals can be replaced with protein shakes or snacks in the form of cottage cheese, a handful of nuts or a banana.
You need to remove “empty” and high-calorie foods from your diet: soda, fast food, chips, baked goods, fried pies, etc. They do not contain useful substances, and the fat they contain increases harmful cholesterol in the blood and disrupts the functioning of internal organs.
The diet should be balanced and necessarily include high-quality proteins, complex carbohydrates, vegetables and fruits, and omega-3 fatty acids.
If you have a thin physique, use a gainer to gain muscle mass. It will increase the calorie content of your daily diet.
Do not increase the amount of protein per 1 kg of weight above the norm. 2 g of protein per 1 kg of body weight is sufficient. You can get protein from cottage cheese, eggs, meat, chicken, seafood, and protein shakes.

Following these rules will allow you to make your muscles grow. you can find out from other articles on our website.

Why do muscles grow slowly?

If your muscles have stopped growing or are simply not growing well, you may be eating improperly or exercising incorrectly. You should exercise up to 3-4 times a week, but no more, otherwise overtraining may occur. In addition, muscle hypertrophy is a long-term process. You may not see results in a few weeks, but after 2 months they will definitely be noticeable. Just take measurements or take photos of yourself once a month and track your results. If you follow all the above recommendations, your muscles will definitely grow, albeit slowly.

All people have different genetics, and they also produce hormones differently. There is a difference in the type and number of muscle fibers, and in the ability of satellite cells to activate cell growth. All these factors influence muscle growth to one degree or another. For the same reason, it is impossible to say how long it takes for muscles to begin to grow and how to understand that the process has begun. Everything is individual, so continue to train and watch your diet.

It is important to maintain protein synthesis so that it prevails over breakdown. Ensure your body gets enough proteins complex carbohydrates and essential amino acids. They will speed up the recovery of damaged cells, and you will see the result. Without all this, muscles can increase in volume very slowly and almost imperceptibly.

Greetings, friends! In this article I would like to talk about what muscle growth is, how to make muscles grow and give a few effective advice. Many people know what a plateau is, but do you know how to deal with it?

If we turn not to bodybuilders, but to scientists who are trying to look deep into the processes occurring in our muscles, then opinions differ about the reasons for muscle growth. When performing physical work, mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) accumulates in the muscles - a growth factor that triggers protein synthesis in the muscles.

At the same time, the number of hydrogen ions (a product of the breakdown of lactic acid) increases. This component is necessary to activate protein synthesis. However, its excess leads to acidification of muscle fibers and destruction of muscle cells.

So, some scientists argue that you need to give your muscles stress while trying to destroy them as little as possible. That is, accumulate a sufficient number of hydrogen ions, but not excess. In this case, there will be enough growth factors for the muscles to grow.

Another camp of scientists argues that the more destruction in muscle tissue, the better. Arguing this by saying that only when muscle fibers are destroyed during training, the body will launch adaptation mechanisms, release the necessary hormones and growth factors, which will trigger the synthesis of new protein structures and compensate for muscle tissue with a reserve.

But theory is theory, but what does the practice and experience of bodybuilders say?

Muscle growth practice

Bodybuilding originated at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, a huge amount of knowledge has been accumulated through observations and direct experiments on one's body.

It is clear that the athletes themselves and the people who trained them made a huge contribution to the knowledge base. Many training methods have undergone changes or been rejected altogether. As a result of almost 100 years of evolution, we have received the keys to effective muscle growth. Undoubtedly, development will continue and there are still many blind holes, but the knowledge that the world of bodybuilding already possesses cannot be overestimated.

So, the basic principle states that in order to grow muscles, you need to create unusual conditions for the body. In our case, with the help of training. That is, we come to the gym, begin to load the muscles with various exercises, this is stress for the body and it begins to think what to do, how to adapt to this stress. And he finds the solution in increasing muscle mass.

But if in subsequent training sessions we give him exactly the same load, he will already be ready for this and there will be no growth. You will hit a plateau. This is why it is necessary to constantly “surprise” your muscles. How to do this?

By increasing working weight

You are unlikely to be able to increase the weight of the equipment at every workout, but you should try to do this once every 2-3 weeks. It is necessary to increase the weight by a small amount. For example, if you do a bench press, then an increase of 2-3 kg per barbell will be sufficient.

By increasing the number of repetitions

If you cannot increase the weight of the projectile, then it will come to the rescue. Together with the first method, this can work like this: you have mastered some weight in the bench press, that is, you have performed it for 12 repetitions. Now you need to increase the weight by 2-3 kg. You do this, but you can no longer complete 12 repetitions, and only manage 8. Accordingly, in the next workout there is no talk of any increase in weight, but in order to shock the muscles you should try to perform.

By increasing the number of exercises or approaches

As you grow, your muscles become more capable of handling stress. Therefore, the previous number of approaches in the exercise may no longer be enough to give the necessary stress to your muscles. If you don't want to add an extra set, then add one more exercise. Perhaps it will allow you to put an unexpected load on your muscles.

Increase your approach time

This is one way to increase the intensity of your workout. This technique can be implemented by increasing the negative and positive phases of the movement during the exercise. In other words, perform the exercise slowly and try to feel the contraction of the target muscle. Spend at least 2 seconds on the negative and positive phases.

Work not only on strength, but also on endurance

Bodybuilders know that muscle volume depends not only on the degree of development of fast muscle fibers (type 2a and 2b), but also on the development of slow muscle fibers (type 1). To develop exactly the first type of fibers, you need to work in a multi-repetition mode. The most popular of these modes is pumping.

Its essence is that, using light weights and large number repetitions to acidify the muscle fibers as much as possible. That is, provide them with growth factors.

Use periodization

The training load cannot always increase linearly. Sooner or later there comes a time when your muscles hit a plateau. To overcome it, by 20 percent. After that, increase the weight by 5% every week and after 4 weeks you will reach your previous working weights. And in another week you will be able to overcome them!

All of the above methods are related exclusively to the training process. They can be used by both men and girls, but with some reservations.

Girls, you must consider availability menstrual cycles, since your performance depends on it. In short, your readiness to move mountains is observed in the postmenstrual and postovulatory phases.

Since in the muscles of the weaker sex the number of slow muscle fibers is greater than in men, then you, women, need to pay more attention to high-repetition training (8-15 repetitions).

Nutrition for growth

Both men and women should take into account that no matter how much you “surprise” your muscles, without proper nutrition they will not grow. After all, in this case they will have nowhere to take building material- protein. And for high-intensity training, energy is needed - carbohydrates.

Therefore, the result of your training directly depends on what you eat. And we smoothly move on to nutritional advice.

Follow these steps and growth will follow.

The calorie content of your diet should be excess, but only by 700-900 kcal for men and 200-400 kcal for women. Women need to know that when you have a calorie surplus, you store fat faster, so your calorie surplus should be negligible.
Consume only high-quality and healthy food. For protein, give preference to lean meats, as well as milk and eggs. Try to consume slow carbohydrates (cereals, vegetables and unsweetened fruits). First-class sources of fats are: red fish, seafood, nuts, avocados, various oils (sunflower, olive, flaxseed)
As a rule, after 40 years, the production of testosterone (the main male hormone) is reduced, and its amount directly affects muscle growth. Therefore, at this age you need to increase the amount of foods that increase testosterone levels in your diet. These can be lean meats, seafood, greens, vegetables (possibly spicy) and nuts

In addition to such important components as nutrition and training, muscle growth can be promoted. But their choice must be approached with full responsibility. Despite the fact that they do not have serious side effects You need to take them wisely and it is best to consult your doctor before using them.

These drugs include:

Vitamins and vitamin-like substances (vitamin-mineral complexes, B vitamins)
Anabolizers (glutamic acid, methionine, potassium orotate, )
Enzymes (festal, karsil)
Energy preparations (inosine, lipoic acid, )
Performance enhancing agents (ginseng root, Eleutherococcus)
Drugs affecting the central nervous system(nootropil, aminalon)
Drugs affecting blood properties and blood flow (trental, complamin)

Please pay close attention to the following instructions. These medications should be taken only after consultation with a doctor (preferably a sports doctor) and under his supervision. Also, beginners, that is, people whose training experience does not exceed 2 years, do not need to take these funds!

The most important thing

In the end, I would like to say that everything must be done wisely. This is the only way you can achieve good results without harm to your health. I can only give you general recommendations, armed with which you can build your own training process and get the best result.

And with this I say goodbye to you. Subscribe to the blog and share information with friends on social networks. See you soon!