Nowadays you can acquire any information you want on the internet. However, to impress the viewers, they take away the basics and show the advance form and see if they can get more views.
Unfortunately, this article is complete opposite. More and more I learn and experience, especially in strength training, I come to realize that perfecting the basics are the key to the success. As boring as this may sound, however, if you want to succeed and see results in strength training, apply what I share in this article.
In this article, I will be covering benefit of muscle building, some common questions that I get, and foundation of how strength and muscle building.
Benefits of Building Muscle
Before sharing how the muscle can be built, lets talk of why we should consider building muscles. In this article, when I say building muscles, I’m referring to both strength and size of the muscles.
Media is doing a great job of emphasizing the importance of muscle building not just for visual perspective but also for the longevity. With a process of muscle building there are several other benefits that can come with it. Those are, able to move better, able to lift heavier object without injury, stronger bone, metabolic profile, such as blood pressure, resting heartrate, VO2, blood sugar, etc. Process of muscle building can also improve our cognitive functions, stress management, and improve in self-esteem.
In ideal world, everybody should be considering strength training provided that those benefits, listed above, is what people are looking for.
Never Too Late to Start
There has been number of studies done with elder population with over 80 years old that when they were put through a strength program for 12 weeks, 45 minute per session 3 times per week, scientists observed 15-20% increase in both muscle strength and size. It is better to start at earlier age, however, it is never too late to start building muscle.
Importance of Recovery
Although exercise is important, it is also important for the body to recover after the exercise session. Muscle strength and size improvement happens with stressing the muscles by exercise and recover from stress through nutrition and sleep.
I won’t cover too much detail on nutrition or sleep, however, if the nutrition is not adequate and sleeping less than 7 hours a day, you may not be able to recover and may experience more struggle to get results.
Quality Over Quantity
Quality of the exercise is far more important than how much weight and how many reps you are lifting. When you are exercising, you are sending message to the body for what you are wanting to accomplish. Before worrying about how much you can lift, and number of repetitions learn the exercise skill properly.
Popular exercises such as squat, deadlift, push-ups, pull ups are all great exercises, however, it is a complicated exercise. Just because you see on media don’t jump into challenging with those exercises but learn how to master those movement pattern.
When exercise or movement is practiced in a wrong manner, the body will respond in kind and may end up being strong but not able to move the way you would like. There are people who can squat heavy weight but not able to walk properly because their hip is stiff or may able to bench few hundred pounds but cannot raise the arm because the shoulder is tight.
Learn the technique properly first then work on improving by increasing the load and volume of exercise.
Load and Volume
Load is referring to how much weight you will be lifting. Volume of exercise refers to how many repetitions and sets you will be performing. Depending on what your goal is load and volume can vary.
When you are working on building strength the load should be heavy enough to challenge you for 1-7 reps per sets. When you are working on building muscle mass or muscular endurance the load should be heavy enough to challenge you for 8 or more repetitions.
Progressive Overload
Once you learn the proper technique of the exercise you can challenge yourself to see if you can perform in same way with resistance. Loading can be done by using, dumbbell, barbell, kettlebell, machine, band and so on. After 2-4 sessions with added weight, you can increase resistance (2.5-10lb) or increase the volume of exercise. As you add load, make sure the technique is not compromised. Lifting heavier weight with compromised technique is considered ego lifting. Nothing wrong with it but it is a recipe for injury.
Tempo of Exercise
When performing exercise, controlling the tempo can change how the body feel even with the same exercise. For example, when you do dumbbell row with 20lb you can do 10 reps as fast as you can, or you can do 10 reps but with pause for 2 seconds at the top position and 3 seconds to bring the weight back to starting position. Amount of stress you place on the muscles will drastically changes even when using same weight and repetitions. Choice of tempo can vary with what you are wanting to accomplish during the training session.
Frequency of Training
Frequency of the training can be determined by your recovery. Commonly, people tend to recover from their training within 24-48 hours. However, if you are deconditioned or new to the strength training, the recovery time may take longer. For this reason, initial guide to strength training frequency is 2-3 times per week with 1-2 days in between sessions.
After awhile you may increase the session to 4-5 sessions, depending on your goal, however, if you are always sore, then may need to reduce the frequency. As mentioned earlier, if your body is not recovering, you are not getting stronger or more fit.
Information I shared above may not be foreign to you and may already been applying to your routines. When you are stuck with seeing the progress, check back with the basics.
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