In the fitness world, there's a lot of talk about building muscle and avoiding atrophy. But what does that mean? And how can you do it? You might have heard that lifting heavy weights can lead to "increased muscle mass," but what does this really mean?
The most basic definition of muscular hypertrophy is when your muscles grow in size by adding more protein. This process happens when your body repairs damaged tissue following exercise—if injured muscle fibers are not repaired properly or completely, they become smaller over time (called atrophy). But if they're repaired fully, then they'll also get bigger! So yeah: lifting heavy weights leads to increased muscle mass. Pretty simple right?
1. Eat enough protein.
In order to grow muscle, you need protein. Protein is essential for muscle growth and repair, so it's important that you get enough of it in your diet. How much exactly? Well, that depends on your bodyweight and activity level--the more you weigh and move around, the more protein you'll need!
As a general rule of thumb: if you're trying to build lean mass (muscle), aim for about 0.7 grams per pound of bodyweight per day.
2. Create the right environment for growth.
The first step to promoting muscle hypertrophy and avoiding atrophy is creating the right environment for growth. The key to muscle growth lies in protein synthesis, which is regulated by the mTOR signaling pathway. This pathway responds to insulin and amino acids (the building blocks of protein), so if you want to maximize your ability to build new muscle tissue, it's important that you keep these two things in check.
3. Stimulate mTOR signaling.
The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a protein that plays an important role in regulating protein synthesis, muscle growth and cell proliferation. In other words, it's essential for building and maintaining muscle tissue--and it's activated by resistance exercise as well as amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein found in foods like meat, fish and eggs.
Insulin is a hormone that plays an important role in muscle growth and recovery. It's released by your pancreas when you eat food, and it helps to shuttle nutrients into cells where they can be used for energy or stored as fat. The activation of mTOR signaling is also known to increase insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) levels, which are anabolic hormones that stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
4. Improve your sleep quality.
Sleep is an important part of the muscular hypertrophy process. It's during sleep that your body repairs and builds new muscle tissue, so if you're not getting enough quality sleep, your muscles will suffer.
The important thing here is to make sure you're getting enough quality sleep. As a general rule of thumb, aim for 8 hours per night. If you're consistently falling short of this goal, try experimenting with earlier bedtimes or naps during the day.
Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can lead to decreases in muscle mass as well as decreases in strength and power output. In fact, one study found that just one week of partial sleep restriction was enough to reduce testosterone levels by 10%!
5. Maximize your pump.
Pump is the swelling of muscles during a workout. It's caused by blood flow to muscles, which helps promote muscle growth. While it is not necessary for muscle growth, it can be helpful in some cases. For example, if you're lifting heavy weights and your muscles are fatigued from previous sets, getting a good pump will help them recuperate before your next set so that you can lift even heavier than before!
The best way to maximize your pump is by doing high-intensity exercises like sprints or plyometric exercises (like jump squats). These types of workouts increase blood flow throughout the body and cause those muscles that were working hard during exercise (like quads) get even bigger than normal because they're full of blood.
The pump is not a necessary part of muscle growth. It's beneficial, but it's not the main reason for muscle growth.
6. Use high-intensity training.
One of the best ways to promote muscular hypertrophy is by using high-intensity training. High-intensity exercises are those that use as much muscle as possible and cause your heart to beat faster than normal. This is great for building muscle, but it can also help you avoid atrophy and burn fat.
The more intense an exercise is, the more calories you'll burn during it and after it's over. High-intensity workouts are typically short in duration (less than 45 minutes), which means they're easy enough for anyone with a busy schedule!
Another way to promote muscle hypertrophy is by using compound exercises. Compound exercises are those that work multiple muscle groups at once, such as squats and deadlifts. They're very efficient because they allow you to train more than one muscle group in a single set of repetitions.
7. Keep things interesting with novel exercises/movements to avoid muscle atrophy.
One of the best ways to avoid muscle atrophy is to keep things interesting with novel exercises/movements. This can be as simple as switching up your routine with different muscle groups or rep ranges, or even changing up the tempo of your sets. If you always do high-rep sets with slow tempos, try doing some sets with heavier weights and faster tempos.
The key here is that novelty helps stimulate growth, so don't be afraid of trying something new!
Also, don't be afraid to try new things outside of the gym. If you have a bad habit of always squatting with a barbell in the gym, try doing some bodyweight squats outside instead. Or if you always do bench press on flat ground, try doing it on an incline or decline for a change of pace.
Conclusion
Follow these tips, and you'll be able to build muscle and avoid atrophy
- Follow a high-intensity training program
- Stimulate mTOR signaling in your muscles with a pump and intensity
- Perform new exercises to keep your body guessing, or use different variations of the same exercise to keep it from getting used to one movement pattern.
- Take advantage of rest days by doing something active like walking or cycling instead of sitting around on the couch eating junk food.
- Eat enough calories and protein each day so that your body has what it needs to build muscle.
