By Nicholas Williams
Getting into lifting? Here are the key factors to growing and sustaining muscle.
When starting your fitness journey, it can be difficult to find the main components of success within the gym. Per MetRX, the focal points are training method, diet and recovery.
There are two styles of training that have been statistically proven to yield the greatest results: strength training and hypertrophy training.
Denny Bowers, Susquehanna University head baseball coach, stresses the importance of the training split.
“You won’t see guys who are lean and mean doing under eight repetitions per exercise,” says Bowers, who is also the head of strength and conditioning at the university.
Bowers says that how you lift is entirely goal oriented- the outcome produced, whether it be lean or bulky muscle, will be a direct reflection of the training split followed.
Strength training involves gradually increasing the amount of weight you lift and doing less repetitions. The main drawback to this training style is injury subjection; lifting greater weight gives way to poor form, which often leads to injury.
Hypertrophy training focuses on adding more repetitions at the same weight. Ideally, you will progress so you can increase weight at a higher range of repetitions. While this is widely considered to be safer than strength training, over-doing it can still lead to injury.
While these two styles have their niche differences as far as outcome goes, any first-time gym goer will put on muscle, regardless of their training approach.
To adequately build muscle, you need to eat properly. Muscle is built from protein, which is found in meat, eggs, dairy products and some plants. The most efficient way to do this is by eating in a caloric surplus, or eating calories above your maintenance intentionally.
Your maintenance is how many calories you burn roughly daily; to find this, you simply multiply your bodyweight in pounds by 12. For beginners, Men’s Health suggests that you should eat at least 500 calories above that number. In addition to that, it is recommended that you consume at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.
Bowers also stresses the importance of consuming enough calories for those wanting to put on mass. He says that patience is key when it comes to weight loss and muscle building, nothing happens overnight. He also highly recommends consuming chocolate milk directly after a training session, as well as eating within 30 minutes post-lift.
Sleep is a key factor when it comes to building muscle. Muscle itself is built while our bodies are asleep; without adequate sleep the process of rebuilding torn tissue is undermined, and sometimes halted completely. Forbes Health recommends at least seven to eight hours of sleep each day to allow your tissue to rebuild itself. Along with sleep, taking rest days as needed can be very beneficial.
Michael Welgosh, Susquehanna University athletic trainer, said that when beginning weight training, listening to your body is very important. He says that training when sore is never a good idea, as that is our body’s way of telling us that it’s healing.
Along with that, Welgosh also said that setting realistic goals and seeking advice from more experienced lifters is always a great idea.
