When muscles grow faster. How to make your muscles grow at an accelerated pace. Why rapid muscle growth is unlikely

The predominance of muscle mass in the human body has a beneficial effect on the metabolic rate and the process of burning fat, since it is muscle tissue that actively uses the energy produced by cells. Therefore, an increase in muscle mass is the goal not only of bodybuilders, but also of any person who does not want to acquire unnecessary body fat. The site will describe the mechanisms of muscle growth in this article, and also tell why women, contrary to popular belief, do not gain a large amount of muscle mass during strength training.

Skeletal Musculature and Muscle Growth - Highlights

Today we will consider the basic mechanisms and principles of growth of skeletal muscles, which consist of filamentous myofibrils, which in turn consist of sarcomeres (their composition is represented by myosin and actin protein filaments - filaments).

About 650 skeletal muscles in the human body contract when they receive signals from motor neurons that cause the muscles to contract. And the better these contraction signals, the more strength we are able to develop.

If a person is able to lift a very heavy load despite not looking very muscular, this means that their motor neurons are firing strongly enough to cause stronger muscle contraction. Therefore, powerlifters can look less pumped up than bodybuilders, but still be stronger. Most of the initial growth in strength occurs in the early stages of strength training. Muscle growth stabilizes after this period as muscle activation occurs more easily.

Below we will look at:

physiology of muscle growth;
mechanisms of muscle growth activation;
the effect of hormones on muscle growth;
the effect of rest on muscle growth;
why rapid muscle growth is unlikely.

Physiology of Muscle Growth: How Muscles Grow

After training, the body begins to repair or replace damaged muscle fibers through the cellular process of "soldering" muscle fibers to form new myofibrils. Such myofibrils increase in thickness and number to promote muscle hypertrophy (muscle growth). Muscles grow when the rate of muscle protein synthesis exceeds the rate of protein breakdown.

Muscles grow when the rate of muscle protein synthesis exceeds the rate of protein breakdown.

However, this adaptation does not occur directly during weight lifting, but during rest.

How do muscles grow? Myosatellites (they are also myosatellocytes and satellite muscle cells) act as stem cells for our muscles. During activation, they contribute to the division and maturation of muscle tissue cells and therefore are directly involved in the growth of myofibrils.

The degree of activation of myosatellites, as studies show, affects the growth of skeletal muscles. Therefore, in order to build muscle, you need to activate satellite cells. How to do it?

3 mechanisms for activating muscle growth: tension, damage, stress

Natural muscle growth is ensured by the ability to constantly load them. Such a load is the main component of the growth of muscle tissue, which disrupts the homeostasis of the body.

Mechanism one - muscle tension

In order for muscles to grow, it is necessary to provide them with a load to which they have not adapted before. Therefore, a logical step for those who want to build muscle is to gradually increase the weight of the weights being lifted. Additional muscle tension helps trigger changes in the chemical processes in the muscle, which allows you to activate growth factors (including mTOR) and satellite cells, which the site spoke about above.

Also, muscle tension affects the connection of motor units in muscle cells.

The second mechanism is muscle damage

Local muscle damage during exercise is the cause of muscle pain after exercise. Such local damage promotes the release of inflammatory molecules and immune cells that activate myosatellites. True, pain is not an obligatory companion of this process.

The third mechanism is metabolic stress

Metabolic stress causes swelling of muscle cells, which helps muscle growth without directly increasing the size of the cells themselves. This effect is observed as a result of an increase in the level of muscle glycogen, which gives the muscles volume and ensures the growth of connective tissue. This growth is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy - it provides visually pronounced muscles without increasing their strength.

How do hormones affect muscle growth?

Hormones are another important factor that significantly affects muscle growth and recovery, since hormones regulate the activity of myosatellites. Insulin-like growth factor IGF-1, in particular mechanical growth factor (MGF) and testosterone, are the main mechanisms for activating muscle growth.

Testosterone increases protein synthesis, suppresses their destruction, activates myosatellites and stimulates other anabolic hormones. The vast majority of this hormone in the body is not available for use (up to 98%), but during strength training not only testosterone is released, but also the sensitivity of muscle cells to it increases. Testosterone also stimulates the growth hormone response by increasing the presence of neurotransmitters at damaged muscle fibers, which also helps promote muscle growth.

Insulin-Like Growth Factor regulates muscle growth by stimulating protein synthesis, promoting glucose uptake and redistribution of amino acid uptake (the building blocks of protein) in skeletal muscle, and activating satellite cells to enhance muscle growth.

Why is rest necessary for muscle growth?

If you do not provide the body with proper rest or nutrition, you can reverse the anabolic process and put the body into a catabolic state (a state of destruction). Muscle protein metabolism responds to strength training within 24-48 hours after exercise. Thus, the interaction between protein metabolism and food ingested during this period determines the effect of nutrition on muscle hypertrophy.

Age, gender and genetic predisposition are factors that affect the growth of muscle tissue.

It is important to understand that the degree of muscle growth depends on the age, gender and genetic predisposition of the person. For example, the male body has more testosterone than the female body, which allows men to build larger and stronger muscles.

Why is rapid muscle growth unlikely?

Muscle hypertrophy takes time, a relatively slow process in most people. As a rule, visible muscle growth is not observed for several weeks or even months after the start of strength training.

A number of genetic characteristics, hormonal background, type and number of muscle fibers, degree of activation of satellite cells - all these factors affect muscle growth.

In order for muscles to grow, it is necessary to ensure the predominance of protein synthesis over its breakdown. This requires eating enough protein and essential amino acids, as well as carbohydrates, to activate cellular processes to restore destroyed muscle tissue.

Thus, in order to ensure muscle damage and growth, it is necessary to force the muscle tissue to adapt to loads that exceed the loads that your body is used to. After completing a workout for muscle growth, it is necessary to provide proper rest and nutrition so that the muscles can recover and grow.

Everyone who has ever worked out is well aware that in athletes, muscles grow not only during, but also after it, and in comparison with strength training, it is less effective for muscle growth. How do muscles grow after a workout? To explain this phenomenon, physiology will come to our aid.

During each workout, the body experiences stress, and this is completely normal, otherwise muscle mass will not increase. Its growth depends on a number of factors:

genetic predisposition and;
hormonal background;
age (a young body builds muscles faster);
diet;
training and rest regimen;
with a gradual increase in load and periodic change of exercises;
general condition of the body.

Schematically, the process of muscle growth is as follows:

During strength training (cardio to a lesser extent), the body is stressed due to an unusual load, and during the training process it progresses from time to time. There is metabolic stress. The muscles, as it were, are pumped with blood, and as a result, muscle hypertrophy occurs.
With an intense load in the muscles, microtraumas occur due to the destruction of muscle fibers, causing pain.
Muscle growth does not begin during training, but only three hours after it and lasts up to two days (which is why it is recommended to load different muscle groups).
Recovery of muscle fibers occurs from amino acids under the influence of hormones at the level of intracellular reactions and is accompanied by hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy of muscle fibers

If during strength or cardio training you do all the exercises with maximum tension (heavy weight, many repetitions, fast pace), then by the end of the workout, a feeling of heat appears in the muscles.

This is the so-called metabolic stress, or pumping, when the muscles are pumped with blood, and edema occurs around the muscle cells.

Because of it, the cells and connective tissue swell, the muscle seems to burst, and its volume increases as a result (however, it does not become stronger from this).

However, hypertrophy of muscle fibers after training will not last long, usually for several tens of minutes.

Bodybuilders use pumping before competitions to visually make their muscles more voluminous and embossed and look more impressive in photos and videos.

The Importance of Protein in Muscle Growth

How long and with what intensity the recovery and growth of muscle cells will take place largely depends on how you eat.

The main building material for muscle fibers, of which, in fact, the muscle consists, is. In percentage terms, it looks like this:

18-20% - protein content in total muscle mass (the rest is water);
80% of the protein is in "dry" muscle tissue.

The main sources of protein are the following products:

beef, the protein from which is absorbed by 70-80% and quickly enough; in addition, it contains many essential amino acids;
hard-boiled - in this case, the protein is absorbed by 90% (and in its raw form - only by 50%); egg white contains a high content of almost all vital amino acids;
; however, the absorption of protein from it is rather slow.

As a sports supplement, it has gained great popularity, containing a lot of essential amino acids.

The protein from it is absorbed by 90%, so it is recommended for consumption after strength / cardio training.

The role of hormones, amino acids and trace elements in muscle growth

Let's start with amino acids, which, in fact, make up all the proteins of our body.

To eliminate micro-destructions in the structure of muscle fibers, and at the same time create new ones, new proteins are synthesized from amino acids.

But this process does not happen by itself, for its launch it is necessary to influence certain hormones: self-totropin (growth hormone), testosterone (the main male sex hormone) and insulin. It is on them that physical strength and high-quality muscles depend.

The role of insulin is to accelerate the transport of amino acids to cells and activate protein synthesis.

This, of course, does not exhaust its role in our body - it is a very versatile hormone, which, among other things, largely depends on providing the body with energy.

Protein synthesis is almost impossible without minerals; play a huge role in the functioning and growth of muscles, so cardio and strength training must be accompanied by the intake of vitamin and mineral complexes.

The Importance of Sleep for Muscle Growth

And now the most interesting, at least for beginners.

All these complex processes of restoring muscle structure and building muscle mass do not occur during, but after strength training, during rest and especially sleep.

This process is called supercompensation, when the muscle not only recovers to its original level, but also exceeds it.

Training for mass, for relief, for weight loss - they all consist in changing the structure of the body, namely in muscle growth. You need to know how muscles grow both when gaining muscle mass and when losing weight.

Skeletal muscles are made up of filamentous myofibrils and sarcomeres that form fibers subject to contraction.

All 650 muscles in the human body receive signals from motor neurons that access the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The strength of an athlete depends on the reaction of cells to impulses. If a person, without having significant muscles, is able to work with heavy weight, then his motor neurons are better at activating the muscles. Growth always begins with an increase in strength, because this is how the cells become more responsive to stress.

How do muscles grow? Physiology and anatomy

After training, the destroyed muscle fiber is restored or replaced, with the help of intracellular reactions, new protein filaments or myofibrils are formed. Due to myofibrils, the muscles thicken, hypertrophy occurs. It is possible if the rate of protein synthesis is greater than the rate of its decay. This process occurs only after exercise, during rest, when you need to eat enough protein and carbohydrates, and is called adaptation.

After exercise, muscles grow with satellite cells that behave like stem cells, increasing the number of muscle cell nuclei to multiply the number of myofibrils. It is the process of satellite cell activation that is determined by genetics - some people grow massive muscles, others remain without mass.

It has been scientifically proven that in people who respond quickly to exercise, muscles grew by 58% due to myofibril hypertrophy and 23% due to cellular activation. Hardgeners showed only 28% muscle hypertrophy and 19% satellite cell activation. In the study, there were people whose processes were not activated at all. Therefore, it is worth knowing what supports muscle growth?

How to make muscles grow?

To ensure growth, the muscles need to be given a progressive load.

Stress and subsequent disturbance of homeostasis is provided by three main growth factors:

muscle tension

To make the muscles grow, you need to give a load that they are not used to. The easiest way is to gradually increase the weight of the dumbbells or barbell. The extra stress will change the cellular chemistry and the growth factors will turn on the activity of the Mtor gene and satellite cells.

The degree of tension affects the number of motor units in the cells. This is what makes the difference between endurance training and mass training.

Fiber damage

Post-workout soreness is localized damage to fibers that responds with an influx of inflammatory molecules and immune system cells that activate satellite cells. However, this does not mean that krepatura is a prerequisite for growth. Damage occurs within cells, and does not always affect how the body works.

Metabolic stress or pumping

The feeling of heat in the muscles, especially on the last repetitions, is called metabolic stress. Athletes call this process pumping or pumping muscles with blood. It provokes swelling around the muscle cells. Glycogen helps cells swell along with connective tissue, and this type of growth is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy - an increase in muscle size without an increase in strength.

How do muscles grow under the influence of hormones?

Hormones are an important participant in muscle development, the regulator of the work of satellite cells.

Holding a barbell in their hands, men think of testosterone, which accelerates protein synthesis, inhibits degradation, activates satellite cells and other anabolic substances.

90% of testosterone in the body is in an inaccessible form, but after strength training, its release and sensitivity of muscle cell receptors increase.

Testosterone stimulates responses to growth hormone in response to tissue damage for hypertrophy. Many people remember that in the army, the guys' muscles grew on their own, and the reason for this is a surge in the male hormone.

Insulin-like growth factor regulates the amount of muscle mass by increasing protein synthesis, accelerates the absorption of glucose, redistributes the absorption of amino acids by skeletal muscles, activates the work of satellite cells.

Rest and recovery

Why don't muscles grow? Most of the time they don't get much rest. If you do not give them rest and nutrition, then the body will be in a catabolic state. Muscle response to metabolic processes continues 24-48 hours after strength training. It is necessary to eat during this period with a high content of proteins in order to provide the body with materials for the synthesis of fibers.

To grow muscles, you need to eat not just with a supply of calories, but with a complete protein profile.

If the body does not receive enough protein after training, then it has nothing to build cells from. However, you do not need to eat 3-4 grams of protein per kilogram of body. It is enough for an ordinary person to consume 1.3-1.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight to ensure fiber synthesis. A larger amount is required only by professional athletes and fitness trainers who train often and for a long time.

How often should you eat protein? You can not eat the entire daily allowance at one time. The body does not perceive more than 30 g of protein per meal.

Therefore, athletes need to eat right - three main meals and 2-3 snacks.

To grow muscles, you need to eat protein - which, in principle, everyone knows. Beef protein is digested by 70-80% and quickly, contains many essential amino acids.

Whey protein is used by the body by 90%, it provides a large amount of essential amino acids, including leucine.

Egg protein with an excellent amino acid profile is digested more slowly, but absorbed by 90%. Casein (cottage cheese or protein) is digested very slowly.

This is why whey protein should be consumed after a workout.

Other Muscle Growth Factors

It happens that a person knows how muscles grow, follows the rules of training, rest and nutrition, but does not see the result. Each organism has a certain limit, depending on sex, age and genetics. For example, men have more testosterone than women to maintain large muscles. After thirty years, the amount of muscle mass decreases by 2% annually, and in women it happens faster. And in order for the muscles to grow, you have to work harder.

Muscular hypertrophy is a long process. A visible result may not appear for weeks and months until the nervous system begins to activate the muscles. Genetic factors determine hormone release, muscle fiber type and number, and satellite cell activation levels.

All you need to get started:

Once training has stressed the muscles through weight gain or new exercise choices, the most important thing is fuel supply.

You need to eat more protein foods for two days in order for the fibers to regenerate and grow.

Eat and exercise right, and let your relief please you with its perfection!

In the training process, it is always very important to understand how and most importantly why you perform certain exercises. Thoughtless and chaotic performance of random exercises in random order does not work, alas. During exercise, neuromuscular communication is important, i.e., completely controlled execution of movements. It is equally important to understand at least the very basics of how training and biomechanics work.

Initially, the number of muscle fibers is determined genetically. Some people have more, some don't. But any genetic input can be completely adjusted in accordance with one's own preferences and ideas about the aesthetics of the body. What we call muscle growth is actually connective tissue hypertrophy and an increase in sarcoplasm that fills the space between muscle fibers and connective tissue. It consists of carbohydrates (glycogen), fats, amino acids and enzymes.

The first and most important thing to understand. Muscles do not grow from the fact that "eat a lot of protein"! This is a stupid myth. In order for a muscle to work in an active mode, it needs a fast supply of energy. And she, in turn, is lost in the process of training in any case and is replenished by carbohydrates! Protein food, from which the body receives the necessary amino acids, acts as a building material for muscles. Simply put: carbohydrates are needed in order to maintain muscles, proteins - to increase them. It is for this reason that it is recommended to eat a meal rich in carbohydrates 1-2 hours before training.

What causes muscle growth? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger - this phrase describes the process of gaining muscle mass as much as possible. During training, the connective tissue that surrounds and protects muscle fibers undergoes microdamage. The harder the workout, the more this damage, but don't worry, that's the way it should be. After training, the recovery process takes place and the tissue, in order to avoid subsequent injuries, becomes denser and rougher. Due to this, an increase in the volume of fibers occurs. As the tissue becomes coarser, over time, it is necessary to increase the load in order to compensate for this adaptive element. Muscle growth, oddly enough, for the most part is tied to this process. It is also important to note that different types of training are aimed at developing different types of fibers, and therefore tissue changes can be different. This process proves once again one of the golden rules of bodybuilding: recovery processes after training play no less a role than the training itself.

Let's take a closer look at this process. Recovery processes begin approximately 3-4 hours after training, and end after 1.5-2 days. It is for this reason that approximately a day of rest between workouts is recommended. And therefore, split workouts are very effective, when different muscle groups are worked out on different days, giving more time to rest. The main assistants in the recovery process are a proper balanced diet and healthy sleep, which is the natural and best catabolism blocker.

Important: regular exercise causes the body to become accustomed to spending more energy on recovery, so the need for nutrients may increase.

And one more little trick. It is believed that cardio training and weight gain are not compatible, but this is not the case. So that cardio does not "burn" the muscles, you need to monitor nutrition. If the body receives enough of the necessary nutrients, it does not need to take energy from the body's own reserves. At the same time, cardio training accelerates blood circulation, which allows you to quickly remove toxins and by-products of regeneration from the connective tissue, which increases the recovery rate.

With love, the BodyLab team.

Naturally, with proper training and proper nutrition, muscles grow by 10 kg in the first year, by 5 kg in the second year and by 2 kg in friction per year.

How many days does a muscle grow?

Workouts are easy and hard, short and long. From light and short workouts, muscles grow in 12 hours, from heavy and long workouts up to 10 days.

How to eat to grow muscles?

The main rule of nutrition for muscle growth is to eat until you are full. And it is better to do it according to the regime. If your appetite is suppressed by adverse environmental factors, such as partying, then the perception of satiety is greatly distorted and you are imperceptibly eating less than you need for muscle growth.

When do muscles start growing?

Muscles begin to grow immediately after training, if you give the body water, food and rest.

Do muscles grow during exercise?

Swelling of muscles during training is their filling with blood. After training, this blood leaves the muscles and the muscles become smaller, because they have depleted the food reserves that were stored inside the muscle cells. That is why for urgent muscle recovery, the body needs to be nourished with water, food and rest.

Do muscles grow in sleep?

The main muscle growth occurs during sleep, when the body restarts all its systems and carries out reforms in all organs and tissues.

Do muscles grow during the day?

Muscles grow during the day, if you have eaten well and are in a light nap, nothing and no one bothers you. While you are aroused and under work stress in the office or at home, the muscles continue to wilt.

How to understand that muscles are growing?

If you wake up in the morning with pleasant cash in the muscles that you have trained, then they are growing.

If muscles hurt, does it mean they are growing?

Pain is the highest form of pleasant muscle cash after a workout. This kind of happiness becomes more and more difficult to achieve with time and experience.

Do muscles grow if they don't hurt?

With proper training, the muscles should not hurt. Muscles ache from rare workouts, which are carried out according to the "cavalry charge" method. The best muscle growth is achieved by people who train without long breaks and slowly increase the load.

Muscles grow in a week

For a week, muscles grow from 50 to 200 grams, depending on the length of training. It is impossible to track such growth in domestic conditions using a centimeter tape.

Muscles have stopped growing!

Unfortunately, slow muscle growth or its absence can only be observed in the 3-month period. Every 3 months you need to take measurements and watch how the body circumference changes.

In the first three months, you can increase 3. This is approximately 1-2 cm in the circumference of the biceps. This is a noticeable and good muscle gain.

Does protein build muscle?

Protein aids muscle growth if it is part of a well thought out protein intake plan. By itself, protein intake can be useless if not coordinated with a nutrition and training plan.

What to drink to grow muscles?

To build muscle, you need to eat food and drink water. And it is better to do it in a timely manner and in the right amount, according to body weight, volume and intensity of training.

How much protein do you need to build muscle?

Usually, two grams of protein per kilogram of dry weight is enough. If an athlete has 80 kilograms of dry mass, then 160 grams of protein is enough. However, don't confuse the scale reading with your lean body mass.

Muscles grow, but fat does not go away

So that fat does not grow, you need to limit its consumption in the diet. Usually it is 70-90 grams. But many people in the pursuit of mass consume up to 300 grams of fat, so they gain fat. Check your dietary fat intake.

How to exercise to grow muscles?

For muscle growth, you need to spend on training 3 hours a week in the first year, 4 in the second, and 5 in the third. For a conditional training hour, you need to do at least 25 approaches with an intensity of at least 50 percent.

Muscles grow at home?

Muscles grow in any conditions: at home, on the street or in the gym. It doesn't matter where, but what you do.

Does push-ups build muscle?

If you have reached the lactate threshold, then the muscles will respond with growth. It’s easy to step over the lactate threshold with push-ups, which means that muscles grow from push-ups.

Do muscles grow from running?

Running promotes muscle growth when it comes in addition to strength training. Running improves muscle trophism and promotes muscle hypertrophy, that is, growth.

Until what age do muscles grow?

Muscles grow while you have a normal endocrine system and normal production of anabolic hormones, an important of which is testosterone. If you are still tormented by an erection in the morning, then your muscles will grow from strength training.

Many men, even at the age of 70, prove that everything is in order with the endocrine system.

Why do muscles grow fast?

If a person's muscles grow unnaturally fast - not from year to year, but from week to week. If 10 kilograms stuck to the body in a few weeks, then the person began to take anabolic muscle growth stimulants.

How long does it take for muscles to grow?

The most noticeable muscle growth occurs in the first three years, and then muscle growth goes very imperceptibly and slowly until it stops completely. Usually this stop occurs after 7 years. Natural bodybuilder grows 7 years.

Muscles grow unevenly

This usually comes from uneven training planning for different muscles. For example, if you do 30 sets of push-ups and 15 sets of pull-ups in a week, then your chest will grow faster than your lats. The imbalance in the volume and intensity of training is the main reason for the uneven development of your favorite and unloved muscles.

Mister universe 1998 according to the Russian version in the village of Odintsovo

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