10 Muscle-Building Fundamentals You Need to Learn - Exclusive earnings

 10 Muscle-Building Fundamentals You Need to Learn

1. How much resistance is best for building muscle?

Contrary to popular belief, lifting weights does not cause you to become "overweight" (gaining weight and eating too many calories). Although lifting weights allows you to speed up the process of building muscle, it's not always easy or feasible to purchase a gym membership or invest in home exercise equipment. Here we explain how to build muscle in two directions: heavy weight or light resistance and body weight.

Weightlifting exercise

To build initial muscle mass, focus on lifting the heaviest weight possible for 8 to 12 reps. There is no "correct weight". When you start your muscle building journey, it depends on your genetics or the strength of your natural growth.

Numerous studies have shown that the weight you can lift up to 8-12 times leads to the largest increase in muscle size [1, 2]. Depending on your exercise and fitness level, this equates to 60-80% of your rep max (the maximum weight you can lift in one rep).

Once you are past the initial muscle building phase, you must continue to add weight if you want to see muscle building effects. Every 3-6 weeks, reassess your pregnancy. If 8-12 reps becomes easy, add more weight. Otherwise, you will reach the level of muscle development. (3)

Resistance bands and body weights

Many people mistakenly believe that the only way to stimulate muscle growth is to lift weights in the gym. While dumbbells and barbells are shorthand for building muscle, there are other ways to build muscle. You only need to do more reps and sets to get the same results!

In fact, you can build bigger sore muscles, a stronger core, a broader chest, and even a super strong back with bodyweight exercises (or resistance exercises) that you can do at home or anywhere!

The key is "feeling the burn." You need to keep pushing the reps and sets until you feel a muscular challenge. Unlike weight training, where you can increase the resistance to suit your needs, body weight and resistance band training is static resistance. Therefore, to increase the density, the volume must be increased. You may also need to exercise more frequently during the week.

prize? You may feel less pain after bodyweight and resistance band training than when pressing hard with dumbbells. Bodyweight and resistance band exercises can be safer because they are closed chains and generally have less impact.

2. How many sets of each exercise are right for you?

A set is the number of times (repeats) you complete an action. Groups usually have a recovery period in between.

For example, the 3x8 push-up is three sets of eight push-ups. There are usually 1-3 minute rest periods between sets (more on that later).

Optimal set numbers are a hot topic in strength training. There is a big difference here depending on your fitness level.

In the first few weeks, beginners and beginners show gains with a combination of exercises. More advanced athletes achieve better results with multiple sets because the impulse to train with one set is too low to stress muscles to adapt. Therefore, multi-array training is recommended in this case.

Either way, to see serious muscle gains, you need to reach a state of fatigue or even muscle failure! It stimulates hormones that recognize that more muscle is needed to achieve movement than is currently available, and that the body will do more. If you want to see size in a specific area, focus on that area by doing sets that involve those specific muscles.

Once you get past the initial training phase, or if you're very focused on building muscle quickly, a good general rule of thumb is 4-6 sets.

Another strategy is to gradually increase the load on each muscle group. So start your first warm-up set with a lighter weight, then increase the weight a little bit with each set. If you're about to fail, or even unable to hit the target number for the final combination, you're doing something right.

3. How many times of each group is right for you?

The number of repetitions per set depends on your training and fitness goals. For example, doing 30-60 jumps makes more sense; However, for most people, this number of push-ups is too much.

If your focus is on building muscle, stick to 6 to 12 repetitions of the same exercise. Once you can peak with a good rep, move up to exercises of up to 20 repetitions, such as push-ups, rows, sit-ups, etc. After the exercise reaches 20 repetitions with good technique, add another set and reduce the repetitions to 6-8 times per set. Once you can do all sets well, add more repetitions again.

4. Do I need to rest between sets?

It depends on your goals!

If you're looking to strengthen a muscle by doing many repetitions of the same movement, rest between sets for 60 seconds to 3 minutes. You'll know you've relaxed enough when you feel refreshed enough to move on to the next set. The idea is that by giving yourself time to rest, you're adding a little weight each time.

However, you can target multiple muscle groups at once. Overtraining means training one muscle group or one side of the body and then training the opposite muscle during rest periods. So take a break to switch from one side to the other. Like doing a set of push-ups followed by sit-ups, and I went straight to a set of supermen. Both exercises work against the same muscle groups (think push vs. pull).

Supersets and exercises also contain an additional aerobic component to build strength [5]. Circuit training means skipping the recovery period and moving on straight Go to the next exercise. This training method can activate the cardiovascular system more than pure strength training. Circuits and supersets are a great option if you are relatively fit and looking to build muscle while losing fat!

Check out the video below to see how push-ups and supermans work your opposing muscle groups (called the antagonistic giant groups):  

5.How much strength training should you do per week?

Exercise-related pain is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It is necessary to repeat or start strength training very carefully. If you've been strength training for a while (or have never been), aim for minimal reps and sets. DOMS can limit your ability to perform multiple exercises a

Lifting heavy weights is against your goals. Make sure you understand the benefits of overcompensation and the difference between overtraining.

DOMS can occur 1 to 2 days after the initial strength training session and is usually worse the next day. Even if the pain persists, additional strength exercises after two to three days can help relieve the pain. Even a light walk is enough to circulate the blood, supply oxygen to the muscles, and reduce the buildup of lactic acid.

Athletes who have not previously been strength trained should perform one weekly strength training session the first week, followed by two to four additional free training sessions. Everything matters! Weight training, yoga, pilates, running, cycling, swimming, dance classes, anything that makes you sweat.

After initial growth is achieved, dedicated strength training twice a week is sufficient. The best comprehensive program for all major muscle groups. This type of exercise is called “high-frequency training” or “total-body training” (6).

Some examples of full body workouts in the adidas workout app include: full body weight training (using dumbbells or water bottles as weights), 8-minute full-body workout, 10-minute Tabata HIIT workout and more!

On the other hand, split training is a great way to ensure ample muscle recovery time. If you split your biceps in half four days a week, you'll work a major muscle group twice a week. The most common type of split workout is to split your weekly workout into one upper-body workout, one lower-body workout, and one full-body workout.

A common way to use this feature in a split workout is to target the legs and lower body one day of the week, then the arms and upper body the next, and then back to the lower body. This type of training is only suitable for advanced athletes, as it adds significant stress to training, due to the principle of progressive overload, which is necessary to further promote muscle growth (7).

More advanced strength trainers can train multiple times per week to promote muscle growth (rather than fatigue of muscles from overtraining). Remember, as your training volume increases, so should your protein (read on for more information on protein, as well as the calculator).

Many athletes also use "training blocks". They will train harder for 3-4 weeks and then spend 1 week recovering every 3 or 4 weeks depending on experience level and extent of injury.