Grow muscle
🏷️ Tào lao
A: What can I do to grow my muscles?
B: You just need to expose your muscles to stress
A: How do my muscles grow if I do that?
B: When they are under stress, they experience microscopic damage, which in this context is a good thing. In response, the injured cells release inflammatory molecules called cytokines, that activate the immune system to repair the injury. The greater the damage to the muscle tissue, the more your body will need to repair itself. The resulting cycle of damage and repair eventually makes muscles bigger and stronger as they adapt to progressively greater demand
A: The more I expose my muscles, the more muscle I can grow, isn’t it?
B: Yes, your muscles need to be exposed more to higher workloads than they are used to. Since your body has already adapted to most everyday activities, those generally don’t produce enough stress to stimulate new muscle growth. This process is called hypertrophy.
A: What will happen if I don’t continuously expose my muscles?
B: If they are not exposed to some resistance, they will shrink. This process is known as muscular atrophy
A: So all I need to do to grow muscles is keep training, right?
B: Actually, growing muscles rely on more than that. You also need proper nutrition, hormones, and rest to repair your damaged muscle fibers. Protein in your diet preserves muscle mass by providing the building blocks for new tissue in the form of amino acids.
A: How much protein should I use?
B: It depends on your body. Adequate protein intake along with naturally occurring hormones like insulin-like growth factor and testosterone shift your body into a state where tissue is repaired and grown
A: Okay, how about rest? How much should I sleep?
B: As much as possible. The repair process mainly occurs when you are resting, especially at night while sleeping. Oh, gender and age also affect this repair mechanism
A: What do you mean by that?
B: Young men with more testosterone have a leg up in the muscle building game. Genetic factors also play a role in one’s ability to grow muscle
A: How do genes even affect muscle growth?
B: Some people have more robust immune reactions to muscle damage, and are better able to repair and replace damaged muscle fibers, increasing their muscle building potential
A: So all I have to do to build muscle is tear muscles up, eat right, rest, and repeat
B: You got it. If you do that, you’ll create the conditions to make your muscles as big and strong as possible