Let’s Begin Here
#1 Building muscle is not something that happens overnight.
#2 It’s a by-product of personal development between the relationship of you, your mind, body, & weights.
So let’s face it most of us have been going to the gym for some time but have you ever paid attention to your peers? How they lift heavy weights but still look the same even after months have passed?
Well just, to be honest, I’m not the biggest or strongest by far as my fitness journey is geared more towards therapeutically healing the body, all in an effort for longevity. However as I track & witness myself growing, not that I’ve compared myself in any goal fashion to anyone else in the gym, I couldn’t help notice my results compared to others. So what makes me different than others? Why am I growing faster than others?
Building muscle | Concept 101
As I continue my studies for overall health & fitness. I’ve come to notice an easy perspective that can easily be shared and understood by the vast majority of the population. Like life “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. A famous quote that shares a lot of belief in the sense that mentally, if you can recover from a bad hand that your dealt with in life you will come out stronger and the next time it happens you’ll be better equipped to handle such an event. That leads to growth and development.
Whether that maybe with work, life, family or friends you eventually come out the other end stronger. The same principle applies to build muscle.
So in an effort to explain and expand on that belief one should understand when the time comes to working out that it’s not so much about how much you lift but your effectiveness to break your muscles & repair so they can come back stronger week after week.
Progressive overload
This is one concept many understand but don’t understand. By this I mean many forget its entirety and just focus on the part of adding weight 5-10 lbs a week, gradually increasing week to week. While this does work, adding more volume, changing frequency between sets, or intensity (ex: pause reps) is a few other ways to inspire muscle development using progressive overload. Don’t fall into the trap of needing to add weights every week.
Maximizing Workouts
In this series, I first wanted to start with progressive overload as it provides a great foundation to track and build ones self. I’ve seen many, including myself at the very beginning loading on weights week to week.
- Week 1 – for example, I bench 135 lbs 10x
- Week 2 -145 lbs 8x
- Week 3 – 165 lbs for 5x
Am I getting stronger? Yes & No, the fact that mentally you got yourself comfortable and ready to lift heavier then when you started is great! But the muscle development is not really working in a progressive overload state as your rep count is declining but your weight is increasing so one is canceling out the other, at this point the workout is essentially at an equilibrium. The maximized effort for that workout is lost.
Focus on contracting the muscle rather than just pushing the weights and scale up from there. Example ⇓
- Week 1 – 135lbs 10x
- Week 2 – 135lbs 12x
- Week 3 – 135lbs 14x → At this point your doing great and truly are growing strength, size, & focus.
Now you can add weights as you surpassed your 12 rep range and the muscles are ready to take on more weight! Continue to add about 5-1olbs maybe more, so you can come back down to the ultimate range of 8-12 reps per set.
Using Basic Exercises for Developing Muscle
As a beginner before doing advance exercises and trying all these Instagram popularity contest workouts (yes I said it). Stick to the basics and master them. I’ve shown individuals who had years over me new techniques through motion, corrections, & or hand position. Allowing them to effectively target the muscle. It’s amazing how you can utilize one exercise in so many different fashions.
My Experience & Recommendations
Train lighter! For beginners, I recommend staying in the 8-12 range. Focus on the range of motion and contraction of the muscle your targeting. From this point gradually increase the reps first on a week to week basis until you surpass the 12 rep range & then increase weight 5-10 lbs while staying in the 8-12 range. If it concerns you don’t worry now of what people think of you, leave your ego at the door. Understand your end goal. You go to the gym for yourself not to put on a show but for your own personal development. I meet so many beginners with no muscle development lifting heavier weight then their muscles can tolerate on 1 rep with bodybuilding goals in mind. While they believe they going to get strong and develop muscles quicker that’s not the case as they are not able to fully extend, focus, & contract a muscle because all their efforts are tied into just pushing the weight.
Think of muscle building from an activation standpoint where you can fully extend and contract with a full range of motion and take a slight pause in the contraction state. Feel the muscles, allow the muscles to do the work.
While there is nothing wrong with lifting heavy especially if you’re a powerlifter, there is room for heavy lifting as it can incorporate many secondary muscles while lifting. However, it’s best to focus on the muscle when Bodybuilding compared to Power Lifting. That way you can really focus on the muscle your targeting & tearing it to shreds so it can grow back even stronger & bigger then it was yesterday. If heavyweights equaled growth, by now you will see Kai Green a famous bodybuilder curling 100 lbs weights rather then 30 lbs dumbbells.
Final thoughts
Remember at the end of the day its a game of breaking muscle tissue and recovering. So treat your muscles like what I call the Rubberband effect. A good example when doing pull-ups, on the decline, stretch the lats all the way then pull up, contract the muscle, & repeat. Understand your training goals and match your workout towards your goal. Impress your body, not others. Also, every week is not going to be a stronger week. Someday’s your training may be weaker then other days it happens to everyone so don’t get disappointed. As long as you can get in the gym, get a good session in, enough to break down your muscle tissue you can rest assure you’re still on your way to developing good healthy, stronger muscles. So keep going cause the only bad workout you can ever have is the one that didn’t happen.
Medical/Healthcare Disclaimer & Affiliate Disclosure. This post may contain affiliate links.
