January 16, 2010
Topic:
Gaining muscle 101
With New Year's resolutions in full swing, many people are working hard on shedding pounds but for those wanting to gain muscle and get stronger should they follow a different strategy?
Circuit training isn’t the best - Circuit training is awesome for weight-loss but for muscle building it’s limited. The reason is simple. You’re typically using very light weights and you’re moving from one exercise to the other, because you’re main goal is calorie loss. There are some studies suggesting circuit training can build a little more muscle than running or other traditional cardio programs but what we need to do is look at circuit training as a creative form of cardio.
Building muscle requires rest – It requires rest between sets. Experts say a minimum intensity of a 65% max or a 10-12 rep max is needed to build muscle, which means that if you’re lifting a weight that you can lift twenty times the intensity is simply too low to target the proper fibers that lead to muscle growth. If you’re doing it right, lifting a weight that you can truly only lift ten times is tiring and requires at least a couple of minutes rest.
Building muscle requires volume - Forget the 10 minutes a day myth. Science is clear. A muscle fiber can’t just be stimulated to grow; it must be fatigued. This means you not only have to lift weight heavy enough to activate the right fibers but you also have to do it a lot.
Finding the balance - Proper intensity plus volume equals muscle- the classic three sets of ten reps might seem old and worn out but it was called the Delorme Method. It was invented by a doctor in the fifties that discovered three sets of ten reps was the perfect balance that allows heavy enough weight and just enough volume to grow muscle. It’s simple but I guarantee you, people will be doing ten sets of three reps a hundred years from now.
Question from viewers:
Jonas
You talk a lot about building muscle but what about those who just want to tone a little?
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