Whether you’re a guy or girl, wanting to get buff or lean, muscle growth is definitely something you should be interested in learning about.

The last thing you would want to do is go about the most inefficient way of building that muscle. Nobody wants to spend years in the gym just to make minimal progress.

Well, you’re in luck! Get ready for the most geeky explanation out there for how to build that strength, so that you can venture out and slay even more dragons! (and get even more loot!)

 

1. Muscles grow when physical stress is placed upon them

The first and most basic criteria for muscle growth is that muscles must undergo physical stress greater than that which they are accustomed to in order to grow.

What exactly does this mean? Well, as a simple example, if you are comfortably able to lift a dumbbell that weighs 5kg 10 times over, you would need to increase that weight (to say, 6kg), while lifting it the same number of times over, in order for additional physical stress to be placed upon it.

Your body is a wonderfully evolved machine. When your muscles detect this additional stress, your brain will send signals to your muscles to grow in order to accommodate this additional stress.

Over time, with consistent signals, your muscles will begin to bulge out and you’ll finally feel what it’s like to be the hulk (well, maybe not THAT buff, but you get what I mean).

2. Muscles grow when you are resting

Here is the key to muscle growth that most people get confused with:

Muscles don’t grow in the gym or when you’re working out. Instead muscles grow when you are in a state of rest!

What is the reason behind this? Basically, when your muscles undergo physical stress, micro tearing is experienced in your muscle tissue. Not to worry, these tears are microscopic in nature, and are directly beneficial to muscle growth.

Rest and recovery is thus essential to repair these micro tears, and allows the muscle time to recuperate and grow.

I can’t overemphasize this enough, because it places an immense amount of importance on the aspects of sleep and rest, which are just as crucial to muscle growth as is working out.

Think of it this way. Remember those RPG games that had an “increased out of combat health regeneration” mechanic? World of Warcraft is one classic example. Either you had to get out of combat to heal up slowly, or eat food to heal even faster. The key point being “out of combat”, which in our context would equate to “out of the gym” or “when not working out”.

Skyrim is another epic example. Your health regen only significantly kicked in when you weren’t fighting, and you were only able to heal up quickly by resting or waiting for an hour or two. (causing the hp regen stat to be practically useless..they really need to buff that)

 

3. Muscles grow only when you eat properly

Here’s the last point of the trifecta of muscle growth, but still as equally important as the rest.

Your muscles don’t appear out of thin air. In order to heal and grow, they require food as fuel. Healing (which is essentially cellular growth) cannot occur without the necessary nutrients.

Take wolverine, for example. It has been shown that he can experience starvation, and that his healing factor does in fact need food in order to function. He once survived under a massive iceberg for months by feeding off his own flesh! However, this would logically result in a vicious cycle of self-eating that would result in an eventual but inevitable death, with Logan consuming more than he can recreate nutrient-wise.

Thus, even for the most efficient of healers in the universe, eating the right food is a necessity!

Which nutrients exactly though, are essential for muscle growth? Well, that would be protein. Protein, or amino acids (Reed Richards terminology), are the building blocks of muscles. Protein is primarily found in meat, but can also most definitely be found in various vegetables if you’re vegan.

I won’t be going in depth here into how much protein you should be consuming, as it would require quite a lengthy explanation (I’ll definitely be doing a piece on it some time in the near future though, so look out for that!). Suffice to say, a substantial percentage of people don’t consume enough protein in their daily diets, so make sure you eat enough of it if you want to grow those muscles!

And that’s a wrap! The 3 essentials to building muscles to become the hero you were always meant to be.

I hope this article helped in adding some points into your strength stat!

As always, if you’ve any questions at all, feel free to fire away. We were all beginners once, and there’s no such thing as a stupid question!

Interested in training together with me? Click HERE to get in touch with me, and I’ll be more than happy to meet you!