The Science of Strength Thankfully we don’t need a periodic table or fancy equations to figure out how to get fit. However, it is helpful to know what makes muscles grow. It might seem counterintuitive, but in order to grow, a muscle must first be broken down. And that’s what happens when we lift weights. We’re applying stress to our muscle fibers to create the best possible kind of injury, triggering satellite cells to rush to the scene of the “trauma” in order to repair our muscles. These cells fuse muscle fibers together and create new muscle protein, known as myofibrils.The result: bigger, stronger muscles. When it comes to strength training, we can use this process in our favor. Because the body adapts quickly to challenging tasks, if it can’t do something, it will try and change to make it easier the next time. The key is creating a training plan that provides stimulus to the muscles and elicits growth. If we want our muscles to grow, we must subject them to “metabolic stress, muscle damage and tension.” It’s also important to increase and vary the amount and types of stimulus over time. This concept is known as progressive overload. Putting the method into practice could be as simple as upping the weight on the bar, mixing in new exercises, or focusing on eccentric lowering of the weight.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:53:30 +0000