Do You Want Big Muscles?

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

26 May 2007 11:19 AM

When you think about exercise and fitness, do you think about big muscles? Do you concentrate on a workout that builds muscle and strengthens the body? Do you a chest that would do Atlas proud? If building muscle is your priority, then it's important for you to understand everything you can about muscle strength, strength building and more.

Hypertrophy

Bulky muscle is caused by muscle hypertrophy. So what is it, you ask? Hypertrophy is what happens when muscle cells thicken, but don't get longer. Your muscle cells may divide and create more, this can also create a thick appearance without the longer leaner muscle cells developing. Hypertrophy is developed with max weight pressure, power lifts that create muscle failure and create a biological expectation to lift more weight.

Resistance

Resistance is what you are doing when you are weight training. You are pushing your muscles against resistance. You are teaching your body how to handle greater weights. One form of resistance training is push-ups. You are working against the resistance of your own weight.

Don't mistake that lifting 100 pounds in one push is what you want to do to build muscle mass. One rep doesn't create strain and pressure. Instead, you may do lifts with 50 pounds for 10 reps, then 75 pounds for 5 reps and 100 pounds for 1 rep. This creates increasing pressure on the muscles to perform.

The idea is to convince your body that it needs to lift more and more and more with each subsequent rep.

What About the Workout?

In order to meet this requirement, you need to think about how often you workout as well as how you are setting up your workout. You need to decide on how many sets per exercise session you are going to do. Many people do an average of 2 sets per session.

Then you need to decide how many reps you will do for each set. The standard number of reps is about 10 reps per set. So you would be performing about 20 reps overall. Finally, you need to decide how many different exercises you're going to do for each muscle group. Arms usually get 3 different exercises (biceps curls, triceps presses, push ups), shoulders get 2, back gets 2, abdomen gets 3 and legs get 3 or 4 different exercises.

Finally, once you get all of that sorted out, decide how much downtime you will take between each set of exercise - a minute is a good window for taking a breather before going to the next set.

How do you structure your workout to build muscle?

Related Articles:

Weight Training: Progression and Overload

How to Weight Train for Running & Cycling

Strength Training - Understanding More About It

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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