The XXX Factors on building muscle (Part 2)

On my last blog I covered how important it was to up the intensity of your work out in order to stimulate the muscle enough to grow. If the muscle isn't placed under pressure, there's no reason for it to build more muscle fibres, to perform the task its asked to do, as it can already do it with the fibres it already has! In Part 2 I will be explaining the 2nd X Factor:- Rest & work out variation - how many times have you seen a really skinny guy in the gym throwing around weights and he seems to be in there all the time, 24-7 and he doesn't look any different from when he started a year ago! In fact he looks like he's putting on body fat rather than muscle! Why is this? What is going on? You would think if he is battering his body day in and day out he should be packing on lean, mean muscle and looking like a champion body builder and not a skinny weakling! It's the fact that muscle growth doesn't occur during your time in the gym but the magic happens once you leave that gym and start resting. When the body is resting and has been given adequate nutrition (more on this later)than the muscle fibres which have been ripped down during the work out can be mended and made bigger (hypertrophy). However if you're constantly working out in the gym, like that skinny guy, with the increasing swelling belly than all you're doing is ripping down the muscle and not allowing enough time for it to mend before ripping it down again. Over a period of time the muscle in fact becomes smaller and as the body only has enough energy stores for 1 to 1.5 hours per session, if you continue past this point your body will strip down the muscle to continue the work out (catabolism). This is something you don't want, as muscle mass burns more calories at rest compared with fat and this helps to keep your metabolism up and if your body starts to strip this away and leaves the fat, your body composition starts to change and your metabolism will slow down as fat% increases and muscle % decreases- not a good look! You must get plenty of sleep, at least 8 hours, as this is the time when the muscles start to rebuild and recover. This is also when testosterone and Human Growth Hormone (HGH)is produced, the hormones that help muscle growth. You must factor in rest days at least 1 day of total rest per week and split your fitness work outs in order to allow 48 hours rest of each muscle, before training them again. E.g on Monday do chest but don't do chest again until at least Wednesday, so do back or legs on Tuesday instead. Try to vary the work outs so you have heavy and lighter training days in order to help the body to recover and avoid over training. The other thing to avoid is continuing doing the same old fitness programme for months, maybe even years! The body adapts to exercise extremely quickly, so in order to continue packing on the muscle you must change your programme about every 6 weeks so you keep the body guessing and avoid plateauing. Also during each session mix up the order you do each exercise. If you always start with the bench press then start with chest flyes or pullovers instead, to keep the body guessing and make each session feel different, so each visit to the gym feels fresh for both mind and body. I leave the last word about keeping the body guessing to keep growing to arguably the most successful and influential body builder of all time, Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Your muscles tend to become complacent and resist growth if you are constantly doing the same workout for them. But if you try all different types of training methods, exercises, weights, set-rep combinations and training tempos, you keep the muscles off balance. They sort of say to themselves, ‘Wow, there’s a new thing here. He just did 10 sets of 20 reps, and the next workout he’ll do 20 sets of five reps. I’ll never get used to this. I can never build up a resistance to the training, so I guess I’ll have to grow!’”