The Basics of Building Muscle - Exercise and Nutrition

Hello again! A very popular question is "how do you build muscle?" Almost anyone who starts getting into fitness wants to know this! Whether you are trying to lose weight, get stronger, or change your body composition, building muscle is one of the most important elements (besides nutrition of course!). Let's get right into this!

There are three main steps in gaining strength and building bigger muscles:

1. Breakdown
2. Recovery
3. Overcompensation 

The first step is muscle breakdown- this happens when you do resistance training such as weightlifting. Your body tries it's hardest to be as efficient as possible, and does not like to expend extra energy. So in order to get stronger, you need to push your body outside of it's comfort zone so it will adapt to a new amount weight it needs to lift. So when you exercise, you are not actually growing your muscles, you are causing micro tears in the tissues. This sounds like a bad thing, but it's not! Overtraining IS a bad thing, but you need to put your muscles through a workout that causes them to breakdown; it's how you can build stronger larger muscles! 

After you exercise, your muscles start the recovery phase. Remember how your body likes to be comfortable? Well this is where your body builds up those muscles so it does not have to go through that stress again. The muscles cannot repair and you will not get stronger or grow larger muscles if you do not provide some sort of fuel.  This is why it is SO SO important to feed your body properly after a workout!! Your muscles not only need food, but also sleep to recover. Recovery is just one of the practically endless reasons why it is important to develop good sleeping habits. 

The last step is called "overcompensation." Now that your muscles have been torn down and have recovered from that workout, they are now stronger! You are now able to lift more weight than you were before. And this is what we want!! However, this overcompensation only lasts for a short period of time, which is why you need to be consistent in your workouts to see real results. You probably won't see any new muscle growth after just one or two workouts, and that is because building muscle takes time! You will need to repeat the process of breakdown, recovery, and overcompensation many many times before you see significantly increases muscle mass.

So now that we know how exercise plays a role in muscle growth, what about that ever so important fuel that was mentioned? Carbohydrates are easily converted into usable energy, and protein is needed to repair the tissues we just tore down in the gym. This is why it is critical, especially if you want to build bigger muscles, to eat protein and carbs after a workout. The rule of thumb is to have a meal with a ratio of 3:1 carbs to protein within 30 minutes after completing a workout. 

If you don't eat after exercise, you could actually lose that muscle you are trying to gain! If you are trying to lose weight, please don't think that skipping your post-workout meal is going to help you reach your goals. I cannot stress how important it is to fuel your body after working out!! So for the love of muscle and the health of your body, EAT.

Protein is not only important after your workouts, but in the rest of your day too. If you are not eating enough food, you are not going to gain muscle. And if you are eating enough food, but not enough protein, you still aren't going to gain muscle! To gain or even just maintain muscle you need to eat about .6 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. I personally shoot for around 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight to make it simple. Use a calculator like the one on bodybuilding.com to see how many carbs, proteins, and fats you should be intaking each day!

There are so many more tips and ideas on how to build muscle, but these are the basics! I hope you found this informative and helpful. Until next time!

Hannah