Your body builds only as much muscle as you need for your daily activities. To build more muscle, you must convince your body that it needs it to keep up with the demands of your life. The body naturally resists change, so the only way to build muscle is by consistently challenging your muscles through a rigorous weight-training regimen, then providing the muscles with enough time and resources to recover and rebuild.
Hypertrophy
A muscle's strength is determined by its cross-sectional area (how big it is), so building stronger muscles means building bigger muscle fibers. When you lift weights, the trauma causes tiny tears in your muscle fibers. After the workout is over, the damaged fibers rebuild themselves bigger and stronger so they will be better equipped for the demand next time. More muscle fibers are needed to lift a heavy weight, so lifting heavier loads stimulates growth in more fibers. "Hypertrophy" is the scientific term for building bigger muscles.
Training
Lifting weights that fatigue muscles after only three to five repetitions ("reps") achieves the greatest strength gains. The greatest size gains come when muscles fail after six to twelve reps. Combining medium and low repetition ranges in your training optimizes size and strength gains. Shoot for a total of 25 to 50 repetitions per muscle group per workout. Therefore, low-rep workouts require more sets. Rest for two to three minutes between sets.
Progressive Overload
For your muscles to grow, you must continuously give them a bigger workload than that to which they are accustomed. If you reach your target number of repetitions and feel you could lift the weight again, then the weight is too light. As time goes on, the weight it takes to reach muscle failure increases. To avoid plateaus, change your workouts every four to six weeks.
Recovery
Muscles don't grow until you recover from your workout, so don't place so much stress on your muscles that you exceed their ability to recover. It takes three to four days for your body to clear damaged tissue and rebuild muscle fibers. Water is essential to this process, so make sure you drink more than eight glasses a day. Most muscle repair happens while you sleep, so make sure you're getting enough. Post-workout stretching and massages increase blood flow to the muscle, helping to clear damaged tissue and deliver the nutrients needed to rebuild the muscle.
Nutrition
Muscle tissue uses lots of fuel. For your body to build big muscles, it needs enough materials (protein) to build and energy (carbohydrate) to sustain them. Eat six smaller meals a day to give your body time to assimilate the nutrients you consume. Eat plenty of protein after your workouts and throughout the day to give your muscles the building blocks they need to limit post-workout tissue breakdown and to build new muscle. Glucose (a carbohydrate) is your muscle's energy source, so if you skimp on carbs, you will have lackluster workouts and thus limit gains. Fruits and vegetables provide carbohydrates as well as recovery-enhancing antioxidants.
References
- ACSM's Resources for the Personal Trainer; American College of Sports Medicine; 2006
- Build Muscle and Gain Weight Fast Guide: Muscle Building With Creatine
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