In this article about building muscle mass with strength training, here's how to approach it: Do you want to look tighter in the mirror? Do you dream of a muscular body? Or do you simply want to become stronger? Building muscle mass with strength training is the answer. We will explain the basic principles and help you get started.
Building muscle mass with strength training explained
What is building muscle mass?
Muscle mass is the amount of muscle you have in your body. Every person is born with the same muscles. However, not everyone looks equally muscular. This is because building muscle mass is a growth process that needs to be managed, and not everyone pays attention to it. If you want to build muscle mass with strength training, it’s important to understand the basic principles. In this article, we will explain step by step how the process of building muscle mass works and how you can best approach it.
The process of building muscle mass
If you do not stimulate your muscles, you will not build muscle mass. You can make your muscles grow through hypertrophy, which means you stimulate your muscles with strength training. With strength exercises, you stretch your muscles and put them under tension. This consciously causes damage to your muscle fibers, which forces your muscles to recover and adapt. Through this adaptation process, your muscle mass increases. If you want to build and maintain muscle mass, you must continue to consciously stimulate your muscles. Strength training helps with that.
Building muscle mass with strength training
Building muscle mass with strength training is the best way to make your muscles grow. To not only understand this process well but also to apply it in your training, we will explain some basic principles of building muscle mass with strength training.
Stimulating muscle growth
By doing strength training, tension is placed on your muscle fibers; this form of tension is also known as Time Under Tension (TUT). This principle ensures that your muscle fibers are damaged and muscle growth is stimulated. The stronger a muscle fiber becomes, the more stimulation is needed to cause muscle damage. However, muscle damage is not the main goal of strength training. You can see it more as the effect of the exercises. More muscle damage is certainly not better. The most important thing is that your body recovers well so that your muscles can grow in a safe and responsible manner.
Understanding supercompensation
Due to muscle damage, a process is set in motion where the body must recover and adapt. Strength training causes a stress reaction in the body that weakens it. Your muscles, tendons, attachments, and nervous system are fatigued. As a result, the body needs time to adapt, during which it automatically wants to protect you from the next stress stimulus. This is why the muscle fibers become slightly larger and stronger. This is also known as supercompensation. To continue stimulating that process, your training must provide enough stimulus.
Creating Progressive Overload
A recurring training stimulus brings us to the last important principle of building muscle mass with strength training, namely progressive overload. Building muscle mass consists of stimulating your muscles during training and the process of supercompensation after training. To build muscle mass, creating progressive overload is important. You are constantly seeking a training stimulus that promotes muscle growth and recovery. This does not mean that you have to lift heavier weights in every training session than the previous one. It means that you keep track of your progress and lift a heavier weight or do more repetitions when the training no longer provides a stimulus. You can notice this when you no longer find the exercises really heavy or for example, you don't have muscle soreness after training. Then it's time for a new stimulus!
The Importance of Nutrition in Building Muscle Mass
If you want to build muscle mass with strength training, you cannot forget the importance of the right nutrition. You can stick to your training schedule as well as you want, but if you stuff yourself with unhealthy food or consume too few calories, it will not contribute to muscle growth. These basic principles will help you choose the right nutrition when building muscle mass with strength training:
Surplus for Muscle Growth
If you want to lose weight with strength training, it is important to create a calorie deficit so that you lose fat. But if you want to build muscle mass with strength training, the opposite applies. You want to create a calorie surplus, which is also known as a surplus. This gives your body the building blocks to grow muscle mass. This does not mean that you can stuff yourself with everything you like without limits. By eating between 250 and 400 calories (depending on the person) more per day than you burn, you can grow muscle mass without gaining much fat.
Proteins are Essential
To build muscle mass, you need sufficient proteins. Proteins in food are converted into amino acids, which are the building blocks that ensure the construction of muscle mass. A protein-rich diet consists of about 30 grams of protein per meal. Another calculation method is 1.8 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. You can divide the total of that calculation over about 3 to 5 meals per day. No idea where proteins are found or how to get enough proteins? Then log your food intake for a period, so you become aware of the macros in food and can make conscious choices that contribute to your goal.
Complete Variation
Although proteins are essential for building muscle mass, this does not mean that you should eliminate fats and carbohydrates from your diet. Some people think that fats are bad if you want to build muscles or women eliminate carbohydrates because they think it makes them fat. Fats, for example, provide protection for your muscles and cells. And carbohydrates play a role in regulating the stress hormone cortisol. This is not necessarily important for building muscle mass, but it is for your overall well-being and functioning. A varied diet is therefore important; otherwise, your progress will stagnate!
Building Muscle Mass with a Personal Trainer
Do you want to build muscle mass with strength training and don't know where to start? At Daadkracht, we are happy to help you achieve your personal goal. Visit us for a free trial lesson in Overveen or Heemstede so we can create a targeted action plan.
