At the Health & Fitness tip of the previous day, we talked about the basic elements of the theory behind muscle growth, namely the growth of muscle strength, muscle mass and muscle strength. In this tip we will talk more specifically on how theory is applied.
Applying the theory
Three parameters can be altered to achieve muscle overload. The way these parameters apply determines the nature of your muscle adjustment. These parameters are: intensity, duration and frequency. Essentially, these are the parameters that need to be set up to create a weight lifting program that will adjust your muscles the way you want, whether it's strength, size, strength or a combination of them.
The intensity, controlled by the size of the weight you have, has the greatest effect on the type of growth of your muscles. If your primary goal is muscle strength, then you should be lifting heavy weights. If your primary goal is muscle strength, then you should lift light weights. If your primary goal is muscle hypertrophy (or muscle mass) then you should be lifting intermediate weights. More detailed instructions on how to draw up your own weightlifting program according to these principles are listed below.
Note: Since the amount of weight that one can raise differs from person to person, the following guidelines determine the amount of weight you should weight as a percentage of the weight of the Maximum Repeat (see definition above), which from here we will be referred to as 1RM. Therefore, in order to calculate the correct amount of weight to be lifted in each of your weightlifting exercises (eg bench press, squats, barbell curls, etc.), you should first know what is 1RM for each of these exercises.
How to Develop Muscle Power
If your main goal is muscle strength then you should develop a weight lifting program with exercises that comply with the following guidelines:
Weight gaining weight 85% of 1RM or more
Number of sets executed 2 to 6
Number of reps per set of 6 or fewer
Rest period between sets of 2 to 5 minutes
How to Grow Muscle Volume
If your main goal is muscle volume (or hypertrophy) then you should develop a weight lifting program with exercises that comply with the following guidelines:
Weight gaining weight From 67% to 85% of 1RM
Number of sets executed 3 to 6
Number of reps per set 6 to 12
Rest period between sets of 0.5 to 1.5 minutes
How To Develop Muscle Strength
If your main goal is muscle strength, you will need to develop a weightlifting program with exercises that comply with the following guidelines:
Weight gaining 67% of 1RM or less
Number of sets executed 3 to 6
Number of reps per set of 12 or more
Rest period between sets Less than 0.5 minutes
Remember that in all of the above instructions - be it strength, volume or endurance - you should overload your muscles in each set. If your muscles are not overloaded, then you are just wasting your time. If, for example, you see that you exceed the appropriate number of repetitions per set (mentioned above for the various goals), then you obviously need to increase the weight you use until your repetitions are reduced to the appropriate limits.
So the obvious question is how do you know that you overload your muscles in each set. The best way to achieve overload is to lift weights until you get to failure. In other words, this means you have to perform repetitions until you reach the point of not being able to complete an extra repeat correctly. When this happens, you will have exhausted your muscles to a point where they can not continue and there will be no doubt as to whether you have overloaded them enough.
What about frequency?
You may have noticed that none of the above goals have indicated how often you should perform weightlifting training. This is a difficult question to answer precisely because it depends on a number of different training parameters not discussed here. In general, weight-lifters are trained from 2 to 4 times a week. Based on empirical knowledge about muscle development, you should leave at least 48 hours between training sessions to restore each muscle group you exercise. For example, if you were planning your biceps on Monday, you would have to wait until Wednesday before it was rebuilt.
It is important to understand that the issues discussed in this article cover the most basic issues that have to do with how to develop your muscles. There are more factors that affect your muscle growth (which you will surely learn from your trainers or from your research on the Internet), but now you have a good base to get started.