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Is It
Possible To Build Muscle
Mass Fast?
Although
you may be tempted to get
rid of your rest day to
"make up" time, this is not
a good idea. There are two
types of fatigue: bodypart
fatigue and systemic
fatigue. A bodypart is
fatigued when it has not
fully recovered from your
last workout. Soreness and
reduced muscle strength are
signs of bodypart fatigue.
Systemic fatigue occurs
when the entire body is
stressed and overworked
from the rigors of
training. Your body can be
systemically fatigued even
if the individual bodypart
you are scheduled to train
is ready for another run
with the weights, so
building muscle mass fast
is not so simple as it
looks like. Since your body
is still partially drained
of its physical and mental
energy, systemic fatigue
keeps you from achieving
your maximum intensity at
the gym and should be
avoided at all costs.
Prolonged systemic fatigue
can also result in illness.
While it may seem
counterintuitive at first
glance, keeping a rest day
in between training cycles
can actually speed up your
progress!
You may
have heard that you must
train a bodypart twice a
week to make it grow.
However, this is simply not
true. Muscle growth is
caused by an increase in
the thickness of the muscle
fibers. New muscle fibers
can also be created in
certain instances. These
adaptations to weight
training occur when the
muscle is forced to respond
to a resistance that it has
not experienced before.
Intensity is the key
variable for building
muscle mass fast. You grow
from that one set you did
at a higher intensity level
than ever before, not from
volumes of submaximal
training or too frequent
workouts.
Many
beginning fitness
enthusiasts don't
understand the dangers of
overtraining, so they
plunge into their workouts
in a gung-ho manner that
overwhelms their body's
ability to recuperate and
grow. Remember that weight
training is a
peak-intensity sport, not
an endurance sport.
The
frequency of your training
should be dictated by your
recuperative abilities, not
the day of the week. Your
body doesn't know whether
it's Tuesday or Friday. The
body functions on much
longer cycles, and athletes
need to respect these
fluctuations and work with
them. You should never
train a bodypart unless it
has not been sore for at
least a day. In time, you
will actually be able to
flex a muscle and determine
whether it is sufficiently
recuperated. If it doesn't
feel that way, take another
day off. If this means that
you only train a bodypart
three times in two weeks or
even once a week, so be
it.
Scientific
research has shown that in
healthy athletes the
detraining process (where
your muscles start to lose
their strength through lack
of use) doesn't start for
two weeks, with significant
losses taking up to a
month. So don't worry about
losing muscle if you don't
train twice a week. In
fact, for a committed
athlete the chances of
losing muscle through
overtraining are greater if
you do train twice a week.
Train with total intensity,
but train intelligently and
in harmony with your body's
abilities. In the long run,
the muscle gains will be
much greater.
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