Many people work out these days, including me and my friends. Some people do it for health issues. Some people do it for aesthetics. Some people do it to improve strength and health. I started working out for strength improvement and aesthetics, and as I searched for a way to gain muscle quickly and efficiently, a question popped into my head. How do muscles actually grow? 

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The basic knowledge I had before the research was that muscles tear apart when lifting weights, and during or after the break, they heal and become bigger and stronger. However, there was so much more in the process. As Marcin says, our body has three major muscle types, and one of them is the Skeletal muscle. Tendons attach these muscle fibers to bones like a thread that are twisted multiple times to contract and cause movement. When people do extreme exercise, such as weightlifting, muscle fibers undergo trauma and get damaged, and muscle protein breakdown occurs. In order to heal the damaged muscle fibers, satellite cells come into play to repair them. As Leyva says, during this process, also known as muscle hypertrophy, the cells fuse muscle fibers to form new muscle proteins and myofibrils, which are bundles of protein filaments. Myofibrils then increase in mass and size, which is generally known as muscle growth. However, this process happens when you rest, not when you work out since the muscles grow only if the “muscle protein synthesis is greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown,” and this makes rest significant (Leyva). Additionally, having a balanced diet is also essential. Although all the exercise you have done, it becomes useless without proper protein intake and a balanced diet. As Leonard says, there are recommended protein intakes for men and women every day for muscle growth which are 56 grams and 46 grams. Protein intake supports muscle protein synthesis and reduces protein breakdown, which makes muscle growth efficient and effective. Back to weightlifting, giving tension and stress to your muscles is very important. Lifting the same weight every day a million times doesn’t cause muscle growth because your muscles adapt to your usual weight lift and get insufficient stress for growth. There are multiple reasons your muscles don’t grow, and this is one of them. In order to avoid this and wasting time, you need to lift heavier weights progressively. 

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In summary, muscle growth occurs only if muscle fibers are impaired and injured due to excessive weight. After, the rest period is required for hypertrophy to begin, where muscle repair and regrowth happen and increase your muscle in mass and size. Proper protein intake also plays an important role in this process by helping muscle protein synthesis.

 

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