Hot answers tagged muscle
17
"That muscle."
There's a classic quote about the power clean, attributed here to Charles Staley, that applies to your question:
"You know when you run down the field, catch the ball and then hit a defender? It works that muscle."
The deadlift works all the muscles. However, it's not quite the same as the running-jumping-hitting-the-defender ...
9
The common wisdom is that the chin up (supinated grip) targets the biceps. It also appears to target the pectoralis major. The pull up targets the lower trapezius more. Source
Ellington Darden also says the chin up better targets the lats because the involvement of the biceps means the arms won't give out as quickly as the pull up, allowing the back to get ...
9
The main issue with losing weight through exercise is that your body has mechanisms for counteracting calories burned through exercise. That means that those extra calories you burn from the increased metabolic activity of muscle are likely to be precisely compensated by increases in appetite and decreases in your metabolism. So unless you're rigorously ...
9
You can gain muscle while losing weight, but really only in specific circumstances, which you most likely don't fall into. You need to be fairly obese to start with, and eating the correct nutrients to support the lifting that you are doing. However, you are most likely not in that category, since you have been training regularly already.
If you are in a ...
8
I would consider your cycling and running to be completely inadequate as far as the amount of training, especially if you would like to be competitive in your age group. Your swimming is probably fine.
My best recommendation would be to go to a site, such as trifuel or BeginnerTriathlete.com, and take a look at some of their free 16 or 20 week training ...
7
The question as asked seems to be "can I trust a bodybuilder based on their appearance?" I would have to say no - too many athletes have been caught in lies over the decades. This includes unknown amateurs who lied to researchers to get gym time, physicals, etc. It's a serious problem for sport science. That said, you might be pleasantly surprised at what ...
7
Your body is telling you it's in trouble, and you're asking for ways to get stronger while continuing to do the thing that's causing the trouble. That sounds backwards. Fix your squat form, figure out what the pain in your knee is, and continue squatting with 5/3/1 or a similar intermediate program. (Or, start doing conditioning or gymnastics or Oly lifting ...
6
This to me sounds like DOMS.
Particulary if you haven't done this type of resistence training before and your form was good. Also the soreness caused by DOMS is a dull, aching pain in the affected muscle.
As the article says:
The pain is felt only when the muscle is stretched, contracted or put under pressure, not when it is at rest.
I find that if ...
6
You are correct to be suspicious of the "one muscle a day" prescription. While that method works fine, it is perfectly possible and very productive to do whole-body exercises every time you work out.
Many Olympic weightlifters do what's called Bulgarian training, which is training five or more days a week, sometimes several times a day. They use whole-body ...
6
While there are many different ways to approach this question, I think the best approach is from a very high-level as it gives you the proper foundation upon which you can build your exercise routine.
An easy way you can understand how muscles are built is by applying Selye's Theory of the General Adaptive Syndrome. The process can be broken down into three ...
6
There's not really a correlation between twitching your fingers and power in your legs. Plus, you don't "activate" your fast twitch fibers. There isn't a switch that turns them on, and they are not independent. You would also be using the slow twitch fibers in the muscle as well. So physically speaking, the finger twitching isn't doing what she says/thinks ...
5
With all due respect for Doctors, researchers and professional trainers, and i do not claim to be more knowledgeable at all but...The thing with researches is that, in my humble opinion, there are too many of them and one contradicts the other. For instance, some researches say eating fat will make you fat while others say the complete opposite. Some ...
5
Just like spot weight reduction, there is no such thing as spot strength building. From what you describe, the two most beneficial exercises are deadlifts (http://stronglifts.com/how-to-deadlift-with-proper-technique/) and farmer walks (http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=4959113). Both will build the off-the-ground power you need, the grip strength ...
5
It is common for muscles to be more sore two days after a workout, rather than the next day. The phenomenon is called DOMS: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Sometimes it manifests the next day after working out; sometimes it crops up after a day's delay.
As Mark Sisson notes, we don't really know what causes DOMS physiologically:
[D]espite its ubiquity, ...
5
Swimming is an excellent cardiovascular workout. You can give a very strong effort, and since there is minimal body impact, you can give a pretty intense workout just about every day. It most definitely will help with fat burning, assuming that you are eating an appropriate, healthy diet.
It will assist in muscle building, but only so much as it takes to ...
5
I would recommend a multipronged approach, actually. You are correct that muscle burns more than fat, and that is where I would start. Take a look at a good weightlifting program such as Stronglifts 5x5, which will give you an excellent muscle building base. As you build the muscle, you'll contribute to fat loss as it will require more calories on a daily ...
5
Recomposition really is only possible or visible when your body is within certain phases of its life.
The Beginner: The beginner is so far untrained, that any regular training will have a significant impact on their muscle mass even when you are eating for losing fat.
The Obese: The obese person has so much fat, that any serious change in diet will cause ...
5
There is a popular practice called "Greasing the Groove" developed by Pavel Tsatouline which is similar in practice to what you are doing currently, but with one key difference: intensity. Pavel's GTG is designed to increase your performance in a specific activity (e.g. pull ups) through the simple formula Specificity + Frequency = Success. Specificity means ...
4
When a person works on one group of muscles more than another, this person develops what's known as muscle imbalance. The human body has many muscles working together in order to carry out daily physical activities. For instance walking up a flight of stairs is more than just your legs doing the work, but also your core gets engaged to to keep you balanced. ...
4
You already have some good answers so I'll just add to keep in mind specificity of exercise.
Specificity of exercise means that if you want to get better at cycling, you should cycle. If you want to be able to run fast, you should train for speed etc. And if you want to be able to squat, lift, and carry you should train specifically to squat, lift, and ...
4
It simply has to do with the location of the muscle in relation to the skin surface vs. bone.
Superficial - muscles you feel through your skin--the outermost layer
Intermediate - muscles sitting between the superficial muscles and the deep muscles
Deep - muscles closest to the bone--the innermost layer.
See Superficial Muscles of the Human Body for more ...
4
Correct, there is no way to burn fat from a specific location.
Doing more reps of a certain exercise, lets say dumbbell curls, will make your main bicep's "fibers" work more; when the "main" fibers get tired, adjacent fibers are waked up and put to work. So, when you increase the number of reps you force your muscle to activate more fibers in the last few ...
4
Follow the "Starting strength" routine by Mark Rippetoe and you are on your way.
I will outline several reasons why I think it it will be a good routine for you :
It is a good routine for a beginner. It educates most beginners on following compound exercises and makes them strong overall. Since there are very few exercises your form on these exercises ...
4
Hardness can be a component of how much glycogen has been stored in the muscle (from your diet). Are you eating enough? A well fed gym goer has puffier muscles which are harder upon flexing. If you are cardioing your ass off in between sessions this will deplete the muscle's glycogen stores. That said, I assume that if your muscles are small (as you say), ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
