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Please check if you are missing something from this answer on how to build muscle. The two most common things people mess up when trying to grow larger muscles are they don't eat enough, and they don't sleep enough. It sounds like you also aren't working hard enough or even the correct muscle groups for your goals.
While 40 pushups is great progress from ...
26
EDIT: Since "fit" is a very arbitrary term, I should include my definition, since the asker did not.
From the starting point of a 50kg man, I consider fit to include
gaining quite a lot of weight, mostly muscle
correcting most, if not all, posture imperfections and muscular imbalances
learning proper form in all exercises, and learning how to utilize ...
23
Muscle growth physiology is not a pseudoscience as researchers are using scientific methods to collect and analyze data and make logical deductions.
It is true that our knowledge of muscle growth is limited and the statistical studies do not explain and prove the results, but this does not make the field non-scientific.
It would be called pseudoscience, if ...
22
It's called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), but you'll note the Delayed word there. The pain usually shows up 24 hours later and is gone around 72 hours. It's actually not fully understood (2003 analysis in Sports Medicine):
Up to six hypothesised theories have been proposed for the mechanism
of DOMS, namely: lactic acid, muscle spasm, connective ...
18
There was a 2010 study that touched on this a bit, and suggests there's more going on than muscle memory.
Effects of previous strength training can be long-lived, even after
prolonged subsequent inactivity, and retraining is facilitated by a
previous training episode. Traditionally, such "muscle memory" has
been attributed to neural factors in the ...
18
I do not agree with your insistence on a mechanism.
In 1964 the U.S. Surgeon General published a report where he concluded that smoking causes cancer. At that time the mechanisms behind this was not understood. However there was statistical evidence in the form of a study with over 1 million subjects that showed that smoking and cancer were highly correlated....
15
I think you've heard the right idea, but you're misinterpreting it.
Of course high reps builds some strength, but certainly not a whole lot. It's going to take a lot more effort (in terms of joules spent) to increase your 5RM by doing 15-rep sets, than it would to increase it by actually doing 5-rep sets.
Don't think of it as "it does, or it doesn't". Most ...
14
Yes, with practice, you could learn to control every toe individually.
The reason it is difficult, is that the part of your brain which is responsible for voluntary movements, the motor cortex, has relatively little area devoted to your toes. Here is a representation of the relative area each body part has in the motor cortex:
The more area devoted to the ...
12
There's no easy answer. It depends on a few variables:
The stress you've exposed your muscles to.
How close you are to your genetic potential.
How good your recovery is.
You (probably, based on your fitness as explained) could do 20 pushups a day, every day, and have no problems. However if you tried to push your 1RM (single maximum effort) bench press, ...
12
First off, ask your trainer how many athletes he or she has trained that have won national, regional, or international titles. Personally, my belief is that unless you have trained someone that's made the Olympic team (or around there), you should probably put your ego in check and emulate what the Olympic trainers are doing.
Training isn't an art project ...
11
Here, I made a list :)
# cm^3 muscle
1 879.65 Gluteus maximus
674.00 Vastus lateralis
599.20 Adductor magnus
580.00 Vastus intermedius
5 531.90 Soleus
461.00 Vastus medialis
458.29 Gluteus medius
323.45 Rectus femoris
306.73 Psoas major
10 262.30 Latissimus dorsi
256.80 Medial gastrocnemius
...
10
Divide your dose. Have some before and some after your workout. Unlike fat and carbohydrates your body can't store protein. If it doesn't get absorbed it gets passed through your digestive tract, your liver, your kidneys, etc. This not only wastes protein/ supplements and money it also taxes your machine by forcing it to process something that it can't ...
10
Forward head posture (called gravity induced kyphosis) is pretty common nowadays. The first thing you should do is begin stretching your neck with an exercise called neck retraction:
You'll be amazed at how great this exercise feels. If you've been stuck in forward head posture for a long time, you'll feel as though your entire upper spine is waking up.
...
10
Your question is very general, and will therefore only attract general answers, so this will be that.
Fixing posture
While you don't mention this yourself, C.Lange makes a good point about posture in the comments. To elaborate, it's clear from your second picture (shoulders from the side), that your shoulders are slumped forward and your neck has a sort of ...
9
First there is nothing wrong with your muscles shaking. You are making them work and have good intensity. That is great.
Some reasons for the muscle shakes:
Balancing muscles (fixator) that are used to stabilize the lift cannot carry the load. Lifting weights is not overall natural. There are a lot of balancing muscles used that get little to no use ...
9
Having a protein before your workout will allow you to have more energy, resulting in your workouts feeling stronger, but you will not burn as much fat when you workout.
After your workouts, it is commonly accepted that your body acts like a sponge for about an hour while your muscles attempt to collect nutrients to repair what was torn down during the ...
9
It seems that if you insist on doing unweighted push-ups you have to build up to 100s of push-ups every day to see results (1).
Personally I do push-ups with a weight plate on my back instead.
That way I can progress with far fewer repetitions, and only doing push-ups 2 or 3 times a week.
Another option is to switch to dips. They are a lot harder than push-...
8
Good morning. I work as an athletic therapist for the US Army currently and was with the USMC for 4 years prior to that in the same capacity. Anterior tibialis pain/tightening is usually caused by tight calves. As your foot dorsiflexes the calf muscles have to allow that motion to occur. If your calf muscles are tight the anterior tibialis and other ...
8
Hi Zerotoinfinite,
Look at this picture
As you can see in the picture, the biggest contributor to gaining six pack is lower body fat percentages. As you can see, the six pack becomes more visible as the body fat percentage reduces.
So, reduce your body fat percentage and your six pack will become visible.
With regards to your specific question about ...
8
I'm a bodyweight training addict.
In my point of view doing 1 x 50 is better than doing 10 x 5 because you have the same volume but in less time, you have more intensity.
The first commandments in a post of Paul "Coach" Wade about calisthenics mass is "Embrace Reps" and the 4th is "Limit sets" source : http://pccblog.dragondoor.com/ten-commandments-...
8
Yes you need lots of other things, minerals, vitamins, essential fats, carbohydrates.
These are needed to build muscle and also to stay alive, while the muscle building happens.
That's why should keep a proper healthy diet, and with healthy I mean what's very commonly healthy: veggies, fruits, whole grain, then you can add additional protein to your diet.
8
You do not have "low testosterone" and even if you did, you would build muscle and overall fitness the same way that everyone else does - through training. 350 ng/dL is within a normal range for a 35 year old man, for reference 450 ng/dL is the 50th percentile (the exact middle, neither high nor low).
Getting to a healthy bodyfat level will likely ...
8
Fat does not naturally make you stronger by just existing. It's inactive. It just sits there. You can't control it.
I think the misconception that fat inherently makes you stronger is brought on by two observations.
First, people don't just gain fat. They gain muscle as well. Even untrained people will gain muscle in addition to fat. People with more muscle ...
8
We need to clarify some terms. "Extension" means movement of a joint which increases the angle between two body parts. So elbow extension is the movement that increases the angle between the humerus and radius/ulna, i.e. straightening the elbow. The opposite of extension is "flexion", which is a movement of a joint which decreases the ...
7
To answer your question specifically: it doesn't matter. Studies show that the average amount of protein taken in over a given period of time(days, weeks)is what matters far more than getting your whey in before or after. The body does not really become magically more efficient at using protein after a workout. As long as you're hitting your daily intake ...
7
The nature of those two movements is different. The lorry driver performs continous, non-changing movements which wear out the cartilage of the joints and the tendons and ligaments. Every movement induces slight inflammation in the structures involved. One difference is that the lorry driver performs the same movement every day, without the possibility of ...
7
Nathan, first, please check out this answer on myofibril vs sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
With muscular endurance, you are dealing with (to simplify things greatly) three variables:
Myofibril: how many contracting fibers you have in the muscle (e.g., one elastic band vs a bunch of elastic); how strong you are
Sarcoplasm: how much stored energy your muscle ...
7
Strength training builds muscle. In other words, the forcible contraction of your muscles against resistance is what stimulates them to get stronger or more firm. While stretching has a role, it's not to build or tone muscle. NOTE: the amount of body fat you have can accentuate or hide muscularity, so a certain amount of "toning" is done in the kitchen.
...
7
I know that bodybuilding makes you heavier, stronger and more attractive, but is it really beneficial for one's health in the long run?
Bodybuilding is not strength training.
Bodybuilding is a very specific practice to improve one's looks. Strength training, by contrast, is training to improve the capabilities of one's body. Strength training is the ...
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