Friday, April 4, 2014

Five Principles of Stimulating Muscle Growth

If you take a friend to the gym, chances are he is going to lift weights, and if he lifts weights he will want to learn about muscle growth.  If he learns about muscle growth, he is going to want to know different ways to stimulate muscle growth.  If he knows different ways to stimulate muscle growth, his muscles will grow, which will make him want to lift more weights.  If he wants to lift more weights he will probably want you to take him to the gym.

Kudos to you if the opening paragraph reminded you of a children’s book; it is popular around my house with a certain almost-three-year-old.  If you did not get the reference and you are still reading this, chances are, stimulating muscle growth is topic of interest with you.  Thanks for sticking with me.

As the title of this suggests, there are five different ways to stimulate muscle growth.  More accurately, these should be called principles of muscle growth because these techniques are foundational to adapting training to give the muscles every possible form of stimulation.  There are five principles, but most people probably only use the first two, maybe three.  Before identifying these principles, understand that utilization of any of these in training is not an excuse for sacrificing form.  Mastering the form and technique of any exercise is paramount to both safety and efficiency. Also, before explaining these principles the SAIDs principle must briefly discussed. SAIDs stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.  It is a fancy way of saying that the human body will adapt to whatever stimulus it receives.  Without changes in stimulation, the body will gradually adapt to the point where a specific form of stimuli no longer induces any change.  This is commonly referred to as plateau.  It will happen to everyone at some point, when it does, understanding varying methods of providing stimulus and apply those methods is the only way to overcome it.

So what are these principles? It is time to stimulate, but not annihilate the muscles through Variation of Resistance, Frequency of Activation, Variation in the Speed of Movement, Variation in Tension, Variation of Length of the Muscle Action.

1.      Variation of Resistance.  This is the easiest and most common form of stimulation: if it seems easy, make it harder.  It strength training this most commonly done by increasing the weight on a given exercise.  But it can also be done by lowering the weight.  Lightening the weight, even for just one week, can give the body a variation in stimulation that may help someone break out of a plateau.  This is referred to as deloading; taking a defined period of time to perform the same exercises but with lighter weight.  The purpose of this is shift the focus of training to improve the efficiency and quality of a given movement while giving the muscles a reprieve from the strain of heavy weights.

2.      Frequency of Activation. In Gymanese[i], this is known as repetitions or reps.  A change in the repetition range for an exercise is a great way to target the different muscle fibers.  This also plays well into variation of resistance.  Increasing the weight typically results in fewer repetitions while decreasing the weight will result in a higher number of repetitions performed.

3.      Variation in the Speed of Movement.  Odds are you have never done this, at least not intentionally. It works with any movement; simply perform it faster or slower.  However, this must be done at a deliberate pace.  Take the barbell bicep curl as an example, lifting the weight from the bottom position with the arms extended to the top, the bar level with the shoulders, could be done for a deliberate count of 1, 2, 3.  The bar could then be lowered with the same count or a different count.  Ideally, the part of the motion that lengthens the muscle (in this case, lowering the bar to the arms extended position) should be done at the same pace or slower than the motion that shortens the muscle.  Performing the part of the movement that extends and relaxes the muscle faster than the contracting phase offers no benefit[ii] and indicates an inability to control the weight (it is too heavy for proper technique).

4.      Variation in Tension.  When most people lift weights, they simply move the resistance through a specific motion.  But just creating movement against resistance does not fully stimulate the muscles.  Creating tension in the muscles is a combination of resistance, distance, and intensity of the muscle contraction.  Creating tension in the muscle requires a little visualization.  Simply thinking about a muscle becoming tenser through a specific motion will actually result in the muscle contracting with more force.  The more forceful the contraction, the more effective the exercise will be.  Applying this technique for maximum benefit requires understanding the different actions a muscle can make to change length.

5.      Variation of the Length of the Muscle Action.  Against an external object, the muscles can create many types of movement; pushing, pulling, throwing, and dragging are just a few.  However, within the body, when muscles are working to move a specific part of the body, they are only capable generating movement by shortening in length.  Go back to the example of the bicep curl.  When the arms are extended in the bottom position, the bicep muscle is relaxed.  The act of creating tension and raising the bar to the shoulders shortens the muscle (if this does not make sense, extend right arm down at your side while placing your left hand on your right bicep, now raise your right hand towards your shoulder in a curling motion, feel the bicep shorten?).  The term for this is concentric muscle action.  The force in the muscle overcomes the resistance provided by the barbell, resulting in the bar moving towards the shoulder. 

The opposite of concentric muscle action is eccentric muscle action.  During the phase of motion the resistance has overcome the force of the muscle tension, resulting the lengthening of the muscle.  During the bicep curl this occurs as the bar is lowered back to the starting position.  Done properly the eccentric phase should take just as long, or longer, than the concentric phase (refer back to point #3).  The trick to training using an eccentric muscle action is to slowly and in a controlled manner all the muscle to lengthen.  Do not allow the weights to simply drop back to the starting position.

The final method of changing the muscle length is isometric action.  This is a trick question.  During isometric action the contractile force generated by the muscle is equal to force generated by the resistance.  The result in tension created in the muscle but there is no movement due to the equal forces.  This is what happens if someone tries to punch you in the stomach.  The rectus and transverse abdominal muscles generate force to prevent the punch from damaging the internal organs, however, there is no visible movement from the body.  Coincidentally, this is the best way to generate maximal force within the abdominal muscles.  Want strong abs? Let people punch you.  Just kidding, do not do that.  However, you could make like Rocky and let someone drop a medicine ball on your abs while you tense the muscles.

Stimulating maximum muscle growth requires a program that utilizes all five of the principles of muscle stimulation.  However, do not feel that it is necessary to incorporate all five into a single training session.  Set a goal of using three of the five techniques in each workout and switch it up each time you train.  The greater stimulation will result in greater muscle growth.





[i] Gymanese the language spoken by everyone who thinks exercising makes them an expert despite a lack of knowledge or training in the Exercise Sciences.  It is commonly spoken by those who believe in Broscience. Broscience is the act of taking advice from drug-enhanced jacked dudes regardless of what actual science may say in answer to the question.
[ii] There is an advanced technique stretch-shortening cycle that is an exception to this.  However, that is a whole different topic for another conversation. For most people, especially beginners and nonathletes, this technique is not appropriate.