How do you keep your muscles growing? When you first start exercising, just go to the gym a few days a week and take a proper amount of nutrition, and you can quickly see muscle growth. However, once your muscles are past the novice period, the rate of muscle growth will inevitably slow down. Unfortunately, for most people, muscle growth is much slower than they would expect.
We all want to be able to gain muscle quickly, but it's a multifaceted process that requires proper training, adequate recovery, and proper nutrition. In this article, I will share with you several tips to accelerate muscle growth.
First, increase the weight.
A study published in the Journal of Reports of Physiology compared the effects of training intensity and volume on muscle size and strength adaptation. The high-intensity group performed 3 to 5 sessions with a maximum weight of about 90% of the workout. The high-volume group performed 10 to 12 reps per set, with 70% of their maximum weight per session. They found that high-intensity training led to greater muscle hypertrophy and strength gains, compared to high-volume training.
The reason is simple, this is because high-intensity training activates more muscle fiber motor units, causing more muscle fibers to experience mechanical tension.
Second, train to exhaustion or near exhaustion.
A recent systematic review published in the Journal of Exercise and Health Sciences found that training to exhaustion has a significant positive effect for experienced trainers. In another, more recent study, which looked at the effect of the degree of near exhaustion on the adaptation effect of different types of training, they reported that the training group near exhaustion achieved better results in terms of muscle hypertrophy.
Third, centrifugal control
Passive mechanical tension is generated by centrifugal control. This happens when the muscles are elongated under load and you actively contract the muscles to control the weight, especially when approaching maximum muscle extension. This can be achieved in traditional resistance training, where you slow down the second half of the eccentric part of the movement, or even pause in the stretching position to accentuate the feeling of stretching. This explains why, according to a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, some muscles grow optimally when training is performed over longer muscle lengths.
Fourth, increase the number of groups.
According to the study, published in the Journal of Sports Science, there is a dose-response relationship, with increased training volume producing greater muscle hypertrophy effects. Depending on the week, 4 sets of training for each muscle are sufficient to achieve significant muscle gains. However, to maximize muscle hypertrophy effects, the upper limit for each muscle group is approximately 10 sets per week. That said, there are studies that show that 10 sets of training per muscle group per week is acceptable. Even higher training volumes can produce greater muscle hypertrophy.
However, researchers believe that muscle gain from this high training volume is due to increased intramuscular fluid, also known as sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, but this is not considered true muscle growth. True muscle growth is caused by the increase of new muscle fibers in a series or in parallel with old muscle fibers, which is known as myofibrillar hypertrophy.
Fifth, get enough sleep.
Sleep affects the production of steroid hormones, which promote important muscle growth, and also has a positive effect on protein synthesis. However, lack of sleep can lead to negative effects on muscle tissue building and protein synthesis. It's almost impossible for you to fully gain muscle. In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a week of sleep deprivation led to a 10 to 15% drop in hormone production. Another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that only one night of sleep deprivation observed molecular signatures suggestive of muscle breakdown. And this 2021 study reported similar results, claiming that one night of sleep deprivation was enough to trigger an environment in which muscles promote breakdown.
As a result, sleep deprivation not only reduces your muscle-building capacity, but also accelerates muscle loss. However, on the contrary, getting enough sleep can increase your muscle synthesis capacity while controlling muscle breakdown. So, as important as training and nutrition are, none of this makes sense if sleep isn't a priority.
Sixth, take creatine.
Creatine has both direct and indirect effects on enhancing muscle hypertrophy. Its indirect effects are significant improvements in muscle hypertrophy and fitness performance, according to the analysis of 300 studies. This enhancement effect can help you train at a higher intensity and closer to the limit, both of which we've previously discussed to be important for maximizing muscle hypertrophy stimulation. Creatine makes your muscles look rounder and fuller by introducing water into your muscle cells. Creatine supplementation enhances training-induced increase in the number of satellite cells and nuclear concentrations in muscle fibers. As a result, muscle fibers can be strengthened during strength training.