Weight training to get big and strong: Six laws of muscle growth by Coach Sapna Vyas

First law: Muscles grow only if you apply a load of stress greater than your muscles had previously adapted to.  

During workout, you are actually causing tiny tears (known as micro-tears) in the muscle fibres by lifting weights. After you workout, your body repairs or replaces damaged muscle fibres through a cellular process where it fuses muscle fibres together to form new muscle protein strands. This is the process by which muscles grow (scientifically termed hypertrophy).  

If you lift light weights (and do more repetitions), your workout causes “only few” micro tears in the fibres. If a workout causes “only few” micro-tears in the fibres, then little muscle growth will occur as a result because the body figures it doesn’t need to grow to deal again with such a minor stimulus.

Read: Tips to increase protein consumption

How to apply a proper load of stress on muscles?

The main way is to lift progressively heavier weights. This additional tension on the muscle helps to cause changes in the chemistry of the muscle which helps grow muscles.  

Second law: Pump and fatigue actually don’t help muscles grow.  

Grow from overload. Muscle pump is worthless in terms of muscle growth. The pump you feel when training is a result of blood being “trapped” in the muscles. It is a good psychological boost and isn’t a bad thing but it is just not an indicator of muscle growth. High-repetition workouts fail to sufficiently overload muscles to trigger growth, even though they deliver quite a pump.  

Many guys think that a burning sensation in their muscles is indicative of an intense, “growth-inducing” workout. The “burn” you feel is simply an infusion of lactic acid in the muscle, which is produced as a muscle burns its energy stores.

Also read: Abs ne bana di jodi - how a Marwari couple got fit

What triggers muscle growth, then?

Overload. You can make incredible muscle gains by doing heavy weight sets, mass-building (compound) exercises, steadily increasing weight and reps (overload).

My verdict: High-rep drop sets, giant sets, super sets, etc. are for the magazine-reading crowd. Such training techniques simply do not stimulate growth like simple, heavy sets do.  

Third law: Even if your workout causes optimal micro-tearing, if the body isn’t supplied with sufficient nutrition, no appreciable amount of muscle growth will appear.  

Your diet determines about 70-80 per cent of how you look (muscular or ripped or flabby).

How to eat right?

Make sure you take enough protein, complex carbohydrates and over all balanced nutrition according to your body’s requirement. You also need to ensure that you are eating enough protein before and after workout.  

Fourth law: Sleep deprivation hinders the recovery process, which is necessary for muscle repair and muscle growth.  

HGH (human growth hormone) is naturally released during the deep sleep. It improves muscular recovery and regeneration. In men, 60 to 70 per cent of daily human growth hormone secretion occurs during early sleep which is typically when the deepest sleep cycles occur.  

Fifth law: Place minimal emphasis on single joint movements  

Excessive emphasis on single-joint movements (particularly on calves, arms, and shoulders) diverts resources from more productive multijoint movements (e.g., squats, deadlifts, chins, presses, bent-over rows).  

Compound movements are superior to their single-joint counterparts for a few different reasons. First, “big” exercises permit greater workloads, which in turn recruit more motor units.  

The larger weights and effort required to lift such loads stimulate greater release of muscle-building hormone.  

Sixth law: Prioritise performance over pain  

No pain, no gain — while on its face, this adage is true, often it leads to poor training decisions, such as an excessive focus on cardio, single-joint movements, and ab work.  

When performance improves, fitness improves. Focus on your numbers, and the rest will take care of itself.