How Long To Notice Muscle Gain? | LIVESTRONG.COM - 0 views
www.livestrong.com/...how-long-to-notice-muscle-gain
strength program healthy notice fitness training muscle growth protein
shared by Wasif H on 06 Jan 12
- No Cached
-
The time frame in which you can expect to notice muscle gain depends on several factors: your current fitness level, the intensity and consistency of your workouts and your body fat percentage.
-
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine--an organization that educates personal trainers--those who are new to exercise can expect to notice muscle gain within four weeks of beginning a strength-training program.
-
Everyone from sedentary adults to seasoned body builders possesses skeletal muscles, the muscles that support the movement of the skeletal system. Body fat acts like a blanket covering these muscles.
- ...7 more annotations...
-
The American Council on Exercise suggests male athletes maintain a body fat percentage between 6 and 13 percent whereas female athletes should aim for between 14 and 20 percent. With this body composition, you can expect to see visible muscle gain more quickly.
-
Building muscle size requires fatiguing the muscle within eight to 12 repetitions of a given exercise in each set. Performing greater repetitions--20 to 25 per set, for example--yields muscle endurance, but this may not translate into visible muscle definition.
-
To maintain muscle size and strength, engage in at least two resistance workouts weekly. To increase your fitness level, however, perform strength-training workouts every other day. Contrary to popular belief, you do not build muscle while lifting weights; you build it during the recovery time. In the gym, you're actually breaking down the muscle and producing microscopic tears. The muscle repairs itself during the down time, yielding size and strength gains over time. Consequently, eliminating rest days to see muscle gains sooner will only backfire.
-
Because muscles are made of bundles of fibers, achieving muscle size and strength gains quickly requires targeting all of a muscle's various fibers. A single exercise, such as biceps curls, targets only one segment of the biceps muscle fibers.
-
To target the remaining fibers, work the muscle from different angles by performing other biceps exercises, such as chin-ups, hammer curls and seated angle curls. The National Academy of Sports Medicine recommends varying exercises with every workout, versus waiting until weekly or monthly intervals to make program changes.
-
Performing exercises that target multiple muscle groups simultaneously--such as a one-leg squat with reverse wood chop--burns more calories, maximizes strength gains and saves time.
-