Burn Fat Build Muscle

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Author:
Shawn LeBrun

Okay, we all know that the quickest way to build muscle is to use progressive weight training.

Progressive means that as soon as you get used to lifting a certain amount of weight, you add a little more. Over time, you'll get stronger because your muscles adapt by getting larger to handle the added weight.

Our bodies adapt to whatever stress we regularly put it through. When you lift weights, what you're doing is actually tearing the muscle tissue in a healthy way. When you eat the proper nutrition, mostly protein, they'll actually repair themselves. In fact, they get stronger and bigger without lifting more weight.

As you continue to lift more weight, your muscles will keep adapting to this increased overload. So they get bigger.

But one thing you may not know, is, lifting weights actually causes muscle fiber damage. And this microscopic damage needs to heal properly if you're going to gain any muscle.

There are type A and type B fibers in your muscles.

Let's say the higher repetitions might tear the type B so heavier weights will tear them and bring them back stronger. Some people are fast switch and some people are slow switch.

Fast switch responds to high reps, mostly between 8-12 repetitions. Slow switch will respond to slower reps between 4 and 6.

Every body has a different buildup. Let's say, for example, my bicep is 90% fast switch and 10% slow switch. I would need to do mainly high repetitions for my bicep.

You, on the other hand, might be 90% slow switch and 10% fast switch so the approach you would want to take is lower reps.

So, in order to build muscle mass, you first have to tear it slightly.

The degree of tearing is directly related to how hard and how long you exercise and what type of exercise you do. Movements in which muscles forcefully contract while they are lengthening will cause the most muscle growth.

These are called "eccentric" contractions, and they provide the resisting action of the muscle such as lowering weights and performing the downward movements in exercises.

When you get the proper nutrition, your body repairs this muscle tissue damage and makes it stronger, for the next time you have to handle this weight.

That's why you have to first cause slight muscle damage, for new muscle mass to be built.

About the author:

Shawn Lebrun is a fitness trainer, natural bodybuilder, and author. If you want to build muscle mass and lose unwanted fat, check out his simple, proven muscle building program: Powerful Muscle Gain Program

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Fat Burning... Want To Lose Fat? Build Muscle! Want a sure-fire way to help your body rid itself of unsightly body fat, better yet, keep it off for good? Learn to accelerate your body's metabolism. One way to do this is by incorporating resistance training (weight-training) into your routine. That's because the more muscle mass you have, you more body fat you will lose, even at rest! Your metabolic rate determines how your body utilizes calories throughout the day for energy. Metabolism is simply the speed in which your body burns through food. It is the conversion of digested nutrients into components for energy or building muscle. Having an accelerated metabolism means that we will burn more calories often because our body will be utilizing and burning off food more often. One way to accelerate our metabolism is by increasing our amount of lean muscle tissue in the body. Muscle helps speed up your metabolism. Since muscle is metabolically active tissue, the more you have the more calories you burn. This is why resistance training is so vital to long-term weight loss. By the way, long term weight loss is really the only safe and effective way to lose weight. Quick weight loss is not long-term weight loss. When you add lean muscle tissue to your body composition, you increase the amount of calories your body burns and you also increase your metabolic rate. Muscle requires energy to maintain and it gets that energy from burning calories. So building muscle is one of the best long-term weight loss tools you can use. There are studies that suggest that you only expend about 10% of your daily calories through exercise, the rest is expended through your body's metabolic functions. So again, the more lean muscle tissue, the more calories your body will...