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Showing posts from May, 2017

How to lose/gain weight: Part 3

In this article, I'll talk about weight/muscle gain. People usually think that losing weight is very difficult. I would argue that while it isn't easy, it isn't as difficult as putting on muscle. By following a proper diet and workout routine, shedding fat will occur. Building muscle or gaining weight isn't so straightforward. Progressive overload, sleep, volume, eating enough calories, stress and genetics affect the ability to put on muscle. Some people see faster progress as compared to others. This could be due to a better hormone profile, better eating habits, sleep and could just be plain old effort put in. The best person to compare yourself to is you. As long as you are progressing over time, you don't need to compare yourself to other people. Skinny people or ectomorphs or "hard-gainers" are usually so since they don't eat enough. They either think they eat a lot more than they do, or they just don't have the appetite to

The Science Behind Building Muscle

We know that exercising leads to fat loss and muscle gain. But how exactly is the muscle built? What are the factors that influence the rate at which you can build muscle and how can you optimize it? How does our body increase muscle size seemingly out of nowhere by performing resistance exercises? What is the upper limit to muscle growth? The human body is extremely complex and intelligent. It readily adapts to the environment encompassing it. We can acclimatize to a wide range of temperature and humidity. We are constantly responding in physiological ways to changes in temperature, infections, pollution, mechanical stress etc. These changes usually occur over the span of a few days to several months. How exercise affects muscles During resistance training, our body is experiencing an external mechanical stress. When we do this often enough, the body realizes that to respond to this external stimuli more effectively, it must become more efficient at that partic