What a way to finish the week off with some interesting facts about health and fitness. Whether your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, increase your fitness or just improve your general health, I’m sure that you will be able to put these interesting facts to use at some point!
Health & Fitness Fact 1: Strength and Muscle Size are NOT Directly Related
It makes sense that the larger a muscle, the stronger it is, right? Well, not exactly. Consider Olympic weight lifters for example – some of those guys are tiny compared to professional bodybuilders (who are often much weaker too!)
There are a few factors that influence strength. Muscle tissue in itself is comprised of a number of different fibre types – some which are responsible for explosive strength and some which are responsible for endurance (and everything in between). So even though some may have an above average muscle mass, their muscles are not necessarily conditioned to handle a large force in a short period of time.
In addition to this, strength is often very dependent upon neurological development. When you begin exercising, your brain is extremely ineffective at communicating with the muscles in how to perform an exercise effectively. As your brain adapts, it “learns” new motions. This improved efficiency of brain-muscle communication means better strength.
Health & Fitness Fact 2: Carbohydrates are Imperative for Muscle Growth
You may have heard the old adage “muscle is protein”. In fact, muscle is the body’s most abundant and ready source of protein. But in order to build muscle, you need much more than protein in your diet.
Take the analogy of building a house. To build a house, you cannot just pile up a number of bricks and call it a house. You need tools, other materials and the skills to build that house. The same goes for muscle. Whilst protein is a primary building block of muscle, you need many other nutrients, an effective training programme, effective recovery etc. to build muscle.
So why are carbohydrates so important for muscle growth? Well, carbohydrates assist in insulin production. Proteins from your diet cannot be utilised for the muscle building process without insulin present! Without insulin, the ingested proteins for muscle gain (broken down into amino acids) will primarily be excreted via the urine.
In a practical sense, add carbohydrates to your pre and/or post workout shakes! Pure protein is not very effective in isolation. The best way to go for serious muscle gain is to buy some protein powder and then add in some dextrose (which can be purchased for $2.50 a kilo!).
Health & Fitness Fact 3: More Exercise is Not Necessarily Better
This really comes down to recovery, something that I blog about often. Exercise is where you place stress on your body. The changes that take place within your body (significant fat loss, fitness, muscle development etc.) happens when you’re recovering from this exercise. Your body is effectively repairing itself so it will be able to handle the extreme stress of exercise more efficiently next time.
So – avoid the temptation to:
- Perform crunches after every workout to obtain a flat stomach
- Exercise intensely seven days a week to lose weight
- Perform numerous sets of bicep curls to focus on bicep development
- Train a muscle group multiple times daily
Always remember – you obtain the results outside of the gym – NOT while you are putting in the effort!
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