How do Muscles Grow?

By Sean Nalewanyj

If you don’t have any knowledge of carpentry, can you build a house?  Of course, you can’t.

More powerful than any weapon you will have is simple knowledge, and to accomplish anything satisfactorily, you need to have at least some rudimentary know-how of the task in question.

Your new mantra should be “Work smart; not hard.”.

Yet, even as thousands of bodybuilding devotees flock to gyms all over the country everyday, trying to build muscle and lose fat, they all ignore this simple mantra.

To verify my statement, just ask any of them a simple question: “How do muscles grow?” All you’ll get in response is a blank stare.  They will look back at you with a blank stare.

Bodybuilding isn’t an art, it’s a science.  You don’t need to complete a Ph.D. in biology to build big, strong muscles, but a basic idea of the muscle building process will help you to efficiently meet your muscle building goals.

How do muscles grow, then?

Well, the process of muscle growth is complex and involves a large number of biological steps.  You don’t need to know it all as a bodybuilder, just the basic steps of muscle building.

So, how do muscles grow? Let’s take a look at the science behind the art. Let us find out.

Keep this in mind as you train: Keeping you alive and healthy is the single most important function of every process and action that goes on within your body.  When it comes to Mother Nature, in fact, we humans have just one purpose: to pass on our DNA and procreate.

It’s as simple as that.

So exactly how do muscles grow?

The human body as we know it is the result of millions of years of evolution, and to be able to ensure survival, it has created natural alarm systems that sound as a response to stress.  Think about how you feel hungry if you don't eat, how you feel thirsty if you don't drink, how you feel pain when something hurts you, and how you tan when you are exposed to the sun; these are all instances of the natural alarms going off.

Muscle building should be viewed similarly.  “Hypertrophy” is the scientific term for muscle building.

When you work out at the gym, what you’re doing is placing your muscles under stress by lifting weights.  With every repetition you perform, your muscle comes closer to failure, which is the point when your muscles will “give out,” and you won’t be able to do any more repetitions, however hard you try.

As they come towards failure, these reps create deeper and deeper inroads through the muscle fiber, resulting in what we call “micro-tears”.  In simple terms, what you’re doing is actually breaking down muscle fibers by causing damage to the muscle.  When the body is damaged, the survival system will kick in, and the body will react by repairing the muscles.

The repair process starts when the stress ceases, or when you stop working out.
Since the body is trying to keep you alive and healthy, it will rebuild the muscles bigger and stronger, to be able to protect itself against the same threat again.

Resistance training causes micro-tears, and the body’s natural evolutionary response is to repair the damaged tissue, which leads to increased size and strength.  For success in muscle building, this concept is essential to grasp, even though it may seem simple.

Muscle building happens in the same way that the body forms calluses on the skin when it is overused.  Muscle tissue is the equivalent of a callus for the body, and it keeps growing with constant use.

Finally, how do muscles grow?

For the process of muscle building to kick in, your body must perceive the weight you lift in the gym as a threat to survival, as a result of which it will initiate a process of adaptation designed to help it cope with this stress.

Let me say this once more: Your workout must be hard enough for your body to see it as a threat to its survival and ability to cope.  This is exactly the reason why an easygoing attitude in the gym will not get you any results.  The body will only perceive a threat when your workout is high in intensity.

How do muscles grow?

Now that you know the basics of the science, check out the website below to find out how you can use your knowledge to fuel massive muscular growth.
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About the author:
Sean Nalewanyj is the best-selling fitness author of the Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System.
He specializes in sharing the honest truth about how you can burn fat, build muscle, gain strength, improve your health and live your best life. You can read my review of his product in my post here.