October 29, 2021 “If You Build Them … Muscles Will Grow!”
All my life I have been fascinated about how the body works and moves. At the age of 7, I started cheering because I loved how my body felt when I would do flips and splits. As a child when a bird, animal or one of our pets got hurt, I was the neighborhood vet, I would try to fix them, and everyone would stand around to see what miracles I performed. My biggest claim to fame was reviving our family pet hamster Tony, I literally started doing CPR on the little guy. I asked my mom for a microscope set at a young age because I wanted to see how things looked on the inside. As I aged, I always enjoyed examining people and it wasn’t until I went to high school and took my first A&P course (Anatomy & Physiology) that I became hooked. In class our first dissection involved a frog but then we each had our own cat. I named mine Scrappy because of its patchwork fur and we dissected our cats for the entire semester. It was during this class that I started to see what muscles, tendons, ligaments, veins, arteries and all the organs of the body looked like. Then and there my passion for healthcare was born.
Today when I walked into the gym with my muscle Halloween costume I could see the amazement, smiles and laughter. Most of the people said, “that is so fitting for you, or only you can pull off a costume like that, or I wish I had muscles like that.”
Truth is…every human has these same muscles. In high school when we all received our cats, they had different furs and were different sizes, but once we peeled back and removed the fur, they all had the same anatomical structure.
Many clients were like, I could never get my muscles to look like that. I say but WHY?
The reason is, you can’t see yourself that way. We can only become what we think and believe ourselves to be. Our entire lives are guided by our minds. The thoughts we allow into our brains every day shape our lives and determine our future. You’ve heard the quote, “We become what we think about”. Every man is the sum of his thoughts, and he’s where he is in life because of that. We can change our lives at ANY time, but the intention must be there, otherwise nothing will happen.
Thinking about it is the first step and that is great, but the biggest step is putting your thoughts into action and making them a reality. Muscle growth only requires simple actions, you must use them. You must lift that weight and when it becomes comfortable you must lift a heavier weight or the same weight with more reps.
3 Mechanisms That Make Muscles Grow
- Muscle tension – in order to produce muscle growth, you must apply stress greater than what your body or muscles has previously adapted too. The main way is to lift progressively heavier weights. This additional tension on the muscle help to cause changes in the chemistry the muscle allowing for growth. Whether it is your body weight and actual dumbbell or barbell or some other form of resistance you must stress the muscle. So, when I say to some of you that have been lifting the same weight through three camps, it’s time to move up in weight – IT’S TIME.
- Muscle Damage – if you have felt sore after a workout, you have experienced the localized muscle damage from working out. This local muscle damage causes a release of inflammatory molecules and immunes systems cells that activate satellite cells to jump into action. After the intense workouts that we have at TFC, if you do not leave sore you aren’t using your muscles, or you just aren’t doing it right and your muscles won’t grow. Don’t confuse soreness with pain, pain is something that needs to be addressed.
- Metabolic Stress – If you have ever felt the burn of an exercise or had the pump in the gym, then you’ve felt the effects of metabolic stress. This causes cell swelling which helps to contribute the muscle growth. When I ask you to complete, they exercise for a certain number of reps or for one minute, it’s because I am trying to help you achieve that burn.
Muscles require calories and protein to grow, follow the meal plan and eat balanced meals as outlined. Don’t miss days, perfect attendance means you get in total body training. Do the complete workout, focus on full range of motion if you cannot do the full exercise lower the weight until you can lift with a heavier weight (TFC always modifies). Total body workouts give you a balanced muscular body, don’t work one body part or neglect a body part, the muscles work better together if they are all improving and growing together. Everything we do here at TFC stimulates muscle growth, you just must trust and believe and follow through, you will begin to see that you can have the muscles you desire.
In every moment, you make choices about your life, what you do with your time, what you eat, etc., and these choices are based on your beliefs and your thoughts. Your thoughts and beliefs contribute to your decisions and behavior, therefore your actions and therefore your personality and character. So, tell yourself, I can have bigger, leaner muscles if I just build them, they will grow. No Mess!
