There are four things you should know about building muscle:
There are four things you should know about building muscle:
1) Anyone can build muscle at any decade of their life.
2) Not everyone can build really big muscles.
3) It shouldn’t affect your self-worth if you struggle to build big muscles.
4) Strength training is always worthwhile regardless of the size of your muscles.
I’ll explore these things one at a time:
1) Anyone can build muscle at any decade of their life.
One of the coolest examples of this I have ever seen is where a number of people, (average age 89) living in an assisted care home were put on a strength training program. At the end of the study, they all gained strength, added muscle and lost fat. Almost all of them were able to spend less time in their wheelchairs and two of them were able to stop using their wheelchairs completely, one of whom left assisted living and went back to living independently. This was after only 14 weeks of strength training. Forget what you think about having big muscles-this is the biggest and most important example of the value of strength training.
2) Not everyone can build really big muscles.
There are 5 factors that will affect your ability to build muscle no matter how good your workouts are, how many hours you log in the gym or how many expensive supplements you take (although see my note about post workout testosterone surge):
i) Muscle Fiber Type.
For the sake of brevity, we can broadly classify muscle fibers into two types: slow twitch and fast twitch. Fast twitch fibers are more strength and power orientated and have a higher potential for growth. Slow twitch fibers are more endurance orientated and while they will still grow in response to training, they have a smaller potential for growth than fast twitch fibers do. Most of us have about a 50/50 split between these fibers throughout our bodies. Some of us, however, have a higher percentage of one type. Those who have a higher percentage of fast twitch fibers will grow bigger muscles more easily compared to people who have a higher percentage of slow twitch fibers, and will generally be better at short duration, high intensity activities such as sprinting (people with more slow twitch fibers will gain endurance more easily though, and will perform better in activities that are performed for longer durations!).
ii) Muscle Belly to Tendon Ratio:
Muscles which have shorter tendons have a larger muscle belly, giving them a better potential for growth. Muscles with longer tendons have smaller muscle bellies, which mean they have less potential for growth. The muscle to tendon ratio can vary from muscle group to muscle group, but some individuals, who have a large percentage of muscles with large muscle bellies and short tendons will find it easier to gain mass and strength than someone who doesn’t.
iii) Lever lengths and body proportions:
People with longer levers (longer limbs) have further to move a given resistance and so find it harder to build strength than people with shorter levers. For example, people with naturally shorter arms and thicker chests tend to be better bench pressers-they don’t have as far to move the bar!
iv) Body type:
The three main body types are:
Ectomorph-naturally lean and slim-finds it hard to gain muscle
Endomorph-Gains muscle and strength fairly well, but also naturally carries more fat.
Mesomorph-Gains muscle very easily and will often also find it easy to get lean. There’s a saying that all a mesomorph has to do is look at a weight and they gain muscle!
Not everyone fits neatly into these three definitions though. Most of us have some characteristics from more than one body type. Some people may have one of these body types as their dominant characteristic even if they still have some level of features from the other body types in their makeup.
v) Testosterone level*:
People who have higher testosterone levels have a higher potential for building muscle, and vice-versa.
Although you can’t generally change your level of testosterone, there are some ways you can influence the post workout hormonal surge you get, which is why I’ve put an asterisk next to this one. For example, training more muscle groups per workout causes the body to produce higher levels of testosterone and growth hormone after the workout than a workout where you train fewer muscle groups. You might find this odd as many muscle building enthusiasts tend to use body-part split routines where they focus on only one or two muscle groups per workout. The thing to remember though, is if someone has all, or some of the factors mentioned above in their favor, they’ll build more muscle than most regardless of what kind of training plan they follow-which will make their training plan look really effective! This doesn’t mean that some type of workout split isn’t ever useful, but it should give you the idea that common bodybuilding methods aren’t always the best ways of training for everyone-even if they are used by bodybuilders.
So you see, there are things that you cannot control that will affect the amount of muscle mass you can gain. You don’t need a genetic test to discover which of these factors affect you either. Just ask; do I do better at things which require endurance or strength? Do I perform moderately well in both? Do I have longer limbs or shorter limbs? Am I naturally slim, or naturally stocky? Am I generally lean, or do I find it harder to lose fat? If you answer these questions honestly, it will give you a good idea about your body type and ability to build bigger muscles. Bear in mind your lifestyle when answering these questions though. If you’re not as lean as you’d like to be, but you know you’re eating lots of junk, or you have low levels of strength and stamina but aren’t doing much exercise, or have never followed a progressive exercise plan, then you really haven’t given yourself a fair chance of getting a good answer.
3) It shouldn’t affect your self-worth if you struggle to build big muscles.
One of the benefits of exercise is that it improves self-esteem. Note that I didn’t say, “one of the benefits of huge biceps is that it improves self-esteem”. Simply getting enough exercise, on its own will make you feel better about yourself. Not only that, but having a balanced workout routine and developing multiple fitness qualities is often more satisfying than focusing only on one area.
Bear in mind that if you are someone who has less potential for building muscle, that doesn’t mean that you can’t build any muscle at all. You can, and you can get stronger. Re-set your targets, stop beating yourself up for not looking like a body builder and focus on the areas where you ARE seeing improvements. To give yourself the best chance of doing well, ensure the rest of your lifestyle supports your training efforts.
If you don’t have all of the favorable conditions for building big muscles, but continue to focus only on that area, you’re bound to be continually frustrated. But the irony is that as you engage in the other fitness activities required for good health and performance, the fitness gains you get in these areas will transfer to your strength and muscle-based workouts, allowing them to be more productive than they have before.
In many cases, the simple acts of progression and consistency will likely start to make you feel the kinds of things about yourself that you were hoping that bigger muscles would do for you.
4) Strength training is always worthwhile regardless of the size of your muscles.
Think back to the study I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. The power of strength training lies not in its ability to give you big muscles, but its ability to help you live an independent life, for the whole of your life. If you have the perception that you need to have big, showy muscles, it probably comes more from the way men are depicted in media and entertainment than from any real hard evidence.
Remember that after the age of 30, you start to lose muscle mass at the rate of 1-2% per year. Strength training is the only activity that can offset and reverse this. Preventing and reversing this decline will help you to avoid age related weight gain. As well as this, strength training will help you to:
-Reduce and help to prevent joint pain.
-Reduce your chances of developing diabetes.
-Reduce stress.
-Strengthen your bones-reducing your risk for osteoporosis.
-Strengthen your tendons and ligaments.
-Boost your metabolism.
-Improve flexibility.
-Improve sports performance.
-Make activities of daily living and other types of exercise easier.
-Slow down and even reverse some aspects of aging at the cellular level.
If you see strength training more as a tool to get the most out of your life than anything else, then I’d be willing to bet that you’ll start getting more from it and enjoying it more than you ever have before.
Steve Shreeve (updated October 2021)