9 Secrets for Bigger Muscles

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9 Secrets for Bigger, Stronger Muscles

Your body has about 650muscles. It doesn't matter that you only care about four or five of them. You need every one in

order to perform the normal functions of everyday lifeeating, breathing, walking, holding in your stomach at the beach.

Granted, you don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about most of yourmuscles. The 200 muscles involved in walking

the job whether you monitor them or not.

You could try to impress your friends at parties by telling them the gluteus maximus is the body's strongest muscle, or tha

the latissimus dorsi (in your middle back) is the largest, or that a middle-ear muscle called the stapedius is the smallest. But

probably won't work, unless you have some really unusual friends. And muscle trivia can't capture the wonder of muscles

themselves

the brilliance of coordinated muscles in motion, the magnificence of well-developed muscles in isolation.

We hope, in the following story, to help you understand a little more about how yourmuscleswork, and thus how to ma

them bigger, stronger, and more aesthetically pleasing (if you're into that sort of thing). You can accomplish all three, if you

know what's going on beneath the surface.

Muscle Fibers Do Different ThingsYour skeletal musclesthe ones you check out in the mirrorhave two main types of fibers.

Type I fibers, also called slow-twitch, are used mainly for endurance activities. Type II, or fast-twitch, begin towork when a task utilizes more than 25 percent of your maximum strength. A movement doesn't have to be "slow"

the slow-twitch fibers to take over; it just has to be an action that doesn't require much of your fast-twitch strength.

And an effort doesn't have to be "fast" to call your fast-twitch fibers into play.A personal-record bench press is going to use every possible fast-twitch fiber (plus all the slow-twitchers, as we

explain below), even though the bar probably isn't moving very fast.

Most people are thought to have a more or less equal mix of slow- and fast-twitch fibers. (Elite athletes areobvious exceptionsa gifted marathoner was probably born with more slow- than fast-twitch fibers, just as an

Olympic-champion sprinter or NFL running back probably started life with more fast-twitch fibers.) However, the

fast-twitch fibers are twice as big as the slow ones, with the potential to get even bigger. Slow-twitch fibers can get

bigger, too, although not to the same extent.So one strategy comes immediately to mind . . .

To Grow Large, Lift LargeWhen you begin a task, no matter if it's as simple as getting out of bed or as complex as swinging a golf club, your muscle

operate on two basic principles of physiology:

1. The all-or-nothing principle states that either a muscle fiber gets into the action or it doesn't. (As Yoda said, long ago in

galaxy far away, "There is no try.") If it's in, it's all the way in. So when you get up to walk to the bathroom, incredibly enoug

a small percentage of your muscle fibers are working as hard as they can to get you there. And, more important, all the othe

fibers are inactive.

2. The size principle requires that the smallest muscle fibers get into a task first. If the taska biceps curl, for example

requires less than 25 percent of your biceps' strength, then the slow-twitch fibers will handle it by themselves. When the

weight exceeds 25 percent of their strength, the type II, fast-twitch fibers jump in. The closer you get to the limits of your

strength, the more fast-twitch fibers get involved.

Here's why this is important: One of the most pervasive myths in the muscle world is that merely exhausting a muscle wil

bring all its fibers into play. So, in theory, if you did a lot of repetitions with a light weight, eventually your biggest type II fibe

would help out because the smaller fibers would be too tired to lift the weight.But the size principle tells you that the biggest fibers are the Mafia hit men of your body. They don't help the underlings

collect money from deadbeats. They suit up only when the work calls for their special talents, and when no one else can be

trusted to do the job right.

In other words, a guy who's trying to build as much muscle as possible must eventually work with weights that require

something close to an all-out effort. Otherwise, the highest-threshold fibers would never spring into action. Moreover, the

smaller fibers don't need any special high-repetition program of their own, since the size principle also says that if the big

fibers are pushed to the max, the small ones are getting blasted, too.

Building Muscles Saves Your Bones

Many have tried to disparage the squat, framing it as an exercise that's brutal to back and knees. The charges never stick

Sure, the exercise can be tough on the knees, but no tougher than full-court basketball or other full-bore sports.
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And for guys with healthy backs and knees, the squat is among the best exercises for strength, mass, sports performance

and even long-term health. The heavy loads build muscle size and strength, along with bone density, and thicker bones will

serve you well when you finally break into that 401(k). So you won't be the guy who fractures his hip and ends up in a nursin

home, although you'll probably pay some visits to your nonsquatting friends.

Setup: Set a bar in supports that are just below shoulder height and load the weight plates. (Be conservative with these

weights if you've never squatted before. There's a learning curve.) Grab the bar with your hands just outside your shoulders

then step under the bar and rest it on your back. When you pull your shoulder blades together in back, the bar will have a n

shelf to rest on. Lift the bar off the supports and take a step back. Set your feet shoulder-width apart, bend your knees sligh

pull in your lower abs, squeeze your glutes, and set your head in line with your spine, keeping your eyes forward.

Descent: To begin the squat, bend your knees and hips simultaneously to lower your body. Squat as deeply as you canwithout allowing your trunk to move forward more than 45 degrees from vertical. Make sure your heels stay flat on the floo

Ascent: Squeeze your glutes together and push them forward to start the ascent, which should mirror the descent. Keep

your knees the same distance apart (don't let them move in or out). Your hips and shoulders need to move at the same ang

if your hips come up faster, you increase your trunk angle and risk straining your lower back. At the top, keep a slight bend i

your knees.

You Can Improve Muscle QualityOn the day you were conceived, the gene gods had made three decisions that you might want to quibble with as an adult

you could:

1. Your maximum number of muscle fibers

2. Your percentages of fast- and slow-twitch fibers3. The shapes of your muscles when fully developed

On the downside, unless you were born to anchor the 4x100 relay at next summer's Olympics, you can forget about ever

reaching that goal. The athletes at the extremesthe fastest and strongest, the ones with the best-looking muscles, and the

ones capable of the greatest endurancewere already at the extremes from the moment sperm swam headlong into egg.

The upside is that there's a lot of wiggle room in between. Few of us ever approach our full genetic potential. You probab

will never be a freak, but with the right kind and amount of work, you can always be a little freakier than you are now.

The best way to do that is to learn to use your muscles' very own juice machine.

More Muscle Comes from More TEveryone has some testosteronebabies, little girls playing with tea sets, grandparents shuffling through the laxative ais

at CVSbut no one has hormonal increases from one year to the next like a maturing male. His level increases tenfold durin

puberty, starting sometime between ages 9 and 15, and he hits near-peak production in his late teens. From there, his

testosterone level climbs slowly until about age 30, at which point he hits or passes a few other peaks.

His muscle mass will top out between the ages of 18 and 25, unless he intervenes with some barbell therapy. Sexual desi

peaks in his early 30s. Sports performance, even among elite athletes, peaks in the late 20s and starts to decline in the early

30s.

None of this is inevitable, of course. Unless you're that elite athlete who's trained for his sport since before the short hair

sprouted, you probably have the potential to grow bigger and stronger than you've ever been. And that could also put a littl

of that teenage explosiveness back into your sex life.

The testosterone/muscle-mass link is pretty clear in general terms: The more you have of one, the more you get of the

other. Strength training, while it doesn't necessarily make your testosterone level go up permanently, certainly makes it get

little jiggy in the short term. We know of four ways to create a temporary surge in your most important hormone.

1. Do exercises that employ the most muscle mass, such as squats, deadlifts, pullups, and dips.2. Use heavy weights, at least 85 percent of the maximum you can lift once on any given exercise.

3. Do a lot of work during your gym timemultiple exercises, multiple sets, multiple repetitions.

4. Keep rest periods fairly short30 to 60 seconds. Of course, you can't do all these things in the same workout. For

example, when you work a lot of muscle mass with heavy weights, you can't do a high volume of exercise, nor can you work

effectively with short rest periods. This is among the many reasons you should periodize your workouts, which is a polysylla

way of saying change your workouts every few weeks, rather than do the same thing from now till the gene gods recall the

merchandise.


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throughout the exercise. (Leaning forward will shift emphasis to your chest and shoulders.) Bend your knees and cross your

ankles. Slowly lower your body until your shoulder joints are below your elbows. (Most guys stop short of this position.) Pus

back up until your elbows are nearly straight but not locked.

Making progress: For most men, doing sets of dips with their own body weight is challenging enough. But when you reac

point at which you can do multiple sets of 10 dips, you want to add weight. The best way is to attach a weight plate or

dumbbell to a rope or chain that's attached to a weight belt. Many gyms have belts specially designed for weighted dips and

chinups. Another solution, especially if you work out at home, is to wear a backpack with weight plates inside it.

But the more weight you add, the more careful you have to be. Always lower yourself slowlyyou don't ever want to po

down and up quickly on a weighted dip, unless you think you'll relish the feeling of your pectoral muscles detaching from yo

breastbone.Precautions: Aside from the pec-tearing thing, you want to protect your shoulders. If you have preexisting shoulder

problems, or feel pain there the first few times you try dips, you should skip them.

A comparable but more shoulder-friendly exercise is the decline close-grip bench press, using a barbell or dumbbells held

together.

Run Less to Grow FasterRunning doesn't build muscle mass. If it did, marathoners would have legs like defensive linemen, and workers in Boston

would have to repave the streets each year following the city's signature race. But running shrinks muscle fibers to make the

more metabolically efficient, thereby saving the pavement.

You'd think you could get around this by lifting weights in addition to running, but your body negates that work through a

mysterious "interference effect." Your type II fibers

the biggest ones

will still grow if you run and lift. But your type I fibewon't, and even though they're smaller than the type IIs, they probably comprise 50 percent of the muscle fibers in your bo

that have any growth potential.

Cut back on your running program and you'll see growth in both your slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers, and perhaps

finally get your body to look the way you think it should.

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9 Secrets for Bigger Muscles