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How Your Muscles Are Formed
How are muscle fibres formed, muscle formation, or myogenesis, is without a doubt a fascinating biological process that occurs both during embryonic development and throughout your life.
For bodybuilders, it’s very important to both know and understand some of the basic biological processes to create muscle mass. We will explore and try to keep the terminology as simple as possible for now.
What Does the word EMBRYONIC Mean
It means “Starting To Develop” and that’s where we will start so you end up with the full picture of muscle development.
Let me explain the key steps, during embryonic development:
1. Specialized cells called myoblasts (muscle precursor cells) are formed from mesodermal tissue
2. These myoblasts proliferate and migrate to specific locations in the developing body
3. The myoblasts align with each other and fuse together to form multinucleated structures called myotubes
4. Myotubes mature into muscle fibres (myofibers) as they develop contractile proteins and organize their internal structure.
What’s The Mechanism In adult muscle growth (hypertrophy):
1. Mechanical stress from exercise or resistance training causes microscopic damage to muscle fibres
2. This triggers satellite cells (adult muscle stem cells) to activate
3. These cells fuse with existing muscle fibres or form new fibres
4. Protein synthesis increases while protein breakdown decreases
5. The muscle fibres grow larger and stronger through the addition of more contractile proteins and cellular components.
The process is regulated by various factors:
Growth factors like IGF-1 and FGF
Hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone
Mechanical stress from exercise
Proper nutrition, especially adequate protein intake
Rest and recovery time
This is why effective muscle building requires a combination of appropriate exercise stimulus, proper nutrition, and adequate recovery time.
Overview: How Muscle Grows And Respires After Training
Let’s dive right into this fascinating process of muscle fibre damage and repair, which happens during training, and the repair process during rest.
Yes, you read that right, you go into the gym to “Deliberately Damage Your Muscle Fibres,” so you had better know what you are doing?
So What Happens To These Fibres During Weight Training
1. When you lift weights, you create microscopic tears in your muscle fibres. This is called micro-trauma and it happens when the muscle is pushed beyond its normal workload.
2. The damaged muscle fibres trigger an inflammatory response – your body sends specialized cells and nutrients to the injury site.
The repair process, called muscle protein synthesis, then kicks in:
- Satellite cells (your muscle’s repair crew) activate and move to the damaged areas
- These cells multiply and fuse to the damaged muscle fibres
- They donate their nuclei to the muscle fibre, which helps produce more proteins
- New protein strands are created and woven into the existing muscle fibre
Lucky for us bodybuilders and the key part to this whole process is your body’s typically overcompensates during repair – it builds the muscle back slightly bigger and stronger than before.
This is called super-compensation and it’s why progressive overload in training leads to muscle growth.
Some important factors that influence repair
– Protein availability (your body needs building blocks)
– Sleep quality (most repair happens during deep sleep)
– Recovery time between workouts
– Overall nutrition and hydration
– Stress levels and hormonal balance
Conclusion
Building muscle effectively requires a comprehensive approach that combines proper training, adequate nutrition, sufficient rest, and effective recovery strategies.
Understanding the dynamics of muscle fiber damage and repair can inform better training practices and lifestyle decisions to achieve fitness goals.
The adage, “muscles are built in the kitchen and bedroom, not just the gym,” emphasizes the importance of a well-rounded approach to fitness and muscle building.
Tip: Golden Nugget
Most bodybuilders drink a protein drink but did you know that for about 30 minutes after training, your muscles can absorb all the protein you can drink, and this is the kicker, none of it gets stored in fat cells, but you need to drink your protein within these 30mins of finishing your session.