How Muscle Strength Is Attained

By: Dane Fletcher

Ask any big guy in the gym how you can get stronger, and the answer will be a simple one: "Lift weights". However, that brief and eloquent response doesn't do a great deal to explain the actual processes taking places at the cellular level. There are several ways in which muscles become stronger, and different variations upon these as well. Here are the basics.

Muscles get stronger in two ways. First, a progressive workload (lifting weights) is applied to a muscle group to increase cross-sectional areas. Picture a vast network of millions of overlapping muscle cells forming nets of fibers. When you contract and lengthen the muscle group, you place stress on these muscle "networks", and they use amino acids from the blood to repair themselves, creating muscle growth. Additionally, muscles grow as the body adapts to the imbalances in the muscle fiber groups. New levels of coordination are achieved, as some weaker areas of the muscle group must work harder than some stronger areas, causing localized growth which contributes to the overall strength of the area.





There's more. Now that we have examined how muscles actually become stronger, let's look at what demand load is best for making them stronger, both in terms of heavy weight used (% of personal best) and number of repetitions completed. In addition to the two scenarios mentioned above, there is the fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fiber discussion. Slow-twitch muscle fibers are activated during higher repetition sets, where the trainer uses light weights. A set of 16 dumbbell side raises with the 20-pounders would qualify as a slow-twitch accent set. On the other hand, fast-twitch muscle fibers are activated during low-repetition sets, in which much heavier weights are used. When you complete 3 repetitions of deadlifts using 495 pounds, you are certainly recruiting more fast-twitch muscle fibers.





While the muscle groups on all people are comprised of both slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers, different individuals are built with different levels of each. The short, stocky muscular guy has a body composed of a much higher percentage of fast-twitch fibers. At the same time, the skinny tall guy with the "basketball player" physique has a body which contains a higher percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers. The bodybuilder should realize the different body types, and determine which one most closely matches his own. Then, he should custom tailor his training in order to maximize recruitment of the highest possible number of muscle fibers.

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