Does Lifting Heavier Weights Build More Muscle?
Eira Galera
California State University of San Marcos
Kinesiology 202
Professor Anthony Ordas
December 11, 2015
Does Lifting Heavier Weights Build More Muscles?
A strong belief in most gyms is that you have to lift heavy weights to build muscle. However, according to a study by Nicholas Burd, “lifting heavy weights may not be the most effective way to build muscle. Muscle growth, sometimes known as hypertrophy, is the development of mass, density, shape, and function of muscle cells. This adaptation allows the muscle to meet exercise, function induced stress. Muscle cells are sort of like a bunch of sticks bundled up for firewood. Myofibrils are cylindrical bundles of filaments composed of sarcomeres. Sarcomeres are the fundamental unit of muscle contraction and are composed of myosin and actin. After you work out, your body repairs or replaces damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process where it fuses muscle fibers together to form new muscle protein strands or myofibrils. These repaired myofibrils increase in thickness and number to create muscle hypertrophy (Kwon and Kravitz). Muscle growth occurs whenever the rate of muscle protein synthesis is greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown. This adaption, however, does not happen while you actually lift the weights. Instead, it occurs while you rest. So how do you actually add muscle to your muscle cells? This is where satellite cells come in
He let out a powerful yell, one much similar to a war cry and began to lift the 500 pounds in front of him off the floor. Everyone on the lacrosse team was cheering him on as the barbell slowly moved up and reached its destination. I stood there in awe at this incredible feat of strength: at this moment that I knew that I too, wanted to be strong. Before I became serious about weightlifting, I would often settle for the minimum amount of success possible. I believed that this was enough to get by in life. Once I began weightlifting however, I saw almost no progress. After reevaluating what I had been doing, I realized I needed to take a different approach and take weightlifting more seriously. I decided to set smaller, more achievable goals
When exercising, the weight or stress you’ve produced to the muscles can create resistance and then contraction of the muscles can be drawn out. These contractions enable the muscles significantly increase in size. Along with the increase in size is the increase in strength as well. Repeated exercise, coupled with weight bearing activities, hypertrophy, and medical term for increase in muscle size, of the muscles will be evident.
Introduction: According to the “Human Physiology Laboratory Manual “,BIOL 282 ,page 31 , the reason of performing this experiment is to learn how the muscle contraction occurs based on the molecular level and what kind of factors are involved .As a matter of fact, skeletal muscles contain a lot of nuclei because of the cell fusion while being developed and are made of cylindrical cells that have myofibrils. The myofibrils contain sarcomeres and the
Muscle fibres, as shown in Diagram 1, consist of myofibrils, which contain the proteins, actin and myosin, in specific arrangements . The diagram illustrates how a muscle is made up of many fascicles, which in turn are made up of many endomysiums, and within them, many muscle fibres. Each muscle fibre is made up of many myofibrils that consist of sarcomeres bound end on end . Actin is a thin filament, about 7nm in diameter, and myosin is a thick filament, about 15nm in diameter , both of which reside in the sarcomere. They are held together by transverse bands known as Z lines . Diagram 2 shows actin and myosin filaments within a sarcomere, and the Z lines that connect them.
About majority of the human muscles are made up of protein. Protein intake is applicable in those scenarios where an individual is not building muscle fast enough. For a proper dose add 1g or protein per pound which means if you have 150 pounds you must consume 150 g of protein each day to accelerate the process of muscle building. The dynamic behind it simple, protein synthesis in muscles when get started you will ultimately begin to develop new muscle mass. In case if you perform heavy workout, things will be ideal for you.
Muscle hypertrophy— results mainly from high-intensity resistance exercise such as weight lifting, which pits muscles against high resistance or immovable forces. Here, strength not stamina is important. The additional muscle bulk largely reflects the increased size of individual muscle fibers rather
Actin and myosin filaments can be found in skeletal muscle and are the smallest units that form a sarcomere, which is the smallest contractile unit in muscle (Baechle, 2008). The Sliding Filament Theory states that the actin filaments slide inward on the myosin filaments, pulling on the boundaries of the sarcomere, causing it to shorten the muscle fiber, also known as a concentric muscular contraction (Baechle, 2008). The Sliding Filament Theory is composed of five steps: the “Resting Phase”, the “Excitation-Contraction Coupling Phase”, the “Contraction Phase”, the “Recharge Phase”, and the “Relaxation Phase” (Baechle, 2008). During the Resting Phase, the actin and myosin filaments are lined up with no cross-bridge binding of the two filaments. During the Excitation-Contraction Coupling Phase, Calcium is released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum and binds to troponin, causing a shift in tropomyosin where the binding cites are exposed (Baechle, 2008). When the binding cites are exposed, the myosin cross-bridge head attaches to actin. During the Contraction Phase, ATP bonds break, releasing energy that is used to allow the myosin head to flex, causing the actin filaments to move toward the M-bridge. During the Recharge Phase, there is a continuous repetition of the Excitation-Contraction Coupling Phase and the Contraction Phase in order to produce muscular
Under normal conditions, satellite cells are inactive, but become activated when there’s a serious injury, and when muscles lose their nerve supply. Satellite cells repair muscle fibres, but when they become old, they disrupt signals and skeletal muscle cannot be prepared and regenerated effectively. This results in muscle fibre degeneration, an increase in connective tissue between single muscle cells, and weakens the single muscle cell and neuromuscular junction connection (Tsitkanou, Della Gatta, Russell,
Of all the tissues in the body, skeletal muscle can adapt the easiest. —- On the outside of the muscle just deep to the sarcolemma, are small cells that lack cytoplasm and help with the reparation of muscles, called satellite cells. During an intense workout, the fibers within the muscle tissue become damaged as they break down and tear. The job of
A weightlifter will have to increase the amount of weights he does to get him improving his own strength. This will help him to lift more over a long period of time.
In scientific words, the muscle growing process is called "hypertrophy". When you workout at the health club, the things you're engaging in is placing your muscles under stress through lifting weights. In simple terms, what you're doing is in fact breaking down muscle tissue by inducing damage to the muscles.
It has been said it is not where you start but where you finish. In the sport of weight training there is no finish. Individuals are constantly striving to get bigger, stronger and faster. All bodybuilders have made an effort to put on muscle mass. However, even individuals who get paid to build muscle as a profession, had to have been small at one point. The question is what causes muscle hypertrophy? The answer… is progressive overload of the muscle. Muscle hypertrophy is caused by enhancement of the muscle fibers and muscle cells; which in laymens’s terms, means tearing a muscle fiber so that it may grow back bigger and stronger. There are three significant factors that play a substantial role in muscle building. Training, nutrition, and recovery are the key disciplines that allow weight lifters to reach their desired physique and turn the image in their mind, to the reflection in the mirror.
The contractile unit of a muscle cell is the sarcomere. Sarcomeres are mostly comprised of actin and myosin which pull and slide upon each other. These contractile units are linked end to end, like a chain, throughout the length of any given muscle. Certain proteins link the ends of these chains to the cell membrane. When a normally healthy individual exercises, some of these fibers, both in the sarcomere and at the connections to the cell wall, will be broken down due to damage (Leyva, 2013). Associated with this process includes the rebuilding of these fibers, in which the body builds back what was damaged stronger than before the damage occurred (Leyva, 2013). One of these end proteins is dystrophin. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of insufficient production of dystrophin, as in DMD.
Whenever we work out or lift more than we’re used to, we actually cause small ‘tears’ to open up in our muscles. Over time, these tears will heal as the body rebuilds the cells, though the body will actually heal them stronger and build larger cells every time this happens. Over enough time, this process causes our muscles to grow. This is how people ‘bulk up’ through working out.
I come to a squealing halt as I throw my white Civic Si into first gear and hop out of the parking spot between the gold Chevy Tahoe and the black Jeep Wrangler. Grabbing my gym bag from the trunk, I march under the covered patio for the door of Mountainside Fitness to start my daily ritual. Walking through the doors the smell of sweat, hard work and cheap coffee attacks my senses. Lifting weights has been my place of refuge for almost two years now. Albeit I have gotten into pretty decent shape, I have an ulterior motive that goes deeper than just getting bigger, faster, and stronger. While the charming blond girl at the front desk scans my key card, I take a quick scan of the gym and see the customary faces of pain, strain, and disdain on those already in their workout. What motivation is powering these gym goers to finish their workout when it is so easy to quit? For me, going to the gym is a remarkable way to improve physical health, but the stress relief from being completely absorbed in a workout, the hormones released after a workout, and accomplished state of mind after a completed workout makes the mental benefits just as significant.