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By Rod Coulter   Last updated March 12-2021

 

Thats not all...

If you follow these tips you will see results!

Although there are different types of muscles, such as cardiac muscle (your heart), for our concerns, we will talk exclusively about skeletal muscles. 

 

Skeletal muscle is composed of thread-like myofibrils and sarcomeres that form a muscle fibre and are the basic units of contraction.

 

The 650 skeletal muscles in the human body contract when they receive signals from motor neurons, which are triggered from a part of the cell called the sarcoplasmic reticulum. 

 

Motor neurons tell your muscles to contract and the better you become at having those signals tell your muscles to contract, the stronger you can get.

 

Here's the gold:

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1. Muscle Tension

In order to produce muscle growth, you have to apply a load of stress greater than what your body or muscles had previously adapted too. 

 

How do you do this? 

 

The main way is to lift progressively heavier weights. 

This additional tension on the muscle helps to cause changes in the chemistry of the muscle, allowing for growth factors that include mTOR activation and satellite cell activation.

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TUT or Time under tension is an important factor to be mindful of while training. Load the muscle, be mindful of the muscle and keep the load for a period of time. This time varies according to your current program.

 

For Hypertrophy time under tension on the eccentric motion can be about 3-4 beats, no rest at the top or bottom, then about 1 beat on the concentric motion to achieve optimal results.

 

Muscular tension also most dramatically effects the connection of the motor units with the muscle cells. Two other factors help to explain why some people can be stronger, but not as big as other people.