We all want to build big muscles, but nobody wants to get a serious injury. Check out everything you need to know about building muscles safely.
Build Muscle without Stressing Your Joints
A lean, sculpted body is something that bodybuilders work hard to achieve. In order to accomplish this, a strict adherence to a strength-training program is required. They lift heavy weights. They train to failure. Sometimes they will train for longer than an hour in their attempt to build muscle mass. Although training in this manner will help you gain muscle, there is also a chance that you can damage your joints in the process. This article will focus on how you can build muscle mass without damaging your joints.
You need to protect your joints when working out.
The human body contains over 400 joints. Joints connect bone to muscle, and muscles are responsible for movement. When strength training, the joints are put under tremendous pressure. Over time, this can lead to joint damage and pain. Joint pain makes training difficult in mild cases and impossible in more advanced cases. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to build lots of muscle without incurring any joint damage.
Proper Warm Up
Warming up before beginning your workout routine has several advantages. A proper warm-up helps to raise the temperature of your muscles and body. This helps to prepare them for strenuous activity. This increase in temperature improves muscle elasticity and range of motion.
Warming up before exercise helps your muscles and joints become more elastic to prevent unnecessary strain and tears in the joints. During strength training, you will create micro-tears in the muscles which will then be rebuilt stronger and bigger. However, you never want tears to occur in your joints. A proper warm up will help you prevent the tears that lead to joint damage and keep you working out for years to come.
Avoid Improper Training Techniques
In order to avoid joint damage, it’s necessary to adhere to certain rules when training. The first rule is to keep your training sessions short. You should strive to work out for an hour at a time. Training for long periods of time leads to overtraining and overtraining taxes the nervous system, muscles and the joints. Another rule that must be adhered to is to vary the amount of weight you are lifting. Lifting heavy will help you gain the most muscle, but constantly lifting heavy is counterproductive.
Heavy lifting is defined as being able to lift a weight for less than eight repetitions per set. Instead of approaching each workout with the goal of lifting as much weight as you can, intersperse heavy weight lifting with light lifting (10 – 15 repetitions per set). This technique gives the fast-twitch muscles – those muscles primarily responsible for helping you build huge muscles – a break. It also helps build slow-twitch muscles (muscles that support larger muscle groups) and assists in protecing the joints.
Recovery Time
Not giving yourself the proper amount of time to recover can also lead to joint damage. When you work out you stress your muscles and your joints. They both need time to rest and repair themselves. Working out constantly without enough rest in between sessions leads to fewer gains in lean mass and joint damage.
Always Use Proper Form
Before you start strength training, you must know how to lift weights with proper form. It takes time and you may need to get advice from a personal trainer or friend who is knowledgeable about weight training, but it will help you immensely in the long run. Using improper form leads to injury, inefficient training sessions, and joint damage.
If you perform exercises incorrectly there is a chance you are targeting your joints instead of the muscle that you want to exercise. Your joints help your muscle lift weights, but with improper form it’s possible that your joints will be working harder than your muscles during your exercise routine. When you use proper form you avoid injury and joint damage.
Proper Diet
A proper diet is fundamental when trying to build lean mass. Your body can’t repair damage to muscle tissues if you don’t eat lots of protein, carbohydrates, and good fats. But strength training not only affects muscle tissues, it taxes your entire body and that includes your joints. If you aren’t getting the nutrition you need to rebuild your muscle, you also aren’t getting the nutrition you need to strengthen your joints.
In addition to the solid food necessary to help build muscle, you must drink lots of water. The human body is comprised of 75% water. Water is needed for proper brain function, proper functioning of the heart, muscles and joints. Water helps lubricate the joints, and lubricated joints maintain their elasticity which helps avoid joint damage.
Build Muscle Safely
Building muscle mass will make you look and feel great. If you warm up properly, train and lift correctly, allow yourself enough recovery time and follow a good diet, you’ll be able to build lean mass without damaging your joints.
