Muscle Building: How It Works

From questions about supplements, routines, and diet, I find that most people have these questions because they don't understand how muscle is built.

My workout routine is called the 5x5. I workout one muscle group per gym session, so 6 days a week. I do 5 exercises per muscle group, 1 set per exercise, and 5 reps per set. That's IT. It seems short, and it is, and that's the point: get in there, tear it up, and leave.

A glaring problem I see is that you aren't paying any attention to your diet. Let me explain how muscle building works.

Step 1: cause tears in the muscle by pushing it to work. This can be done with exercise or physical labor. Anything that causes the body to do more than it can easily do will cause small tears in the muscle.

Step 2: the body, using amino acids it receives from the food you eat, repairs the muscle cells. However, the body is highly adaptable and doesn't like to waste calories...and those amino acids aren't just for muscles, they're for all your cells. Because your body expects that you will probably do something like you did again, it repairs your muscles to be stronger so when you do that activity again it doesn't cause the micro-tears in the muscle, and you don't have to allocate more amino acids to it for repair. This is why you may struggle with a weight now, but find it becomes easier and easier for you to lift later.

That's it. All the supplements in the stores do one of two things: give you more energy to rip up the muscles, or make amino acids available faster to repair the muscles. Even actual anabolic steroids only allow your body to recover faster.

Increasing Running Time/Endurance

Q. I'm enlisting in the Navy and am trying to improve my running time. How can I do this?

A. I used to have zero endurance (I was about 250lbs at one point), but here's a program that helped me. They give this to Marine Corps officer hopefuls, so you know it's "good enough" for Navy boot camp :)

Day 1: Timed Run. Run, walk, jog, skip, or crawl as fast as you can 1.5-3 miles and time it. Beat this next time you do your timed run.

Day 2: Sprint Intervals. Use the distance from day 1. Start jogging for 2 minutes, then sprint as fast as you can for 100-200 meters.

Day 3: Endurance Run. Double the distance of day 1, pick a hard-but-maintainable pace, and run it. You should be running fast enough where it's difficult to maintain a conversation. Bonus points for singing cadence...the reason they do this is because it increases lung function/capacity.

Day 4: Hill Sprints. Sprint as fast as you can uphill for 200-400 meters, jog back down, rest 1 minute. Repeat 10 times.

Day 5: Rest.

Day 6: Start over with day 1.

Does Creatine Prevent Definition?

Q: "Just one question, I heard I can't get my abs in shape while on creatine, I remember working my abs out ALOT when I was on creatine and they never got the proper 6 pack shape."


A: Creatine needs to be attached to something to be stable and enter the blood stream in a stable fashion. Once inside your system, it breaks down into creatine and whatever else it's attached to. The most common form of creatine (you were probably taking it) is creatine monohydrate. This form of creatine is attached to a salt, and as we both know salt helps you retain water. This is why a lot of people complain that creatine is "just water weight" or creatine "makes you bloated." It's not actually the creatine doing any of it, but the salt that it's attached to.

Creatine monohydrate is the cheapest form of creatine, but other forms are available. Kre-alkalyn, creatine hydrochloride, creatine ethyl ester...you name it. Now, for creatine to be properly absorbed, it needs sugar...about 7g of sugar for every 1g of creatine you take in. Since creatine needs sugar and creatine needs to be attached to something, Gaspari Nutrition made a form of creatine (creatine gluconate) that's, yep, attached to a sugar. This way, the compound enters the system then breaks down into creatine and sugar. Why didn't anyone think of that before?! Their product is called SizeOn and, like other creatines, it is a post-workout.