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.