Study Shows 50 Things Nobody Tells You About Building Muscle | The Workout Show

Did you know that you can actually build muscle with just your mind? Or that there’s a food that burns calories when you eat it? What about the fact that there’s a relationship between your grip strength and life expectancy? Well these are just a few of the 50 facts nobody tells you about fitness and building muscle. So pay attention since we’re about to go over some awesome tips for real muscle gains! Including our favorite of all time. See if you can guess which one. So let’s get right into it

. For fact number one, We’re gonna start with a big misconception... And that’s that building muscle size is not the same as building strength! While a bigger muscle has more potential to be a stronger muscle, these two adaptations occur from completely different physiological processes. Muscle size is an actual change to the architecture of the muscle while building strength is from an improvement in the neurological system of the existing muscle. Of course there’s crossover but if you want to

optimize both, you should train for both of them; specifically strength. Why strength? Because of fact number two… Increasing training volume, or the total amount of weight a muscle lifts, is the primary training variable to increase muscle size, with most recommending moderate loads of 70-80% of a one rep max for around 8 to 12 reps. But you can use even heavier loads, 85% of a one rep max or even higher, and studies show that using heavier loads is vastly superior! So if you want to get big, g

et strong first. But muscles aren’t the only thing that get stronger with resistance training. Fact three…lifting weights can also increase your bone strength! When a heavy load is placed on the bone, the excessive weight causes it to bend slightly, causing minor fractures. These fractures are then filled with what are called osteoblasts that trigger new bone growth. To optimize this adaptation, you need to perform heavy, load bearing exercises such as squats and deadlifts. Now fact number four

might really surprise you. Did you know that lifting weights can actually increase your flexibility too? Well, as long as you use full range of motion. From a flexibility perspective, look at the movements you perform under load: deep squats, overhead pressing, lunges. These movements require mobility in the hips, ankles and shoulders. This doesn’t mean you don't need any other flexibility or mobility training but you can rest assured that resistance training with a full range of motion isn’t go

ing to impede your flexibility and will likely improve it. However, you need to be careful about your flexibility! Because… Fact number five! Too much flexibility can actually decrease performance and be just as dangerous as not being flexible enough! And increasing flexibility too much will actually decrease the stability of a joint. It sounds crazy based on what we just looked at, but stay with us. If involved in impact sports or situations in which the joint experiences a high amount of force

, the lack of stability in the joint may result in injury. So what to do? Well simply keep your flexibility in line for your lifestyle. Now let’s get back to building muscle with number 6. Unfortunately, we need to tell you that building muscle gets progressively harder the longer you train. Everyone loves “beginner gains” which refers to when a person first starts lifting and gains muscle fast and easy. That’s the fun period but the bad thing is that if gaining muscle is easy when you first sta

rt, that means it gets harder after later on. While you may put in 20lbs your first year, you’ll be happy to get 5 pounds in your 3rd and 4th year! But here’s the good news with fact number 7. Once you gain muscle, keeping it on is relatively easy! A big review from 2021 found that the minimum threshold to maintain muscle mass is surprisingly small. Training each muscle group once a week with one set to failure will maintain your muscle mass for a total of 32 weeks! To be clear, that means you c

an perform one set of bench presses, one set of bent over rows, one set of military presses, one set of squats and one set of deadlifts once a week and be good for 32 weeks! Now in order to get this muscle, you need to pay attention to this next one. It’s literally the most important principle in lifting. Fact number 8, you must apply the principle of progressive overload. The simple explanation is you need to do more work than the week before! Sounds easy but many lifters mess this up and think

that simply “training hard” is all they need to do. Absolutely you need to train hard but this must include more weight or more reps and sets. You are basically convincing your body it needs more muscle to survive. This is why tracking your program is soooo important. And later on we’ll tell you the absolute easiest variable to apply progressive overload! But first we have fact number 9, which is that program jumping will be your demise! As you begin your lifting journey, you will come across d

ozens and dozens of programs, all claiming to be the best. You’ll have to wait until later to learn which program really is the best one, but for now what you need to know is that you don’t want to “jump programs”. This refers to following a program for a couple weeks then seeing a “cooler’ one and jumping on it. To see progress you must follow a plan and apply progressive overload for muscle growth, not hop from routine to routine. Your body simply cannot adapt overnight. Now, in order to optim

ize muscle growth, you need to understand fact number 10; which is that your muscle doesn’t grow evenly! Your muscle is not one solid piece of tissue. In reality, it’s composed of individual fibers. Further, a muscle can have several heads; this is when different attachment points merge together to form one muscle belly. So here’s the thing… Recent research has shown if you perform a single exercise, your muscle will experience different amounts of growth in different areas. This can happen thro

ughout the muscle; even on the same head and even a single muscle fiber! This uneven growth brings us to number 11, which is that you need to implement a variety of exercises that use different biomechanics and angles to train the same muscle group. While this has been a common practice in the gym for quite some time, we now have studies to back up the practice. For example to hit the chest, use flat barbell bench press, incline dumbbell press, dips and cable chest fly! Four chest exercises with

4 different movement patterns means optimal growth. On the other hand, fact number 12 tells us that “bro-splits” are likely suboptimal for muscle growth. Now of course they will work, at least if you can apply progressive overload. However, studies have shown that instead of training a muscle once a week, training it twice a week may lead to better results. For example, instead of using 6 exercises to train a muscle in a single session, you should train a muscle two times a week using 3 exercis

es in each session. This results in more accumulation of higher quality volume. While we all want more muscle for aesthetics, there’s another, even more important reason to accumulate muscle mass. Fact Number 13. Your muscle mass index or MMI can determine your longevity. Your Muscle Mass index is the relationship between your height and the total amount of muscle mass you hold. Long-term studies have been conducted which tracked the health of older populations for 15-16 years. A direct relation

ship was found between their MMI and longevity. In other words, those who held more muscle mass lived longer! This is why it’s important to have a life-long habit of resistance training to always have adequate amounts of muscle mass. Still, even if you’re older and have never trained, it’s not too late to start! That’s because of our 14th fact! Which is that the elderly can also gain muscle! There’s a common misconception that we can only build muscle during our younger years and our only hope a

s we age is to hold on to as much as possible. Now there is a ton of nuance in this belief but it’s wrong. While it may be easier to grow muscle during your younger years, the truth is you can put on muscle mass at just about any age! Depending on your current fitness level, research has shown it’s possible to gain muscle well into your older years. How old? Well, this review saw greater increases of muscle mass from 1.5% to a staggering 15.6% in individuals who were 75 years old and older! So i

t’s truly never too old to start. But regardless of your age, you need to be aware of fact 15, drinking alcohol is doing you no favors. Sorry for being a buzzkill (pun intended!). In fact, it’s hurting your progress from multiple angles. For one, it activates your Agrp neurons. These are your starvation neurons which trigger a strong appetite. Secondly, it disturbs your sleep which decreases recovery, decreases testosterone and promotes a catabolic environment. And third and four, it disrupts mu

scle protein synthesis and delays recovery! You can still build muscle by drinking moderately BUT, it’s going to be blunted. It’s up to you to weigh if it’s worth it! Now even if you do choose to partake once in a while, you still need to practice fact number 16; warm-ups are vital to optimize performance. We can often brush off warm-ups as if they’re just a mere formality. Something we do because we’re supposed to. Other people see warm-ups as just a means to prevent injury. In reality, one of

the primary benefits of a proper warm-up is improved performance in the gym. This is especially true with warm-up sets, which were found to increase the amount that could be lifted during the working sets. So spend the extra 10-15 minutes to properly warm-up. Some other ideas that are outdated? How about number 17, taking ice baths after workouts. Ice baths have made a huuuuge impact on the fitness industry in the past few years. Everywhere you look on social media you see it! However, while it

does have some benefits for recovery and muscle soreness, it gets sketchy when it comes to muscle growth, and research has shown it can actually inhibit both muscle growth and strength gains. This may be confusing but you must understand that while related, recovery and muscle growth are two separate processes. While researchers aren’t positive why this occurs, they believe it has something to do with an ice bath decreasing inflammation which would usually trigger an anabolic response. We hope w

e’re not bursting your bubble with these last couple but we have another one you need to know. Fact number 18…The keto diet is not good for muscle growth! The keto diet is another practice that has gained a lot of popularity as of late. However, studies show it seems to hinder your ability to build muscle. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to gain muscle on a keto diet, but studies show it’s significantly more difficult. Now to be clear, as the keto diet enhances your body's ability to utilize f

at for energy, it might actually hold extra benefits to preserve muscle while in a caloric deficit. However, if building muscle is an important goal, you may want to save keto until you reach your desired amount of muscle mass. For Number 19, while we’re talking about misconceptions, let’s talk about how “muscle confusion” isn’t a thing. “Muscle Confusion” became popular years ago with the training program, P90X. The idea is that in order to optimize muscle growth, you must “trick” your muscles

and train it with random exercises on a daily basis. Well, remember fact 8 about progressive overload. In order to apply progressive overload, there needs to be structure to your program so that you can utilize an exercise for a minimal amount of time which is generally for 4 weeks. However, that doesn’t mean you never switch exercises; just don’t do it every session! Instead. follow fact number 20… ..and swap exercises every 4-8 weeks. That is, as long as muscle hypertrophy is your primary goal

. After you train for a period, you’ll find these exercises become “stagnant” and your progress will start to slow. At this time, you can swap out your exercise with ones that have similar biomechanics. Swap the barbell bench press for flat bench dumbbell press or the bent over row with the T-bar row. For number 21, we’re gonna get psychic, well kind of. Because you can build muscle with your mind! Now you can’t merely wish muscles into existence. However, you can actively contract your muscles

with intentional focus which is able to induce muscle growth. For example, a study had participants perform a movement while also visualizing in their minds that they were performing the same movement. The twist? They didn’t actually have anything in their hands! They were pretending. However, they found that even with no weight, just visualizing caused an increase in muscle growth! This is also one of the mechanisms behind our next fact. Fact number 22 is that building a mind-muscle connection

actually works! Emerging studies have shown that focusing on the intended muscle while training can lead to higher activation and muscle growth. It’s basically an easy hack that lets you build more muscle without actually doing more work! Here’s another useful tip for fact 23… Training with a partner will likely lead to better gains! That’s right, if you’re like most people, you will probably see better results lifting with someone, since studies show that supervised training likely results in m

ore muscle growth and strength gains! Inexperienced lifters may just need the guidance of a trainer as they don’t understand how much they can lift. On the other hand, experienced lifters may just push more due to the competition aspect or the extra motivation from a friend being present. With that said, you and your lifting partner may see different results due to the next fact. Fact number 24 is that genetics will play a role in your progress Sure, some people will use “genetics” as an excuse

to not try and get into shape. And while for many, that’s all it is, an excuse, however, the truth is that genetics do play a role in your ability to progress and even dictate your top physique that can be reached. For example, your bone structure can determine how much muscle you can carry. The insertion of a muscle can alter the shape and perceived size of a muscle. There’s even certain genes that make it easier to gain muscle compared to other people. The point being that two people who put i

n the same effort in the gym can have different results. This just means to focus on yourself and don’t always compare yourself to others. Another example of how genetics play a role in lifting is found at fact number 25.. Your limbs can dictate what exercises you perform. For example, individuals with long legs and short torsos are better suited for the sumo deadlift. On the contrary, those with short legs generally do better with conventional ones. This is also why your “perfect form” for cert

ain exercises will look different from another person’s. Fact number 26 is very important, at least if you want to have a functional core. And it’s that your core’s primary job IS NOT to perform crunches! The best way to train a muscle is to look at its function. With that in mind, how often do you walk around while crunching over repeatedly? The answer is that you don’t! Rather, you stand straight and tall! This is because your abs are built to stiffen the core in an isometric fashion to preven

t movement in the spine. For example, if you are suddenly jerked, your abs stiffen to prevent shock to the spine. Performance wise, they stiffen so that you can generate power by rotating at the hips such as in when swinging a baseball bat. With that said, include anti-rotation exercises in your program such as Pallof press, wood chops and suitcase carries. Speaking about your abs, we need to talk about number 27… Your core includes your abs but not only your abs. When people hear “core” they th

ink “abs”. The “core” does include the abs but it also includes your erector spinae or the lower back. Some go as far to say the core even includes the entire torso. Regardless, when you do “core” training, be sure you’re training your lower back as well or you may suffer from a muscle imbalance. The good thing is anti-rotation exercises work well also but include some movements such as back extensions. For fact number 28, we’re going to talk about grip. Specifically the fact that it’s another g

reat indicator of mortality. Out of all training goals, increasing grip strength is rarely at the top of anyone's priority list in the fitness community. However, it’s becoming a critical measurement in the healthcare industry and for good reason. More and more studies are finding that your grip strength is an effective indicator of your mortality. In fact, an inverse relationship has been found with your grip strength and all-cause mortality as well as cause-specific mortality; this includes ca

ncer and cardiovascular disease. You might think this is because sick people are weak and lose grip strength, but interestingly, there even seems to be a dose-response relationship. Which means that a stronger grip also equals longer life! But there’s another reason to increase grip too. Elbow pain!!!! Fact number 29 is that weak forearm muscles are a major cause of elbow pain. Now there are quite a few different causes of elbow pain but one of the more common ones is a condition called lateral

epicondylalgia, better known as tennis elbow. Tennis elbow is caused by inflammation of the extensor carpi radialis, one of the extensor muscles located on the anterior of your forearm. The inflammation occurs at the origin located at the elbow which generally results from overuse, either from prolonged or repeated gripping movements. The good thing is that fixing this is easy; just be sure to include grip specific exercises in your training such as one of our favorites, farmer walks! For the ne

xt few facts, let’s dismantle some more misconceptions and popular sayings. First up is fact number 30…Abs Are Not “Made In The Kitchen” “Abs are made in the kitchen” is a tired gimmick that aims to emphasize the importance of nutrition in achieving a 6-pack. However, it’s not really true. Your abs are muscles which grow in the same manner as every muscle; by applying progressive overload. If not, you’ll never see abs regardless of how skinny you are as they’ll be too small! Therefore, your abs

are made in the gym and you see them by what you do in the kitchen. This runs together with fact 31; the saying “nutrition is 80% of your success and the gym is 20%”. Wrong. If your nutrition is on point but your training is all over the place, you won’t make the progress you want. At the same time, if your training is dialed in but your nutrition is all over the place, you’re also not going to see the results you want. Don’t pit these two together as if it’s a competition. In fact, they work to

gether so give both 100% of your effort. Fact number 32 is going to take this one step further. Sleep and recovery are just as important as your training and nutrition. Your sleep and recovery can both have a dramatic effect on your overall progress and skimping on either will make a serious dent in your progress. Skimping on sleep can mess up your hormones and make it easier to gain fat yet harder to lose muscle. On the other hand, not allowing full recovery will consistently break your body do

wn making it impossible to progress. On that note, fact number 33…you can make gains without pain! While there are times that training will be uncomfortable; it is not the ultimate goal. As we’ve mentioned with progressive overload, your goal is to do more work then you did before. This will sometimes be accompanied with soreness and sometimes not. Not “feeling it” has little to no effect on the effectiveness of your session. As long as you successfully accomplish progressive overload, you’re go

ing to grow! DO NOT chase soreness! Fact number 34…“a calorie is a calorie” is an oversimplification. While it’s a pretty good summary of what you need to do to lose weight, it implies that all calories are created equal. This isn’t exactly true as the source matters. For example, the thermal effect of food or TEF is the amount of calories required to digest and absorb a food. Fat has a very low TEF of 0-3% while protein has a TEF of 20-30%! On the other hand, you need to be concerned with your

macronutrients AND your micronutrients. Therefore pay attention to your calories AND the quality of your diet. It’s not just about calories! So what should you eat? Well… Fact number 35 is that the best diet in the world is…. Drumroll please……the one that you can adhere to! This might not be the answer you were looking for but it’s true. Studies have shown that no diet has a significant advantage in the long-term, and the one factor that did dictate better success was simply one that a person co

uld adhere to. Any diet that can help you control your calories will work. Therefore, you should simply follow what you can stick with and rest assured you don’t need to try other diets! For fact number 36, we want to talk about supplements. Simply put, most of them are a waste of money. The supplement industry's main goal is to make money which leads to claims of instant gains and melting fat. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen for most in the real world. Remember that supplements are supplemen

tary to your diet. Stop putting so much emphasis on them when your diet is far from sufficient. With that said, fact 37 is going to save you money, since here are the supplements that studies say might actually be worth it! Protein powder is simply a cheap, easy way to get protein so it’s definitely worth your money if you need help eating enough. After protein powder, creatine is the most studied and effective supplement on the market. Plus, it’s also cheap! If you’re not taking creatine you’re

doing it wrong. Third, caffeine is the most effective ingredient in pre-workouts. Therefore, caffeine pills are a very cheap way to get caffeine. And then the last two are a “maybe”; Beta-alanine and EAA. You probably don’t need it but it might help. Anything else is not worth your time. Next! Question…have you jumped on the fasted training bandwagon yet? Well, you’ll want to pay attention to fact 38. Fasted training is not necessarily better for losing weight. Again, fasted training is when yo

u exercise in a fasted state meaning you haven’t eaten for at least 8 hours. It’s claimed that this will burn more fat. In some sense, this is true as your body can become more fat adapted, meaning it can burn fat for fuel easier. However, assuming you eat the same amount of calories, studies have shown it’s no better than training in a fed state. This is because your body will still burn the same amount of calories whether it comes from fat or carbs. Burning fat is not the same as losing fat. W

ith that said, training fasted could actually spell trouble for something else… Fact 39, is that training fasted could actually mitigate strength gains. Due to the nutritional restraints, training fasted hinders an athlete from consuming protein and carbohydrates around training. Therefore, if you perform some sort of a fasting diet, always train during your feeding window as opposed to fasting period. We made it to fact 40! Let’s look at another false belief…the post-workout window. The claim i

s that your body is in an increased anabolic state so you must eat within 30 minutes of training to capitalize on this. While it’s true that training increases muscle protein synthesis, its spike lasts longer than 30 minutes. In fact, as long as you’re eating protein every 3-4 hours, the need for a post-workout meal is greatly mitigated. The only time it’s important is if you train fasted. So while it's a good idea to eat at some point after training there’s no need to stress about it. Let’s tak

e fact 41 to get serious for a sec. While it’s great for your health, the reality is that lifting weights can sometimes have a negative effect on your mental health and cause body dysmorphia. Of course, gym life is an awesome habit with a ton of benefits. However, if you’re not careful, it can also give rise to some mental disorders. Body dysmorphia can occur in gym goers in the form of “muscle dysmorphia”. This is when obviously fit people can’t see the incredible progress they’ve made and stil

l think they are “too small” or “not lean enough” and often resort to harmful practices or obsess over it. Be mindful of this and keep reasonable goals in mind. And most of all, be proud of the progress you make. Now fact 42 might be a hard pill to swallow for some, but it’s a fact of life that you will naturally lose muscle as you age. This natural process is called sarcopenia and begins to become especially noticeable after the age of 50. And this process can increase rapidly in individuals wh

o aren’t involved in physical activity. But at the same time, individuals involved in resistance training can fend off detrimental effects until much later. This is yet one more reason a lifelong habit of training is crucial! Don’t stop lifting! Something else you can do for your muscles? Fact number 43….eat the entire egg! A famous study from 2021 showed that by eating a whole egg after resistance training, rather than just the egg white, can actually increase muscle growth. This includes incre

ases in strength and hypertrophy. This simple hack is believed to be due to the added cholesterol, one of the requirements for production of testosterone. Next! Fact 44…the number one variable for muscle hypertrophy! In the beginning of this video we talked about progressive overload and mentioned we were going to tell you the number one variable and here it is…it’s volume! We mentioned this briefly but it’s so important we thought it deserves its own fact. Increasing your volume has been found

to be the number one factor that dictates muscle growth. For those unaware, volume refers to the amount of work placed on a muscle such as; load x reps x sets. The easiest way to increase volume is to increase load but you can also add reps or sets. If you apply progressive overload by increasing your volume, you will grow. Fact 45! Now this is another really important one so pay attention. The gym is to build or maintain muscle while nutrition controls our weight! What this means is your main p

riority when choosing a resistance training program should not be based on how many calories are burned but rather how well it can build or preserve muscle. This is because nutrition is by far the best and easiest way to control your diet. Of course training is going to burn calories. However, we want to use it to improve our musculature as this is its primary purpose. Fact number 46. Our body is optimized when thought of as a machine! This is probably our favorite fact on the whole list, and ap

plies to almost everything. You wouldn’t put dirty fuel in your car so why would you do the same to your body? Focus on eating good nutrition. You also wouldn’t redline your car consistently nor let it idle all night. Do the same for your body and allow it to stop and rest once in a while so it doesn’t break down. The fact is your body is the most sophisticated machine we know of and treating it like one will yield the greatest results. But perhaps our second favorite is fact 47…Focus on the bas

ics as they’re responsible for the majority of your gains. Of course we love learning and implementing new exercises. However, we know that they always come second to the basics. By basics we mean your big compound movements such as the squat, bench press, deadlift, rows and overhead pressing. Also some bodyweight movements such as dips, push-ups, pull-ups and chin-ups. Building off that for Fact 48: Progressing in the gym is simple. Concentrate on the basics, apply progressive overload, and eat

right. This is the base of all successful lifters. Getting caught up in other nuances is likely just going to stall your progress. Speaking of nuance…As we’re almost done, we’re gonna combine three questions for fact 49 Should you perform HIIT or LISS? HIIT stands for “high intensity interval training” which consists of alternating between periods of work and short periods of recovery. On the contrary, LISS stands for “low intensity steady-state” and consists of working at a low pace for an ext

ended period of time; for example, going on a slow jog for 45 minutes. These two have long been debated as to which is better; however, they’re not the only ones. For example; other common exercises pitted against each other are; Pull-ups or chin-ups, what one should you do? Or what about Sumo and conventional deadlift? The answer to all these questions? Just do it all! So many examples where exercises and training methods are pitted as if they’re against each other and you can only choose one.

The truth is that they all have their own benefits and train different muscle groups or physiological systems. For example, we now know that HIIT and LISS both burn similar amounts of fat and both increase VO2. However, HIIT trains your anaerobic systems while LISS trains your aerobic systems! Whenever you come across one of these and don’t know what to choose, just include both! And since we already talked about the best diet, for our last fact, number 50, we’re gonna talk about the best progra

m! Just like with your diet, the answer is whatever you can stick to! A lifelong habit of fitness is always going to provide the best benefits. Sure there may be some programs that put on more muscle or strength in the short term, but the ultimate goal is to live longer and live healthier, giving you more and more time to get fit, or big, or whatever your goal is. And that’s simply done by being active your whole life! And there it is! As we went through, we hope you caught on to our main point,

Lifting weights is one of the healthiest activities you can get involved in, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. Just like fact 47 said…concentrate on the basics, apply progressive overload and watch your nutrition. At the same time, there’s a lot of knowledge you can gain along the way and we hope you did!