Scroll through social media for muscle-building advice and the message is often clear: go to the gym; lift weights so heavy you can barely finish your final set. \u201cPeople assume that\u2019s the only way to build muscle,\u201d says Leigh Breen, professor of translational physiology at the University of Leicester. \u201cBut there are\u00a0other ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muscles grow when we place a\u00a0demand on them that isn\u2019t typical in our daily lives. If that demand is repeated often enough, the muscles adapt: getting stronger and, yes, larger. But they don\u2019t \u201cknow\u201d whether this stimulus to the muscle is coming from a heavy or low load.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can build muscle at home,\u201d he\u00a0says, especially if you\u2019re a beginner, \u201cusing resistance bands or just your own bodyweight \u2013 press-ups, squats, dips, lunges \u2013 two or more times a\u00a0week. It\u2019s also possible to build muscle using lighter weights.\u201d What matters is whether the training places a demand on the muscles and is progressive \u2013 that is, that the demand is increased over time.<\/p>\n
The key to sustained improvement, Breen says, is gradually increasing training volume. You might start with a 5kg dumbbell, but progress by going from 10 to 15 to 20 reps a session as it begins to feel easier. \u201cThe muscle should feel fairly fatigued \u2013 like you couldn\u2019t do too many more reps.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Saturday Edition<\/p>\n An exclusive roundup of the week’s best Guardian journalism from the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, free to your inbox every Saturday<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Breen warns that for healthy young people, bodyweight training can become limiting if continued muscle and strength gains are the desired outcomes. \u201cEventually, for the majority, the gym environment is the most appropriate space to keep making gains.\u201d For everyone, the most important thing is to avoid stagnation: \u201cWhether you\u2019re lifting weights, using resistance bands or your bodyweight, don\u2019t plateau for too long. Change up the exercises every few months or find ways to make the workout demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scroll through social media for muscle-building advice and the message is often clear: go to the gym; lift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-42828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}