Building Muscle Mass - How Long Should You Train For, Anyway?
For many years I thought building up muscle consisted of spending hours on end at the gym day after day slogging it out.
Why did I think that? I guess it was because that's what everyone else was doing at the time.
When you think about it, it kind of makes sense.
However research has proven that training in this manner is counter-productive and is really a waste of your time.
The Bulgarians did some extensive research wherein they would take blood samples from their athletes several times a day.
This consisted of taking the samples before, during and straight after workouts.
What the blood samples were to reveal was that after around 45 to 50 minutes of a hard weight training work out the blood's natural flow of testosterone was decreased by almost 80%.
What does that mean? It means that after 50 minutes of exercise you would have depleted ability to recover and this means testosterone.
In doing so you have now reduced your body's ability to grow muscle.
By training past the 50 minute mark you are not going to get the gains you are after for the amount of work you are putting in.
Even worse is that by reducing your body's ability to recover you are breaking down the muscle destroying it to the point you may be getting smaller.
I know this because it happened to me.
By not taking your workout past the 45-50 minute mark you are allowing your body to process your blood sugar which helps in producing the energy in the muscle tissue.
By doing this you will be working out at your optimum performance levels.
And there is more to the shorter workout.
By decreasing the time you spend working out you will avoid the negatives that come with training hard like burn out and loss of motivation.
You won't find yourself making excuses because the workout sessions are so quick.
It's allot easier on you than trying to psyche yourself up to walk in to the gym six days a week for a two-hour session.
You will feel motivated and excited to start your workout each day.
In my next article I want to discuss the frequency of body part training.
How often should you train a body part? Keep a look out for it.
Why did I think that? I guess it was because that's what everyone else was doing at the time.
When you think about it, it kind of makes sense.
However research has proven that training in this manner is counter-productive and is really a waste of your time.
The Bulgarians did some extensive research wherein they would take blood samples from their athletes several times a day.
This consisted of taking the samples before, during and straight after workouts.
What the blood samples were to reveal was that after around 45 to 50 minutes of a hard weight training work out the blood's natural flow of testosterone was decreased by almost 80%.
What does that mean? It means that after 50 minutes of exercise you would have depleted ability to recover and this means testosterone.
In doing so you have now reduced your body's ability to grow muscle.
By training past the 50 minute mark you are not going to get the gains you are after for the amount of work you are putting in.
Even worse is that by reducing your body's ability to recover you are breaking down the muscle destroying it to the point you may be getting smaller.
I know this because it happened to me.
By not taking your workout past the 45-50 minute mark you are allowing your body to process your blood sugar which helps in producing the energy in the muscle tissue.
By doing this you will be working out at your optimum performance levels.
And there is more to the shorter workout.
By decreasing the time you spend working out you will avoid the negatives that come with training hard like burn out and loss of motivation.
You won't find yourself making excuses because the workout sessions are so quick.
It's allot easier on you than trying to psyche yourself up to walk in to the gym six days a week for a two-hour session.
You will feel motivated and excited to start your workout each day.
In my next article I want to discuss the frequency of body part training.
How often should you train a body part? Keep a look out for it.
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