HOW DOES EXERCISE BUILD MUSCLE, EXACTLY?

HOW DOES EXERCISE BUILD MUSCLE, EXACTLY?⭕️⁣

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I mean, we know that eventually, if we train with weights we end up gaining some muscle mass.. but how, exactly?

When muscle fibers experience tension under load, and a critical threshold is reached, they’re able to signal a cascade of events that convert a mechanical stimuli into a chemical one. ⁣Eventually, these signals lead to increased levels of Muscle Protein Synthesis, which is the physiological mechanism of “adding muscle blocks” to your “muscle wall” (hypertrophy).

“MPS” is different from whole-Body Protein Synthesis, as it refers to what happens in the muscle specifically:

This is an important distinction to make, because if PS increases, it does NOT mean that MPS increases too, and since we meat-heads only care about what happens inside the muscles, then it’s best to specify it as “Muscle Protein Synthesis”, when referring to gains (even when looking into research).

Importantly, increases in MPS are not always indicative of increased hypertrophy, in fact we can find increases in MPS following fiber-damaging workouts, where increases in MPS works for repairing purposes and not muscle-building purposes.

However, taken long term, MPS increases can actually be indicative of Hypertrophy if properly measured, so maximizing MPS is definitely a good strategy to maximize hypertrophy.