What is the difference between male fitness and muscle gain

To put it bluntly, muscle gain is one of the many goals of male fitness. The two are included and included, and are not parallel concepts at all. Many people who are new to sports will confuse the two. In essence, they are the difference between "total demand" and "single segmented demand".

If you go to the gym for a long time, you will find that the "fitness" mentioned by different people is not the same thing at all: the uncle who wears quick-drying clothes and rides the elliptical machine for 40 minutes every day wants to lose weight and lower blood fat, and the young man who plays basketball three times a week wants to practice physical fitness and play the whole game without cramps. , there are also brothers who squat 100 kilograms of deadlifts as soon as they start, and drink protein powder immediately after training. The goal is very clear to grow muscles and increase girth - these are all fitness, but only the part of the training that is aimed at thickening muscle fibers and increasing lean body mass will be classified into the category of muscle gain.

The industry is often quarreling about this matter now. Some strength enthusiasts who have practiced for five or six years feel that men’s fitness is basically equivalent to blind training if they do not focus on building muscle. They spend time in the gym. In the end, the muscle mass does not increase and the strength does not improve. It is better to lie down at home and check the mobile phone; There are also office workers who work nine to five jobs who think that fitness is to offset the disadvantages of sitting for a long time. It is enough to have normal physical examination indicators and climb the fifth floor without breathing. To gain muscle, you need to calculate calories, add training capacity, and even eat hot pot to calculate whether you have enough protein. It is completely unnecessary to consume too much energy. There is actually nothing wrong with both of these statements. It’s just that everyone’s needs for fitness are different.

In fact, it is easy to understand with an analogy that everyone knows. Fitness is like signing up for a hobby class. There are many directions to choose from. Muscle building is the most popular class among them. There are clear assessment standards: how many centimeters your arm circumference has increased, and how many kilograms you have raised in bench press PR. These are all tangible results. But you can't say that signing up for a hobby class means that you must sign up for muscle building, right?

When I first entered the industry two years ago, I also confused these two concepts. I heard people say that "you need to get bigger if you want to stay fit." I forced myself to eat 8 eggs with protein powder every day. I practiced until the next day and it was difficult to hold chopsticks. Later, my physical examination showed that uric acid was high, so I slowly adjusted. I have reached my goal, and now I do strength training three times a week and jog twice a week. I don’t pursue increasing my girth. I am satisfied as long as my muscle mass does not drop and my body fat is stable at around 15%. At this time, of course I am still working out, but I have long stopped considering muscle gain as my core goal.