What are the manifestations of the relationship between male fitness and muscle gain

To put it simply, fitness is a necessary trigger for men to gain muscle, but it is by no means guaranteed to grow if you practice it. The correlation between the two will be affected by training patterns, diet and rest, individual genes and even age. It is not a simple linear positive correlation of "the more you practice, the more you will gain".

I just met a little brother last week who just applied for a membership card for 3 months. He goes to the gym five times a week, and does weight training and aerobics for two hours at a time. Recently, he got nervous when he stood on the body fat scale. Not only did he lose 2 pounds, but his arm circumference and leg circumference did not increase by half a millimeter. He pulled me and asked me if my talent was so poor that I couldn't help it. I was happy when I asked him about his diet. In order to "prevent him from gaining muscle and fat", he only dared to eat 1,200 calories a day, and he didn't even eat twice his own body weight in protein. This is equivalent to if you want to build a building and only hire workers to demolish old walls every day, without transporting even half a brick to the construction site. The demolished waste is not enough for the workers to eat. How can you have extra materials to build a new building for you? The essence of muscle gain is the process of muscle fibers becoming thicker through excessive recovery after being stimulated and torn. Fitness stimulates the tearing, and the subsequent repair materials and repair time cannot keep up. No matter how hard you train, it will be in vain, and you may lose muscle.

Nowadays, there is always a debate on the Internet about whether building muscle is more effective for building capacity or heavier weights. There are practitioners on both sides showing their results, and they are arguing. In fact, after I tried it myself, the difference is really not that big. In the first half of last year, I followed the 5×5 heavy weight route, and the bench press went from 60kg to 85kg. My arm circumference increased by 1.2 cm in 3 months. In the second half of the year, I felt that heavy squats were too taxing on my knees, so I switched to medium-weight capacity sets of 12-15 reps, and the control was also good. After progressive overload, the arm circumference also increased by 0.8 cm in 3 months. For ordinary men who are naturally fit, as long as you can give enough effective stimulation to the target muscles, no matter which mode you choose, as long as you make up for it later, your arm circumference will increase. There is no need to fight for genres.

When it comes to this, someone must mention talent. Indeed, the gap between people's muscle-building efficiency is sometimes so large that it makes you doubt your life. My former fitness partner had a testosterone level of 820ng/dl when his body fat was 15%, which is at the ceiling level of the normal range. He also has a high proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers. He only practiced three times a week, for an hour and a half each time, and never curled up. He actually gained 8 pounds of pure muscle in half a year. I followed the exact same plan as him during the same period, and his testosterone was only 610ng/dl, and he only gained 5 pounds in half a year. I would be lying if I said I was not envious. But it’s wrong to say that genes determine everything. This guy didn’t exercise at all in college. He was as thin as a bamboo pole, and his arms dangled even in a T-shirt. No matter how high the testosterone was, he would not grow muscles out of thin air. At most, he would have more faint lines than others when he was thin. There is also the hotly debated topic "Is there a ceiling for natural fitness and muscle gain?". Academic circles now generally believe that the upper limit of lean body mass for natural men is roughly the height (cm) minus 100 multiplied by 1.2 to 1.5. However, I have been in the gym for five or six years, and I have never seen a few people touch it. Most people who have reached this ceiling have been stuck for a year or two. Either they have never tried progressive overload, and they paddle every set to make up for the number, or they stay up late every day playing games until two or three o'clock, or they go to eat fried skewers and drink iced Coke after practice, and they have no chance to compete with their talents.

I heard two kids arguing in the locker room last week. One said that he must have no talent and is ready to give up if he hasn’t improved after practicing for half a year. The other said to him, "You stay up until three o'clock every day to play games, and then go to eat fried chicken and drink Coke after practice. It's weird if you can improve." That's quite right. To put it bluntly, the relationship between fitness and muscle gain is like sowing and harvesting. You must first sow the seeds into the ground (to stimulate the muscles enough), then water and fertilize (to supplement nutrients), and give enough time in the sun (to sleep well) before crops can grow. After you sow the seeds, you will forget about it. It will either be waterlogged or drought. Even the most productive seeds will not grow food. If you are too lazy to sow the seeds, you will not be able to harvest anything.