q a section specialized for muscle gain training problems
1. How should you adjust your breathing during strength training?
A common breathing rule during strength training is to inhale during eccentric contraction (lowering the weight) and exhale during concentric contraction (lifting the weight). However, this principle does not apply to all situations. If the weight is light, you can use this breathing method. If it is 3RM or heavier, you need to hold your breath while exerting force and exhale after passing the sticking point (the point where the movement pauses with heavy weight), but do not hold your breath throughout.
Overall, there is no absolutely correct way to breathe during strength training. The principle is to follow what feels comfortable for your body and adjust your breathing rhythm accordingly.
2. Can you build muscle and lose fat at the same time?
Before answering this question, let's talk about the main differences between building muscle and losing fat:
Building muscle is a positive energy balance, meaning the energy intake is greater than the energy expenditure.
It generally involves high-intensity resistance training, focusing on nutrition intake, increasing testosterone levels, and promoting muscle growth.
Losing fat is a negative energy balance, meaning the energy intake is less than the energy expenditure.
It generally involves medium to low-intensity endurance training, along with dietary control, which increases cortisol levels and to some extent inhibits muscle growth.
If building muscle and losing fat occur simultaneously, it means that a person's total muscle mass is increasing while their total fat mass is decreasing, which is clearly impossible. Therefore, in an absolute sense, building muscle and losing fat cannot happen at the same time.
However, in a relative sense, building muscle and losing fat can occur simultaneously. Specifically, during the muscle-building phase, you can do a small amount of fat-loss training to burn fat, but you need to control the intensity and frequency. During the fat-loss phase, you can also do moderate strength training to slow down muscle loss while ensuring that the rate of fat loss is faster than the rate of muscle loss.
3. Can you continue to exercise when your muscles are sore?
Firstly, as a common fitness question, there is no rigorous scientific evidence to back this up, but based on experience, muscle recovery time is about 48-72 hours. This means that the same muscle group should not be trained again within two days. After this time, as long as the soreness is not severe enough to affect proper form or training intensity, you can continue to train. However, if the soreness is so severe that it prevents normal movement or significantly reduces performance, or if there is pain, you should stop training and rest well.
Additionally, if a training plan causes continuous muscle soreness over a period of time that is difficult to alleviate, it indicates that the body cannot adapt to such training intensity, or there is insufficient nutrition intake or rest. In such cases, the training plan needs to be optimized, or dietary and sleep adjustments should be made.
4. Can you train multiple muscle groups in one day?
It is possible to train multiple muscle groups in one day, but it is important to give the muscles sufficient recovery time. The recovery time for large muscle groups is generally 48-72 hours, but the specific time depends on individual feelings.
Therefore, under the premise of sufficient training intensity, it is reasonable to arrange the training plan so that the same muscle group is not trained again within 48 hours.
5. Why do you feel particularly tired the day after training?
Feeling tired after training is mainly due to delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which is primarily caused by the accumulation of lactic acid and slight damage to muscle tissue.
During training, muscle tissue is slightly damaged, and muscle fibers are slightly torn. After training, through nutritional supplementation and muscle rest, the muscle fibers slowly recover and re-heal, becoming thicker than before. This is the theory of supercompensation, which is also the principle of muscle growth.
The day after training often feels more tiring than the first day because the second day is when the muscle fibers are healing the fastest and need to fully absorb nutrients, making the soreness more pronounced than on the first day. However, if there are additional symptoms such as lethargy and lack of concentration, it may indicate that the training intensity was too high and exceeded the body's capacity. In such cases, the load should be reduced, and post-training nutrition and rest should be emphasized.
6. Can you eat a lot of egg yolks?
This question indeed troubles many people. Firstly, eggs are significant for fitness enthusiasts: they are cheap, portable, and have a high protein absorption rate, making them an excellent source of protein.
However, because egg yolks contain cholesterol, many people are afraid of them (cholesterol in the blood is believed to play a significant role in arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases). But it is important to clarify that this refers to cholesterol in the blood, not cholesterol in food. The cholesterol in food does not directly translate to cholesterol in the blood; they are not the same thing.
Therefore, egg yolks do not significantly affect the cholesterol levels in the blood of healthy adults (note: healthy adults without underlying cardiovascular diseases). Eggs, as a high-quality protein source, are safe for normal consumption. However, there is no research or experiments to determine how many whole eggs a person can eat daily or what happens if they eat a lot of whole eggs.
Recommendation: For those building muscle, 3-4 whole eggs per day are sufficient, with the rest being egg whites, as egg whites are the primary source of protein. For those losing fat, 1-2 whole eggs per day are enough.
7. Do you need to take protein powder to build muscle?
Firstly, it should be noted that protein powder is just a protein supplement, nothing more. Normal people can consume it, and it should not be demonized. As long as it is a product from a reputable manufacturer, it can be consumed normally without any side effects.
The significance of supplementing with protein powder lies in its higher efficiency. What you consume is what you get, unlike food. For example, 100g of meat contains 20g of protein. If you need to supplement 100g of protein, you would need to eat 500g of meat, which is a large amount. However, it should be noted that protein powder can only serve as a supplementary source of protein and cannot replace food. The primary source of protein should be food, with protein powder as a supplement.
For those building muscle, whether you need protein powder depends on your needs and goals. If you are a regular fitness enthusiast with moderate training intensity and a high-protein diet, the protein from food is sufficient to meet your body's needs, and additional protein supplementation is not necessary. However, if you are a professional fitness enthusiast or aim for bodybuilding and have high training intensity, then supplementing with protein powder is necessary.