The Uplifted Insider

"Never cease chiseling your own statue." -Plotinus

The Confusion That Keeps YOU Weak

Tell me if I resonate. You've been going to the gym consistently for months. You're trying to do everything you think you need to do. But you are still just kind of confused. You don’t feel like you are building any muscle and your bathroom mirror seems to confirm that thought.

Sound familiar?

If you've spent any time at all poking around the fitness space, especially on social media, you've probably heard tons of conflicting advice about building strength and muscle. You may have even heard some of the following examples:

• Train each muscle group once per week with high volume for maximum growth

• Hit each muscle 2-3 times per week for optimal protein synthesis

• Daily muscle stimulation with lower volume builds muscle the fastest

• Constantly change exercises to “confuse” muscles and prevent plateaus

• Stick to the same exercises and progressively add weight for muscle growth

You can quickly see how confusing all these statements can be when consumed together without appropriate context or nuance. Then you may hear another “influencer” tell you that all you have just learned is pseudoscientific quackery, and that THEIR method is the real "secret" to gaining muscle quickly. They may want you to believe in their “Six Pack Shortcuts” or “Eight Week Abs.” You have been inundated with viral clickbait so intensely over the years that you may still remember the, “Trainers hate him! He discovered this one weird trick,” ad campaigns from over a decade ago.

So I get it, the fitness industry has left you confused and frustrated, unsure of what to believe and what to do in the gym. As someone who loves training and learning different fitness methodologies, it is infuriating to watch the general population have to mentally sort through an overwhelming cocktail of good and bad fitness information, marketing and influencer opinions.

After almost a decade and a half of coaching busy professionals and watching them struggle through various levels of confusion, I've learned something important. People want the truth regarding different fitness topics, but they also want the information simplified. While the physiology of muscle growth is tremendously complex, luckily the science of gaining muscle is simpler than most people realize. The concepts that you need to put into action are not hard to learn, it’s the consistency of action long term that is the hard part.

In fact, a large part of effective muscle building comes down to understanding and applying three fundamental laws that are as certain and observable as the laws of physics.

When you throw a ball in the air, it comes down. When you apply the three muscle building principles that I will reveal in a moment, your muscles will grow bigger and stronger.

It's that simple. You’ve got this! Let’s go!

#1- There Are Three Ways to Stimulate Muscle Growth

The first thing you need to understand about muscle building is that there are three "triggers" for muscle growth:

• Mechanical Tension- The force applied to a muscle when it is under strain, most commonly from resistance training.

• Muscle Damage- Microscopic tears in muscle fibers caused by intense exercise, especially resistance training.

• Metabolic Stress- Depletion of immediate energy stores from intense high rep or high volume workouts that forces the body to recruit more muscle fibers and causes an accumulation of metabolic byproducts in the muscles.

Interestingly, research from Harvard Medical School shows that mechanical tension is the strongest catalyst of muscle growth out of these three stimuli.

While mechanical tension is considered the primary driver for muscle growth, it doesn’t act alone and the interplay between mechanical tension, muscle damage and metabolic stress must be considered.

• Heavy, lower-rep training creates high mechanical tension and muscle damage, but less metabolic stress

• Lighter, higher-rep training creates less mechanical tension and muscle damage, but more metabolic stress

This ties directly into what scientists call the "Strength-Endurance Continuum." This training concept is broken into three sections:

• Strength- This end of the continuum focuses on lifting heavy weights for a low number of repetitions to improve maximal force production. (Generally 1-5 reps)

• Hypertrophy- This is the middle ground where moderate loads and moderate repetitions are used to increase muscle size. (Generally 6-15 reps)

• Muscular Endurance- This end of the continuum concentrates on lifting lighter weights for a high number of reps to improve the ability to sustain effort over a longer period of time. (Generally 15+ reps)

Your primary goal as someone who wants to build muscle should be to get stronger, especially on but not limited to key exercises like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses.

While you should train in all the rep ranges of the Strength-Endurance Continuum, I would spend most of your time training the strength and hypertrophy phases because it is there where you will create the most mechanical tension and muscle damage. Furthermore, as you get stronger in the strength and hypertrophy rep ranges, your muscular endurance will improve as well. For example, it will be easier for a person to squat 225 lbs for twenty reps if their one rep max is 400 lbs than if it were only 300lbs.

The more weight you can push, pull, hinge and squat in any rep range, the more muscle you're going to build because you will trigger muscle growth through mechanical tension, muscle damage and/or metabolic stress.

#2- Muscles Don't Grow in the Gym

You might have heard this old bodybuilding saying before, and it’s absolutely true.

Weightlifting alone doesn't make your muscles bigger and stronger. The gains happen after your workouts, when your body repairs the stress and damage they cause.

Every day, your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle proteins. This process is called protein turnover, and normally, breakdown and creation rates balance each other out. You know, a little example of cellular homeostasis.

Muscle growth happens when protein creation exceeds breakdown for extended periods of time.

What most people don't realize, is that during your workout, protein creation actually declines. This is because exercise is a catabolic (muscle-breaking) activity. Muscle repair, recovery, and growth can only occur afterward.

This is where sleep becomes absolutely critical. Much of what your body does to rebuild and grow happens while you are dreaming. (Note: You don’t literally have to be dreaming, just getting quality sleep). Studies show that sleep deprivation directly inhibits muscle growth and can even cause muscle loss.

What’s even more concerning? Research shows that a single night of poor sleep can interfere with your gym performance, and two nights is enough to ruin it .

The bottom line: If you're not prioritizing 7-9 hours of quality sleep, you're sabotaging your muscle-building efforts no matter how hard you train. Sleep is a non-negotiable! Sleep is a non-negotiable! That’s not a mistake, I wrote it twice because SLEEP IS THAT IMPORTANT!

#3- Muscles Don't Grow Unless Properly Fed

Most people think calories only matter for weight loss. What they don't realize is that if you don't eat enough, your body can't effectively do everything it needs to do to recover from workouts .

Research clearly shows that when you're in a significant caloric deficit, your body's ability to repair and grow muscle tissue is impaired. This is why workouts feel harder when you're dieting, and why even experienced lifters have trouble gaining muscle when cutting fat.

Calories fuel every process in your body, and the muscle-building system is metabolically expensive.

If you want to maximize muscle growth, you need to eat slightly more calories than you're burning every day. This ensures your body has the energy it needs to push hard in the gym and recover afterward.

But calories are only one piece of the nutrition puzzle:

Protein is equally as important. Your muscles are literally made of protein, so adequate intake is a non-negotiable for growth.

Carbohydrates get converted to glycogen, which is stored in the muscles and is the primary fuel for intense exercise. When you restrict carbs, studies show that this inhibits post-workout muscle repair and growth. Low-carb diets can also raise cortisol and lower testosterone, further hampering recovery. Extremely low-carb diets can wreak havoc on your hormonal system.

Dietary fat plays an important supporting role with various bodily functions, but eating too much fat means eating fewer carbs (if you are trying to stay under a specific amount of calories), which may hamper your muscle-building efforts. An important thing to note is that every gram of fat has nine calories. Meanwhile, both protein and carbs contain four calories per gram.

The Simple Truth About Complex Science

You could spend hundreds of hours studying muscle growth and barely scratch the surface. It's extremely complex and involves many different physiological functions.

But hopefully I have simplified the fundamental laws of building muscle in a way so that you no longer feel like you need to be a scientist to build an impressive physique.

You now understand the foundation: You overload, damage, and fatigue your muscles in your workouts, then feed and repair them afterward through sleep and proper fueling. Also as we’ve learned, overloading your muscles and making them produce high amounts of force is optimal. (Safely and within your own unique capabilities of course).

A summary of the three laws:

• Focus on getting stronger on compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses to maximize mechanical tension

• Prioritize sleep to allow protein synthesis to exceed breakdown

• Eat enough calories, protein, and carbs to fuel growth and recovery

Your Action Plan This Week

Are you ready to put these laws into practice? Here's how to start:

Law #1: Choose three compound exercises (The squat, deadlift, bench press, or overhead press). Focus on adding weight or reps to these movements every week.

Law #2: Commit to a consistent sleep schedule this week. Aim for 7-9 hours and track how your workouts feel compared to when you're sleep-deprived.

Law #3: Calculate your daily calorie needs and make sure you're eating enough to support your goals. Don't expect much muscle growth at all while in a significant caloric deficit.

Ready To Build The Muscle YOU’VE Always Wanted?

If you're tired of spinning your wheels in the gym and are ready to apply these proven laws to build serious muscle, I'd love to help you create a systematic approach that works with your busy schedule.

My online coaching program is designed specifically for professionals who want to build muscle efficiently without spending hours researching conflicting advice. We'll use the three fundamental laws of muscle building to create a plan that delivers results.

Are you ready to discover what happens when you work diligently, guided by the basic fundamentals of muscle building while simultaneously cutting out a lot of unnecessary noise?

Click here to apply for customized online personal training today!

Remember: The laws of muscle growth are as reliable as the laws of gravity.

Apply them consistently, and your muscles have no choice but to grow.