Tips for Building Muscle and Working Muscles Regionally

What Is Muscle?

In the most basic definition, muscle is the factor in the body that consists of muscle cells, has a certain structure within itself, and provides power generation and movement in the body. They enable the movement of the bone structures to which they adhere, have the ability to contract naturally, and are “active” organs of movement. The human body consists of more than 600 muscles, and muscles are divided into three different types:

• Striated Muscles (Skeletal Muscle)
• Smooth muscles
• Cardiac muscle (myocardium) 

Of these three types of muscles, only skeletal muscles can be controlled voluntarily; the other two cannot. Smooth muscles are important for transporting blood, air, and food through blood vessels, the respiratory tract, and the digestive system. The cardiac muscle, on the other hand, helps pump blood throughout the body. The muscles that are exercised through sports and training are striated muscles, and it is necessary to act regularly and consciously to develop them.

Anatomy of muscles

It can be said that striated muscles (skeletal muscle) constitute approximately 40% of all body tissues, since they are the muscles that enable body movement as we mentioned before. Skeletal muscles can be controlled consciously and receive orders from the central nervous system. It is surrounded by an elastic membrane called sarcolemma, and a nerve goes to each muscle. These nerves send an electric signal when you want to tighten it. The electrical signal causes the muscle to contract, thus shortening and thickening the muscle fibers. How many muscle fibers shorten depends on the load applied to the muscle. If the muscle requires more force, more muscle fibers will also be stretch. When you finish contracting your muscle and want to relax it again, the electrical signal from the nerve stops. During contraction of skeletal muscle, electrical signals are also sent back to the brain. These signals give the brain information about the tension of the muscle. Thus, you can maintain your posture and the position of your joints.

How to Build Muscle?

Your muscles always do most of the work. Whether you’re running down the street or blinking your eyes, your muscles can literally do all the work, in every movement, for you to get you where you need to be. So, keeping your muscles strong means more than just training for rock-hard abs. Because strong muscles are also necessary for posture, mobility and bones.

Building muscle is achieved by regularly training your muscles, mostly with challenging weights. You damage muscle tissue by straining your muscles. However, these damages are minor and harmless. These damages, which are a necessary part of the muscle development process, are called muscle tears. The muscles break down, become stressed, and small micro-cracks form in the fibers thanks to these tears. The muscle soreness you experience after a workout is partly due to these micro-tears in your muscle fibers. Muscles develop thanks to the muscle breakdown caused by strength training. These micro-cracks give the body a signal to move nutrients into muscle cells to build new, stronger muscle fibers. As a result, the stretch marks merge with the muscle tissue, creating larger and stronger muscle tissue.

We’ve listed the subjects you should focus on in order to gain muscle below:

Quality Nutrition: Macro (main components) elements such as protein, carbohydrates (complex and some simple carbohydrates -sugars), healthy fats are indispensable for our nutrition discipline. All cells in your body, including your muscle cells, are composed primarily of proteins. The proteins you consume are used to rebuild and repair damaged cells. Exercise stresses and damages your muscles, and the proteins you consume help rebuild that muscle mass, making your muscles even stronger. You won’t gain much muscle, though, if you’re working out hard and don’t consume enough protein to repair your muscles^[1]. The importance of water consumption is another factor that should not be forgotten. 2.5-3 liters of water, which is referred to as the daily water consumption standard, becomes much more important for individuals who train, and this amount should be increased over time. Micro (auxiliary) components such as vitamins and minerals should also not be neglected. 

Training Routine: A good diet is essential to reach your body’s peak potential, but potential cannot be achieved until you begin the process of breaking down your muscles and making them bigger, bigger and stronger. The best way to do this is start from the beginning. As it is necessary to find the appropriate program and continue it for a certain period of time, this process requires a certain amount of patience. The program should not be changed too frequently and the process of getting to know the body should be evaluated in the best possible way. Otherwise, good progress cannot be achieved. 

Increasing Weights Gradually: You may want to consider building muscle faster by starting with a lot of weight. Apart from a lot of muscle pain, this won’t help you at all. Instead of this, you can start with smaller weights and a small number of sets and repetitions to learn how to build muscle with each exercise. According to the American Cancer Society, gentle strength training with 8 to 12 repetitions is sufficient for most people^[2].

You can start by choosing weights that are light enough to work out with, but not heavy enough to lift that weight easily after 6 to 12 repetitions of the same exercise^[3]. Although this may be too light for you, it is possible for you to lift heavier over time with continuous training. However, if you can easily do 20 reps, it’s time to add more weight to continue challenging your muscles.

Rest: Rest is one of the most important stages of building muscle mass. If you lift weights every day without a break, you are likely to experience muscle pain, poor performance, fatigue, and all the other symptoms of over training. Because of that muscle growth may also stall, making you more susceptible to injury as your muscles grow during rest, not during training. A minimum of 7 or 8 hours of sleep every night are necessary for the body to recover and repair (develop) its muscles. Bad habits such as alcohol and smoking should be avoided for deep sleep.

In addition to adequate sleep, exercise dosage should not be exaggerated. It might be thought of as “the more, the better” but in fact the opposite is true. A point known as “over training” may be reached. This causes you to lose the ability to “inflate” (supply the muscles with oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood) and even cause muscle wasting (atrophy), which is the exact opposite of what you are trying to achieve. The following indications point to the possibility that you are over training:

• Chronic fatigue
• Weakening
• Diminishing appetite
• Insomnia
• Depression
• Chronic pain
• Susceptibility to injury

Tips for Building Muscles

In addition to the details such as nutrition, training regimen and rest that we mentioned in the previous paragraph for muscle development, we list other important points of muscle development in items:

• Warm up well before training
• Determining the training purpose and intensity very well (such as high repetitions with low weight or low repetitions with high weight)
• Working different muscles on different days
• Allowing the muscles to rest for 24-72 hours after a good workout to allow the body to repair worn-out tissues
• Increasing the weight lifted over time to continue muscle growth
• Not neglecting cardio exercises (20 or 30 minutes at the end of the weight training day or on a different day when weight training will not be done)
• Keeping the stress level as low as possible

Equipment Needed For Muscle Building

Just as there are many equipment that can be used in muscle building exercises (at home or in the gym), exercises performed with only body weight can also contribute to muscle development. If you are working out in the gym, you can use the existing equipment range and push your limits. If you don’t have a chance to work at gym you can use many equipment at home. The most important of these equipment are dumbbell sets with certain weights (such as 2.5-5 or 10 kg) and resistance bands (again in certain resistance ranges). The bench that you have at home might be problematic because it might take up a lot of room. Because of this, there will inevitably be a difference in the training tempo at home and in the gym.

The Relationship Between Muscle Building and Nutrition

The issue of quality nutrition, which we examined under the title “How to build muscle?”, also appears here. Proteins (amino acids), quality (complex-compound) carbohydrates, healthy fats and vitamins are essential to get maximum efficiency from a workout. Proteins are broken down into pieces (amino acids) for tired muscle groups and contribute to the formation of new fibrils and muscle bundles (transverse and longitudinal), carbohydrates, on the other hand, are stored as glucose for the energy circulation we call ATP (adenosine triphosphate) before and after training and are used as a kind of fuel before, during and after training. Healthy fats protect your cardiovascular health thanks to the beneficial cholesterol they contain. Vitamins perform essential functions in the body such as the digestion, transportation, and cellular uptake of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, which are involved in specific metabolic cycles. Your muscles need approximately 1.8 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of your total weight. A male weighing 80 kg, for instance, requires about 140–160 grams of protein. Additionally, fats and carbohydrates should not be taken too much or too little. The important thing to note here is that these nutrients will vary from person to person and depending on the training^[5].

Muscle Building Guide by Parts Of The Body

If you want to increase your muscle mass in general and get stronger, you need to exercise each muscle, and for this, exercises targeting more than one muscle are recommended. However, when you want to develop only a few muscles for a particular sport, you need to know which movement works which muscle. Movements such as squats, lunges and push-ups, which are called of strength training, are ideal for targeting specific areas.

Work Pectoralis Muscles with Chest Exercises 

There are many options available, from the classic push-up exercise to the basic “press” exercises that you can do on a bench, such as bench press, incline and decline press, and chest compression exercises called flies.

Work the Back Muscles: Latissimus dorsi, Rhomboids (major and minor), Teres Major 

Vertical pull downs, horizontal pulls (seated or standing rows), and bent over rows with the body bent forward are basic back exercises. Pull-ups with body weight are also among the most effective exercises.

Work Your Leg Muscles

For quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, bodyweight or barbell squats are recommended. Specifically for glutes, deadlifts are effective. For hamstrings, leg curls on a machine are beneficial, and for quadriceps, leg extensions on a machine can be used. For calf muscles, rising and lowering on the toes is effective, and if equipment is available, calf raises are a good choice. 

Work Biceps (Front Upper Part of Arm) and Triceps (Back Upper Part of Arm) Muscles During Arm Exercises

Biceps curl exercise is done with dumbbells, bar or cable machines, triceps extension (arm extension) exercise is also done with dumbbells, bar or cable machines, overhead arm extension can be done by pushing down on cable equipment or by pressing down on the machine. 

Exercise Your Shoulder Muscles 

Basic upward presses with dumbbells or bar, front raise, lateral raise, rear fly and upright row exercises on the bench or machine are effective for shoulder development. 

Exercise Your Abdominal Muscles 

The most basic exercises that come to mind are sit-ups. However, crunch exercises activate the abdominal muscles in general. In order to reveal the abdominal muscles, a proper diet is also required in addition to exercise.

Training Program Example

Day 1 

Chest Area 

Chest Press 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Incline Machine Press 3 sets of 12 repetitions

Machine Fly 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Rear Arm

Triceps pushdown 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Cable overhead extension 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Rope pushdown 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Day 2

Back Area 

Seated machine row 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Seated cable lat pull down 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Reverse grip pull down 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Forearm

Standing dumbbell curl 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Hammer curl 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Standing cable curl 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Day 3

Shoulder area 

Machine shoulder press 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Standing dumbbell raise 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Standing dumbbell Lateral raise 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Dumbbell upright row 3 sets of 12 repetitions 

Leg Area 

Leg press 4 sets of 12 repetitions 

Leg extension 4 sets of 12 repetitions 

Leg curl 4 sets of 12 repetitions 

Standing calf raises with dumbbells 4 sets of 12 repetitions