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How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

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Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#11

Post by ec109685 »

garraeth wrote: post #9
Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

Even if you are operating with a calorie surplus, you'd need to eat an optimal mix of nutrients to maintain extra muscle. Most people (most likely) cannot simply ramp up amounts of what you currently eat. For example, if you suddenly require 5000 c/day, you cannot simply eat more pizza, MT Dew, etc. You have to eat 5000 c/day of nutrient rich food. Your muscles do not only require calories. This is actually very hard…

Which nutrients are pizza missing for building muscle? The problem with pizza is that it is way too easy to over indulge, but I don't think it is lacking "nutrients".

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#12

Post by Aron »

maxcan wrote: post #3
Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

Simply maintaining muscle mass requires a considerable amount of calories. Our bodies evolved to function with the least calories possible. So, if you aren't using your muscles often, the body will catabolize muscle to save energy. If you are using your muscles, and thus signaling to your body that you need more of them, your body will devote energy to hypertrophy and increase muscle mass. The current regime of near…

How many calories do you think it takes [to maintain] +1 lb of muscle mass, with same activity levels? [Hint: It's not the broscience 50]

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#13

Post by amelius »

Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

A related question would be: why doesn't my body dump all the fat, since I'm eating a surplus of calories anyway?

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#14

Post by Aron »

dpark wrote: post #8
innerpeace1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bravo, spoken like a true geek, if only evolution was as simple as building machines.

Evolution is building machines. What is often missed is that the machines that survive best across many scenarios may not excel in most scenarios. You can build a robot that moves 60mph on wheels but it can't take the stairs. Evolution could have built humans that naturally carry far more muscle, but those same humans would die massively in the event of a famine.

In a famine, they can consume their muscles as calories.

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#15

Post by spodek »

Since I bet the overwhelming majority of our 300,000 years worth of homo sapiens ancestors and countless more years of prior ancestors exercised in these ways as a matter of course, I would instead title it

"How sedentary lifestyles and lack of strength training degrade your body and mind."

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#16

Post by Aron »

amelius wrote: post #13
Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

A related question would be: why doesn't my body dump all the fat, since I'm eating a surplus of calories anyway?

Presumably because carrying surplus fat has minimal cost relative to the evolutionary likelihood of famine. This is more obvious than the muscle scenario. For muscle, prior to the famine you get to do cool things like punch your neighbor and do pull ups. During a famine, you could consume your muscles as calories. Where is the cost?

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#17

Post by zebraflask »

garraeth wrote: post #9
Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

Even if you are operating with a calorie surplus, you'd need to eat an optimal mix of nutrients to maintain extra muscle. Most people (most likely) cannot simply ramp up amounts of what you currently eat. For example, if you suddenly require 5000 c/day, you cannot simply eat more pizza, MT Dew, etc. You have to eat 5000 c/day of nutrient rich food. Your muscles do not only require calories. This is actually very hard…

There's some truth to this. Junk food is over-processed, doesn't have much in the way of nutrient content, and is usually loaded with too much sugar and salt. Everyone knows that.

But I think this comment is overestimating how many calories you'd need and how concerned you'd need to be about nutrient balancing, even on a fairly intense training program. Most people, in their first few years of weight lifting, aren't going to need much or any increase to their daily calories that they wouldn't come by naturally from getting hungry due to the exercise. For people who want to lose some weight, moderating the size and frequency of meals and cutting out obviously bad food will have the quickest and most visible results.

It's far more important to just hit the weights consistently. That's where you get results. I started about 2 years ago and dropped about 40 pounds without ever worrying about the diet side of things or counting calories. The only real changes I made were to start taking a daily multivitamin and to make an effort to avoid sugared soda, fruit juice (has a ton of sugar), junk food, etc.

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#18

Post by Volundr »

Aron wrote: post #14
dpark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is building machines. What is often missed is that the machines that survive best across many scenarios may not excel in most scenarios. You can build a robot that moves 60mph on wheels but it can't take the stairs. Evolution could have built humans that naturally carry far more muscle, but those same humans would die massively in the event of a famine.

In a famine, they can consume their muscles as calories.

The return on consuming muscles is much lower than consuming fat. Thus we retain fat not musculature.

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#19

Post by Aron »

dnackoul wrote: post #6
Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

Because muscles take energy to power and fat is storage. In the non-modern world where food was scarcer it wasn't always advantageous to increase in muscle size and therefore caloric needs. Better to carry some fat around in case you don't find food for a while.

I agree that this is the shape of the answer, but I think that fat being preferential to muscle as a calorie store leaves not a lot of room to believe that muscle had substantial other advantages to health. Now of course, it might not be having the muscle that is healthful, but the activities involved in creating it.

Re: How Strength Training Changes Your Body for Good

#20

Post by eberkund »

Aron wrote: post #2

Weight training doesn't make your muscles bigger, it inspires your body to make your muscles bigger. So my question has always been, if having bigger muscles is good why doesn't the body just do it? It certainly has to be aware that I'm operating with a calorie surplus.

Simply put: your body knows you are operating at a caloric surplus NOW. But it can't assume you will be operating at a caloric surplus for the indefinite future. Your body doesn't want to behave like a professional athlete who spends all the money from their first contract only to have a career ending injury and wind up broke.
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