What does lifting heavy do?

arditarose · September 2014

Regarding your strength gains from 3 weeks of working out, they are neuro-muscular at this point meaning you are training your nervous system to work more efficiently. It takes a long time to add actual muscle mass.

Great point, and so important for beginners to understand. Just because you can push more weight around after a couple weeks and are getting "stronger" doesn't mean you automatically have more muscles (or more accurately, I suppose, bigger muscles).

Muscle growth requires a lot of things. Extra fuel (in the form of calories), testosterone, and time. They don't grow quickly, that's for sure.

On a couple points here...not just this post.

Yes you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time...but that is while eating at maitenance or a very small deficit. It is called recomp.

Yes you can gain muscle while at a deficit if you are new to lifting or obese...those gains will be small and short lived but doable...

Not saying that has happened here but...it is possible.

Normally for building muscle you do need a surplus and a progressive load lifting program.

For recomp you need patience as it takes a while.

See I had a question about this. I've done my reading and I get it, everywhere says you can't gain muscle mass while at a calorie deficit. I get it, I'm currently just maintaining my muscles while losing fat--but why then am I getting such big results in my arms and back? Is that not new? Is it just muscle I already had, now showing because loss of fat? What is my body doing?

BusyRaeNOTBusty · September 2014

Regarding your strength gains from 3 weeks of working out, they are neuro-muscular at this point meaning you are training your nervous system to work more efficiently. It takes a long time to add actual muscle mass.

Great point, and so important for beginners to understand. Just because you can push more weight around after a couple weeks and are getting "stronger" doesn't mean you automatically have more muscles (or more accurately, I suppose, bigger muscles).

Muscle growth requires a lot of things. Extra fuel (in the form of calories), testosterone, and time. They don't grow quickly, that's for sure.

On a couple points here...not just this post.

Yes you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time...but that is while eating at maitenance or a very small deficit. It is called recomp.

Yes you can gain muscle while at a deficit if you are new to lifting or obese...those gains will be small and short lived but doable...

Not saying that has happened here but...it is possible.

Normally for building muscle you do need a surplus and a progressive load lifting program.

For recomp you need patience as it takes a while.

See I had a question about this. I've done my reading and I get it, everywhere says you can't gain muscle mass while at a calorie deficit. I get it, I'm currently just maintaining my muscles while losing fat--but why then am I getting such big results in my arms and back? Is that not new? Is it just muscle I already had, now showing because loss of fat? What is my body doing?