Is It Possible To Gain Muscle Through Running?

siabevis

Running is cardio and is effective for fatloss and weightloss, but, however, if you eat eough calories, can you add muscle?
I understand muscle is made through lifting weights and strength training in a gym or home (wherever), but when I used to run and play soccer as a teen, I gained some pretty muscluar calves and thighs. (I also used to eat TWO dinners as well so maybe that helped with the muscle gain lol). I had 0 fat as well from all the cardio but i had MUSCLE.

So my question is-can you gain muscle through running when you eat extra calories needed to build? Complicated question I know. Thanks.

SHBoss1673

muscle is gained through any activity that forces the particular muscle to work harder than it's capabilities. so yes, it's possible, but it depends greatly on your starting point, and how hard you work, most people will see small gains in muscle mass when they begin a routine (after about 6 weeks of work to maximize existing muscle use) that is cardio heavy, but as their body adapts to the exercise, working aerobically will induce little, if any, additional mass gains unless you force your muscles to go anaerobic. I.E. just doing normal distance runs will only take you so far, but adding sprints, or weighted routines, or hills, or staggering your workouts would help.

deathstarclock

muscle is gained through any activity that forces the particular muscle to work harder than it's capabilities. so yes, it's possible, but it depends greatly on your starting point, and how hard you work, most people will see small gains in muscle mass when they begin a routine (after about 6 weeks of work to maximize existing muscle use) that is cardio heavy, but as their body adapts to the exercise, working aerobically will induce little, if any, additional mass gains unless you force your muscles to go anaerobic. I.E. just doing normal distance runs will only take you so far, but adding sprints, or weighted routines, or hills, or staggering your workouts would help.

Solid, sound advice

neilawuk

depends on the type of running, long slow distance running makes you lose muscle. Sprint training and fast twitch type running will make you gain muscle.


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Ebbykins

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

siabevis

depends on the type of running, long slow distance running makes you lose muscle. Sprint training and fast twitch type running will make you gain muscle.

Oh yeah see I was a sprinter on my high school's track team back on the day. And soccer is lots of sprinting/quick movements.

Coltsman4ever

http://www.livestrong.com/article/92159-run-gain-muscle/

siabevis

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

Can I run with ankle weights or belt weights? I thought about throwing some bricks in a backpack lol!

myofibril

muscle is gained through any activity that forces the particular muscle to work harder than it's capabilities. so yes, it's possible, but it depends greatly on your starting point, and how hard you work, most people will see small gains in muscle mass when they begin a routine (after about 6 weeks of work to maximize existing muscle use) that is cardio heavy, but as their body adapts to the exercise, working aerobically will induce little, if any, additional mass gains unless you force your muscles to go anaerobic. I.E. just doing normal distance runs will only take you so far, but adding sprints, or weighted routines, or hills, or staggering your workouts would help.

Solid, sound advice

Yup.

Specificity is a good principle when training - you should use the appropriate tools for the job. If muscular hypertrophy is your goal then the specific tool is training which focuses on resistance. Sure you can get cross over from other training methods (such as aerobic exercise) but it won't be as efficient in achieving your desired outcomes.

smilebhappy

bump to read later

u2fergus

bump to read later

same here!

Ebbykins

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

Can I run with ankle weights or belt weights? I thought about throwing some bricks in a backpack lol!

If you want to destroy your joints and create muscle imbalances that create injury, sure giver berries. Cardio is cardio, strength training (not circuit training) is in it's own class completely.

SHBoss1673

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

there's a semantic mistake in this statement. Here: " You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy,"

you cannot build NEW muscle mass without hypertrophy, I agree, but you can, in fact, build functional strength without hypertrophy. Remember, muscles usually have a percent that are dormant, you can activate dormant muscle without hypertrophy, it's what weight trainers call the "eight week wall", but can actually happen in about 6 weeks, it's the point at which you have activated all dormant muscle fibers and now the only way for a muscle to increase functional strength is to actually grow in mass.

this is a little nit picky, forgive me for that, but I wanted to make sure people understand that if all your looking for is strength/performance increases, you don't necessarily have to work to technical failure, not unless you're already maxed out with your current muscle fiber bundles.

SHBoss1673

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

Can I run with ankle weights or belt weights? I thought about throwing some bricks in a backpack lol!

If you want to destroy your joints and create muscle imbalances that create injury, sure giver berries. Cardio is cardio, strength training (not circuit training) is in it's own class completely.

I agree, don't run with ankle or leg weights, it throws the joint out of balance. if you want to run with weight, run with a backpack or a weighted vest, although gains using this technique are minimal. If you really want to increase strength in the legs, do lower body weight training, I.E. Olympic lifts, squats, dead lifts, pistol squats, 1 legged dead lifts...etc.

SHBoss1673

muscle is gained through any activity that forces the particular muscle to work harder than it's capabilities. so yes, it's possible, but it depends greatly on your starting point, and how hard you work, most people will see small gains in muscle mass when they begin a routine (after about 6 weeks of work to maximize existing muscle use) that is cardio heavy, but as their body adapts to the exercise, working aerobically will induce little, if any, additional mass gains unless you force your muscles to go anaerobic. I.E. just doing normal distance runs will only take you so far, but adding sprints, or weighted routines, or hills, or staggering your workouts would help.

Solid, sound advice

Yup.

Specificity is a good principle when training - you should use the appropriate tools for the job. If muscular hypertrophy is your goal then the specific tool is training which focuses on resistance. Sure you can get cross over from other training methods (such as aerobic exercise) but it won't be as efficient in achieving your desired outcomes.

absolutely agree. I have two areas of "expertise", AQR (Agility, Quickness, and Reaction time) and Olympic Power Lifting, the two are actually far closer related than one might think as they both deal with explosiveness of the legs and core. You need good lower body strength to have fast reaction time, and you need great core strength to lift a weight from your knees over your head (balance is vital. I also teach a lot of plyometrics which you might want to look into, which helps grow muscle mass without hypertrophy (or that's only partially true, but it's true enough for this discussion).

ChitownFoodie

Bump....im trying to add more muscle too. Great topic.

Ebbykins

Generally no, especially if you aren't a beginning runner/exerciser, your body has probably adapted to the resistance (yes even if you do it on an incline) from running by now and muscle growth from it will stagnate. You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy, or higher levels of resistance/load applied to the muscle and running does not provide enough resistance to do so. In fact, running if done at too high an intensity for long periods has the opposite effect.

there's a semantic mistake in this statement. Here: " You can't build functional muscle/strength without hypertrophy,"

you cannot build NEW muscle mass without hypertrophy, I agree, but you can, in fact, build functional strength without hypertrophy. Remember, muscles usually have a percent that are dormant, you can activate dormant muscle without hypertrophy, it's what weight trainers call the "eight week wall", but can actually happen in about 6 weeks, it's the point at which you have activated all dormant muscle fibers and now the only way for a muscle to increase functional strength is to actually grow in mass.

this is a little nit picky, forgive me for that, but I wanted to make sure people understand that if all your looking for is strength/performance increases, you don't necessarily have to work to technical failure, not unless you're already maxed out with your current muscle fiber bundles.

I was specifying for her, in her particular case (she's on my friends list and is very petite) and has been training well over a year, so for her case, she would have to do just this, use actual strength training to further any more muscle growth.

Also I don't like to get nit picky either, but "muscle growth" and "functional strength" are completely different because one provides mass and the other conditions.

Ebbykins

Also I'd like to add, that trying to add muscle through plyo, cardio or HIIT is a lot harder than if you were following a proper strength day/cardio day routine because the calories burned during these types of workouts are higher, meaning, you have to eat back what you burned and another 250-500+ calories everyday just to maintain (women usually have to eat in a higher calorie range to see muscle growth) in which case is very hard for even some men to do, let alone a smaller women who are used to eating small amounts under the 1500 range.

SHBoss1673

I was specifying for her, in her particular case (she's on my friends list and is very petite) and has been training well over a year, so for her case, she would have to do just this, use actual strength training to further any more muscle growth.

Also I don't like to get nit picky either, but "muscle growth" and "functional strength" are completely different because one provides mass and the other conditions.

gotcha, just making sure people understand, you'd be shocked at how people can take something written on here and totally twist it around, after 5 years with MFP, I've see it all.

Ebbykins

I was specifying for her, in her particular case (she's on my friends list and is very petite) and has been training well over a year, so for her case, she would have to do just this, use actual strength training to further any more muscle growth.

Also I don't like to get nit picky either, but "muscle growth" and "functional strength" are completely different because one provides mass and the other conditions.

gotcha, just making sure people understand, you'd be shocked at how people can take something written on here and totally twist it around, after 5 years with MFP, I've see it all.

Precisely, which is why I push a well balanced cardio/heavy resistance/plyo/HIIT cycled routine for over all conditioning, endurance and strength gains based on peoples specific goals. If I'm not mistaken she wants to be a fitness model from her prior posts, so in her particular case, I advocate lifting the iron and using cardio activities purely for conditioning.

siabevis

Awesome responses!

whouwannab

bump

liftingbro

In order to understand building muscle you need to understant the types of muscle:

#1- Slow Twitch Muscle Fiber (ST): ST is muscle that is used for movements that are repetitive, low resistance, and requires endurance. ST muscle fibers do not hypertrophy very much at all. ST muscle fibers are the type of muscle fibers used for running and other endurance exercies.

#2- Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber (FT): FT is muscle that is used for fast, explosive movements or movements that place a significant load on the muscle. Generally speaking in order to maximize FT activation you have to load the muscle(s) being used with a minimum of about 60% of it's maximum ability. So, if you can bench 200, you'd probably need to lift at least 120lbs to activate a significant amount of FT muscle fibers. FT muscle fibers are the fibers largely responsible for muscle growth (Hypertrophy)

How that applies to running:

Running does not exert enough resistance on the muscle to cause a significant amount of hypertrophy because running activates slow twitch fibers and not fast twitch fibers. However, strength gains can be made without hypertrophy because as you become trained at an activity your body will be more efficient at recruiting muscle fibers. When you are untrained you simply have a lot of muscle fibers that your body cannot recruit efficiently. With repeated exercises and training you can make huge strength gains without gaining any muscle.

So, the short of it is that it's highly unlikely that you will build much, if any, muscle by running though your legs will no doubt become stronger and more solid.

watchmeshrink16

Bump!

JMCade

Glad I read this. Thanks to all for your opinions!