Are bigger and stronger muscles healthier?

I once was a bodybuilder, I trained seriously 3-6 hours daily, 6-7 days a week for years building my body into what I thought at the time was beautiful. I increased my body mass from 160 lbs. to 245 lbs. I was extremely strong and felt good but I was not extremely healthy. It took me years to understand the difference. I learned how to build my body but didn’t know how to become ultimately healthy. Strong and attractive is not necessarily healthy.

I came to appreciate how dedicated body builders are. The real serious builders dedicate their lives to sculpting their bodies into Greek god like forms. They alter every part of their life to get bigger, stronger and more symmetrical. Now with all the advanced sports enhancement drugs, food supplements and training techniques many are pushing their bodies to new heights of muscle mass with what appears to be muscle on top of muscle combined with extremely low body fat to extenuate muscle size, separation and definition.

Most adopt a high protein, low carbohydrate diet to build muscle while keeping fat to a minimum. While this diet does help build muscle mass it is not the way to achieve ultimate health. It tends to promote internal biochemical acidosis and nitrogen levels which will destroy health not promote health.

It is however not health damaging to moderately increase muscle size and strength. This can be accomplished much easier than most realize. Muscle development is driven by physical demand. Muscle can not only atrophy in short periods of time but can be built in short time frames as well. While it is true one can’t go from a 97 lb. weakling to a 230 lb. strongman over night muscle size and strength can happen quickly. I went from 160 lbs. to over 200 lbs. in less than a year. Now I know that many scientific based books will state that this isn’t possible I have read them. Many science books state that the maximum muscle mass that a human can build in a year is around 4-8 lbs. I’m living proof that this is not true and I did it when I was in my early thirties much past my physical prime.

Back to the topic, muscle building is driven by physical demand or resistance. Physical stress loads within the muscle matrix during training sends signals to the brain that more strength is needed. These message signals are the beginning of new muscle development. I have found through my own training experiments that especially in the early stages of training muscle responds rapidly and becomes stronger and larger vary quickly. In some cases a doubling in strength and significant size gain is possible in only a few weeks. The amount of repetitions is not the answer to muscle growth rather that muscle is stressed beyond its ability to perform. This is called, “failure,” in training circles.

While it is true that many repetitions tend to get more blood flow into the muscle tissue and creating a, “pump,” pushing the muscle to failure yields the best results if the goal is muscle growth and strength. There are still many opinions about how many sets and repetitions but I have had excellent results training with very few sets and reps to failure. In my opinion the amount of sets and repetitions is less important than pushing the muscle to failure. Of course it is important to warm up the muscle before pushing it to failure but one push to failure may yield as much results as several so why do the extra work. I recommend one to two sets to warm-up the muscle group and then one set to failure for strength and growth.

I have found that investing the time and effort in cardiovascular training to get your heart in top condition is time and effort better spent than weight training if the goal is to achieve ultimate health, reference my article on “optimum cardiovascular condition,” in this section. Also with a little cardio training a significant loss of subcutaneous as well as intramuscular fat is possible. Keep in mind that proper training programs are necessary for maximum results.

I want to remind all that while muscle can be attractive it must be kept to moderation if ultimate health is the goal. Internal biochemical pH balance and cardiovascular condition is much more important to overall ultimate health than large muscles and strength.

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