Lift big weights. Eat protein. Get muscles. Simple, eh? Unfortunately,
no. It's all too easy to hit a muscle-building plateau, and
supplements
can seem like the answer. But, before you blow your hard-earned cash on
whatever supps your local gym has in stock, you should learn how your
muscles work.Your body has two forms of muscle fibers: type-I fibers (aka
slow-twitch) help you perform endurance exercise, and type-II fibers
(aka fast-twitch) are the large fibers responsible for strength and size
when weight training. To damage these type-II fibers enough to cause
growth, you have to lift weights and keep your muscles under enough
tension to recruit satellite cells.
These cells sit on the top of muscles and help grow, maintain and repair
your
muscles. They often lie dormant until you do heavy lifting. The
heavy lifting causes tiny micro-tears in the muscle fibers, which
triggers your satellite cells to multiply and move toward the areas you
damage. They use the proteins from food to thicken and strengthen your
muscles and you end up with tighter sleeves.Fortunately, scientists have developed supplements that can help these
efforts by influencing your nutritional, hormonal, and energy systems.
Learn how to use them to your advantage.
