In order for muscles to grow they first need to be put under enough stress to break down.

Kind of like us in real life huh?

But if they undergo too much damage, it could make it harder for them to grow back stronger.

Today, we are going to talk about the second muscle building essential- Muscular Damage.

What’s the deal on muscle damage?

Allow me to explain this without getting too technical- Muscles are a living organism a part of our bodies. What we eat, how much rest we get, how we live our lives, and our age are all in direct correlation to much how muscle we have and how efficient our body is at regenerating it.

When we exercise and put our muscles under tension, our muscles undergo a degree of damage.

Our muscles become inflamed and blood flows to provide nutrients to the infected area. Sometimes you may not be sore until a day or two after a workout and DOMS (Delayed- Onset Muscle Soreness) kicks in; this is perfectly normal. It’s also normal for the body to remain sore for a day or two beyond that.

If we exercise so hard that our muscles are sore for more than three days post workout, and our body feels like it got ran over by a bus, it will be much harder for the body to recover and we may do more damage than good.

However, if we don’t create enough tension during a workout and at least break our muscles down a little, our bodies won’t have much to recover from and they will have no reason to adapt and grow stronger.

Our bodies can generally handle a lot of physical stress. There are many factors that go into play for how much stress is too much for each of our bodies, such as our experience level and age.

We want to challenge our bodies to work hard, but we are only as strong as our body’s ability to recover.

Who cares if you can do a three hour leg workout with 20 sets of squats and lunges- if you’re not sleeping, eating correctly, and doing what your body requires to recover, you won’t be able to build the amount of muscle that you would like.

So what’s the bottom line?

If you want your muscles to grow, they need to be challenged and pushed to a level of discomfort. This allows them to break down (and tear to some degree).

During the healing and regeneration process, the body needs adequate nutrients, rest, and sleep in order to recover and grow back stronger.

Exercise, eat, sleep, repeat.

If you stay within your limits you will never grow. When you experience a mild sense of discomfort and “pump” in your muscles, challenge yourself to push past it and keep going as long as you can. As long as you can do so safely- progressively increase the workload, rep count, set count, or weight to continue making muscular gains.

In a nutshell, your muscles need to be challenged in order to grow followed by proper recovery. Wait until your muscles have recovered and are no longer sore before targeting that muscle group again. The faster your muscles recover, the more often you can target and train them. The more often a specific muscle is targeted and trained, the more potential it has to grow.

If you’d like to have everything professionally programmed for you with appropriate progression built it, then consider applying for our CK Build program.

In this 12-week program, you will learn the 6 muscle building essentials for proper exercise execution and proper technique. Even if you are an advanced lifter, I guarantee you will benefit from learning and adopting these advanced yet foundational techniques.

Build muscle and gain confidence with 12 weeks of workouts, nutrition lessons, and accountability to keep you on track.

This program is available for in-person training at the Fitt Factory in Canton, Michigan and is coming soon as an online program.

You can read more about the program and apply below.