The fit10 advantage

The science of building muscle

Six benefits of doing slow reps

1. It prevents injury – When you do each repetition in super slow motion, you’re much less likely to injure yourself. That’s because you have the time to learn how to do each exercise properly and focus on maintaining correct form with every repetition. Technique is much more important than speed when it comes to building strength. Quick, jerky movements can result in injuries.

2. It helps you perfect your form – Not only are you at risk of injury when you do reps quickly, but you’re also jeopardizing your technique. An exercise won’t do you any good if it is done incorrectly, so make sure you are taking the time to get the motion right with every single repetition.

3. You can build larger muscle mass more quickly – Slow reps can build muscle much faster than regular speed reps can. This happens because it forces your muscles to hold the resistance longer. In a standard motion push-up, for example, a slow motion will keep your muscles activated the whole time. If you go faster, momentum will do a lot of the work for you, and your muscles will be active for a shorter amount of time.

4. It fatigues your muscles – One of the main goals of doing strength building exercise is to fatigue your muscles until they fail. At a certain point you won’t be able to do anymore reps; this will send a signal to your body to repair the damaged muscle and instigate greater growth.

5. Your skeletal muscles get stronger – Doing reps slowly targets your skeletal muscles, which are essential to everyday movements. Skeletal muscles use more energy than other muscles, therefore burning more calories. They also produce more heat and receive more blood flow. Activating and improving your skeletal muscle system will improve your stamina and overall strength.

6. Virtually anyone can do it – The slow rep method has been used successfully with elderly women diagnosed with osteoporosis. The quick, uneven movements of typical reps against resistance, especially for people with little muscle mass or physical limits caused by medical conditions, can be unsafe and ineffective.

Benefit of one set to failure

Muscle fibers are recruited and stimulated sequentially—from slow twitch to fast twitch—by one set taken to a point of momentary muscular failure. The scientific literature supports the concept of one set taken to failure as at least the equal of multi set work, which indicates that doing any more sets would be a waste of time and recovery resources.

One set to failure has the added benefit of making it easy to keep track of intensity numbers; weight x reps divided by minutes and you have a good benchmark to try to beat next time. Progressive intensity is the key to steady progress.

Interval training

Interval workouts are any workout where you do something with all-out effort for a set amount of time, preceded and followed by a period of low intensity or rest for another specified amount of time. You repeat these intervals until time is up.

Science has proven that the HIIT method is more effective at accomplishing what most people think they are accomplishing with the more typical “aerobic” or “cardio” workout, which consists of doing a steady state movement (same moderate pace), for 20-30 minutes. Doing intervals takes a fraction of the time a conventional cardio workout takes and gets better results.

Benefits of interval workouts

Burns more calories than regular cardio. Doing steady state cardio requires what are called slow-twitch muscle fibers. Intervals requires more fast-twitch muscle fibers. Fast-twitch muscle fibers require more energy – aka burn more calories when being used.

Continues to burn calories, even after you’re done working out. This is due to what’s called the Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) effect. To illustrate, think about your car. After you turn it off the engine is not instantly cool, it stays warm for a while. A similar effect happens with your body after exercise, your metabolism stays elevated for some time after. EPOC is not influenced by the duration of your workout, rather, by the intensity.

Scientifically proven to stimulate anti-aging hormones. Intervals stimulates the production of human growth hormone.

An increase in endurance. Intervals is one of the fastest ways to build your endurance. The gold standard for measuring endurance is through a VO2 Max test. Those who do intervals consistently have superior scores to those doing conventional cardio.

How muscles grow

Skeletal muscle is the most adaptable tissue in your body. When you stress your muscles, like weightlifting, your muscle fibers undergo trauma, or what is called muscle injury. When your muscles are injured this way, satellite cells on the outside of the muscle fibers become activated. They attempt to repair the damage by joining together and, as a result, increasing the muscle fiber.

Stressing your muscles also release growth hormone from your pituitary gland. How much is released depends on the intensity of the exercise you have done. Growth hormone triggers your metabolism and helps turn amino acids into protein to build muscle.

How to build muscle

The good news is that spending hours every week in the gym is not necessary to build muscle. If done correctly, just ten to fifteen minutes a day, or even less depending on your age, is enough to see results. You should try to target all your major muscle groups at least twice throughout your weekly workouts.

While you may not see results right away, even a single strength training session can help promote muscle growth. Exercise stimulates what is called protein synthesis in the 2 to 4 hours after you finish your workout. Your levels may stay elevated for up to a whole day.

How exactly can you tell if your muscles are growing? You may be able to see more muscle definition. If not, you will certainly be able to lift heavier things with greater ease over time.

The old standard approach to building strength was to do between 8 and 15 repetitions in a row, equaling one set. Then wait a minute in between sets to rest. Then complete another set of the same length… then another.

The fit10 method is much different. By using isometrics to pre-fatigue the muscles being worked, only one set of reps is necessary, assuming that the reps conclude with the inability to do more.

Keep in mind that sleep plays a role in both muscle development and recovery. Try to average seven hours of sleep per night.

Women build muscle at a different rate than men. Men and women build muscles differently. That is because testosterone plays a big role in muscle development. While both sexes have testosterone in their bodies, men have more of this hormone. However, studies have shown that both men and women have similar responses to strength training.

Muscle growth is also affected by:

  • Body size

  • Body composition

  • Hormones

Overall, more noticeable changes in muscle mass tend to happen for people of either sex who have more muscle mass to begin with.

Diet and muscles

The foods you eat may help you build more muscle. Eat a healthy diet that has a good dose of protein. These foods will fuel your workouts and help build muscle through certain amino acids like leucine. Animal sources have the most protein, but vegetable sources can also be sufficient. You can find leucine in animal products like:

  • beef

  • lamb

  • pork

  • poultry

  • fish

  • eggs

  • milk

  • milk products, like cheese

Non-animal sources of protein include foods like:

  • beans

  • nuts

  • seeds