You Don't Build Muscle In The Gym

Hi Team Gray Iron,

Here's something that took me a while to fully appreciate:

You don't actually build muscle while you're exercising.

You build it while you're recovering.

Strength training provides the stimulus. It challenges your muscles and tells your body, "We need to be stronger for the next time we do this."

Then the rebuilding begins.

During the hours and days after a workout, your body repairs and remodels muscle tissue. With enough recovery, along with the right nutrition, that adaptation can leave you stronger and better prepared for your next workout.

Training is the signal. Recovery is where the adaptation happens.

Recovery Becomes Even More Important as We Age

As we get older, maintaining muscle becomes increasingly important.

Beginning in midlife, we gradually lose muscle mass and strength unless we actively work to preserve them. That's one reason I've been talking so much about strength training lately.

But more exercise isn't always better.

If we repeatedly challenge the same muscles without giving them enough time to recover, we may actually work against what we're trying to accomplish.

Persistent soreness, declining performance, unusual fatigue, poor sleep, or simply feeling worn down can all be signs that it's time to ease up.

The goal isn't to exercise as much as possible. It's to exercise enough to stimulate change, and then give your body what it needs to make that change.

The Four R's of Recovery

1. Rest

Give trained muscles time before working them hard again.

You don't necessarily need to take the next day completely off. You might train a different part of your body, take a walk, or do some gentle mobility work.

But doing an intense workout for the same muscle groups day after day doesn't give them much opportunity to recover.

If you're new to strength training, SEC's Beginning Weight Training program is a good example of allowing recovery time between resistance-training days.

2. Refuel

Muscles need building materials.

Protein provides the amino acids your body uses to repair and build muscle tissue.

Protein becomes especially important as we get older because aging muscle doesn't respond quite as strongly to small amounts of protein as younger muscle does.

Instead of thinking only about how much protein you eat in an entire day, it can also help to include a good source of protein at each meal.

Beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, yogurt, eggs, fish, poultry and other protein-rich foods can all contribute, depending on how you eat.

3. Rehydrate

Water matters too.

We often think about hydration only when it's hot outside or when we're doing cardiovascular exercise, but adequate hydration also supports normal muscle function and recovery.

And our sense of thirst can become less reliable as we get older.

Keep water available throughout the day rather than waiting until you're extremely thirsty.

4. Recharge

Sleep may be one of the most overlooked parts of a good strength-training program.

While we sleep, the body is busy restoring energy, repairing tissue and carrying out many of the processes involved in recovery and adaptation.

A hard workout followed by chronically inadequate sleep isn't a great recipe for building strength.

Think of sleep as part of your training program, not something separate from it.

What About Rest Days?

A rest day doesn't have to mean a do-nothing day.

In fact, I prefer the term recovery day.

Go for a walk.

Do a few mobility exercises.

Stretch gently.

Garden.

Play with the dog.

Take an easy bike ride.

Or try a few very light Exercise Snacks.

The key is that you're moving without placing another heavy training demand on muscles that are still recovering.

This is often called active recovery.

More Isn't Always Better

This may be one of the hardest lessons for those of us who have exercised for decades.

We're used to thinking:

If some is good, more must be better.

But muscles don't grow because we punish them.

They grow because we challenge them appropriately, give them the nutrients they need, and then allow them to adapt.

Training harder isn't necessarily the answer.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do for your fitness is eat a good meal, take an easy walk, get a good night's sleep and come back stronger tomorrow.

Try a Recovery Snack

We've been talking about Exercise Snacks.

So this week, I'd like you to try a Recovery Snack.

After your next strength workout:

• Take a 5–10 minute easy walk.
• Have a protein-rich meal or snack.
• Drink some water.
• Do a minute or two of gentle mobility.
• And that night, make getting a good night's sleep part of your workout plan.

Exercise is only half of the equation.

Challenge your body.

Then give it the opportunity to become stronger.

Keep moving, and keep recovering,

Jennifer

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Sincerely,

Logan Franklin
The Gray Iron Fitness Newsletter
www.senior-exercise-central.com