How to build muscle – muscle protein synthesis

This article won't be for everyone – it's for all you who wish to take a deeper dive into human physiology and better understand the fundamentals that drive your body composition transformation. The more knowledge you have, the more success you're likely to have in your muscle building journey. Building muscle is not just for those who want to live large, die large and leave a giant coffin – it's for everyone! Building muscle is an incredibly rewarding endeavour – not only does it improve your physique, but it improves your quality of life – your mobility, flexibility, posture, strength and ability to do arduous tasks. If you're 80 years old and want to continue bopping moves on the dance floor, then building muscle or maintaining it will help. If you're trying to reduce body fat, building muscle will help – the more lean mass you have, the more calories you burn as lean mass is very energy demanding. Or perhaps you are trying to build an athletic physique or take things as far as they can go and get to the point where you struggle to fit through doors. Whatever the goal or situation, we can all benefit from building some extra muscle. 

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Building muscle mass is like building a wall

To build muscle, we need to force the muscles to adapt – get bigger and stronger. The best way to do this is by – yes, you guessed it – lifting weights! But it's not just about pumping iron – your diet is also a crucial component – especially your protein intake. In fact, the muscle-building process is known as muscle protein synthesis, so the clues in the name, and the more we stimulate this process, the more muscle we gain! To better understand this process, I'd like you to think of a muscle as a brick wall, and each brick is an amino acid (the building blocks of protein) – muscle protein synthesis is the addition of new bricks to the wall. Unfortunately for you guys wanting to get jacked, we don't just keep adding more and more bricks to the wall. While adding bricks, they're also consistently removed – this opposing process is called muscle protein breakdown. We are continually breaking down and synthesising protein. Our muscles get bigger when muscle protein synthesis rates exceed breakdown rates – we're adding more bricks to the wall than we're removing. Now, I don't want you to think that muscle protein breakdown is a bad thing – you might have some cracks in your wall, which need removing. Resistance training actually induces muscle protein breakdown – we break the wall down so we can rebuild. Just like if your wall at home broke down, it's an action that causes a reaction, and this reaction is to build a bigger and stronger wall and assuming you have adequate protein, you'll have no issues with this – the builders will have plenty of bricks to work with! Consuming 1.6 to 2.4 grams of protein per kg of your body weight per day will provide enough building blocks to build some big walls – AKA big guns! 

Quick side note – we can't talk about muscle gain without mentioning calories. If your main goal is to build muscle and you don't need to lose fat, then ensure you're in a slight caloric surplus – this will optimally fuel the muscle building process. If you have fat to lose and want to lean out, you're best off being in a caloric deficit. But don't worry – you can still build muscle in a deficit – just nail your protein! 

Optimise muscle protein synthesis

Now, to optimise muscle protein synthesis, we can't just lift weights – we need to lift heavy – we need to choose a weight that takes us close to muscular failure! The research shows that you don't need to achieve complete muscle failure, but you do want to train close enough to muscular failure to achieve the greatest muscle building response! On the final set of each exercise, you'll only want a few reps left in reserve, if any. That said, more complex compound lifts that require impeccable technique, such as deadlifts and squats, shouldn't be taken to complete muscle failure as this may result in injury, so take these exercises just shy of muscular failure. Work hard – muscles won't develop unless they need to! 

Summary

Your body doesn't just build walls/muscles without reason – just like you don't see builders throwing up walls in your back garden for fun. There needs to be a demand – a reason to build! This demand will come from resistance training – it stimulates muscle protein synthesis, and when accompanied with adequate protein, we'll have what we need to build a great physique!

Key takeaway

Training hard while consuming adequate protein are great fundamentals to focus on, and understanding what's happening physiologically gives you much more confidence in the process.