Welcome to week #11! This PHIT Challenge journey is meant to encourage you to take new steps each week towards a healthier and PHIT-er life! Not every week will speak to you, but I hope some of the challenges have given you some new perspective or helped you adopt new habits.
The last 10 weeks have been challenges that I have used for years and have proven to be very helpful in my fitness pursuits. Most of these are fairly easy for me at this point because they have become lifestyle habits. Today we hit on an area that I have really been pushing myself in since January... HYPERTROPHY/STRENGTH TRAINING. I told y'all we would circle back to this throughout this Challenge, and here we are again :)
Hypertrophy is defined as the growth/ enlargement of the size of the muscle cells. Hypertrophy happens when the demand placed on a muscle is increased... in other words, if you want your muscles to grow, you have to progressively push them harder/heavier.
Bench Row - this exercise targets the Latissimus Dorsi muscle group in the back.
The science behind building muscle is based upon two phases: stimulation/damage & repair. Every time you contract a muscle against resistance, it causes tiny tears in the muscle fiber. The muscle growth occurs during the rest period that SHOULD happen immediately after your workout. It is during this rest period that the new fibers are produced to replace the damaged ones... and you have hypertrophy/muscle growth.
My last few months of training have been about building new muscle. Not that I want to get bulky or bigger necessarily, but just feel stronger and, selfishly, maybe to see/tone them better ;) Back in January I lost so much muscle while I had the flu for 10 days... it left me feeling so week, as if my muscles just couldn't control all of my usual movements as well as it did before I was sick. I don't know if you have ever experienced that, but I was an awful, loss-of-control feeling for me. Simple things that I do all the time felt off... I felt like a puppet when running! The muscle growth I have seen since has been huge, but only because I have been very intentional about lifting heavier. I have slowly added more resistance over the course of 7 weeks, and it has helped me gain control again, as well as tone to my atrophied muscles.
It is so beneficial to add periods of heavy lifting from time to time. Just about every female goal setting consultation I do is about toning. Toning your body is basically adding more muscle. The fear a lot of women have is gaining too much muscle. I've said it before, but for most women, bulky muscle growth will not happen. Our lower levels of testosterone prevent us from putting on muscle mass equivalent to men. So, try adding 5 lbs to your current program... if you are doing rows with 15 lbs, try 20 lbs this week! With shoulders, which are smaller muscles, adding 2-3 lbs may be enough... so if you are doing frontals with 5 lbs, try 8 lbs. this week! Be smart... don't over-do it - we don't want an injury. Keep your heavier exercises SUPER slow - for example, with a row, count to 2 as you lift the weight, and count to 4 as you lower the weight. You will also need to reduce the number of reps per set. Stay with 3 sets, but drop the reps from 15 to 12, or from 12 to 10, depending on what you're used to.
We will discuss this idea again before we end the Challenge, but please let me know if you have questions. I can certainly help and I would love to hear from you!
XO,
Meg