Is Weight Lifting the Best Way to Build Muscle?

• Author: Bryan Miller
• Posted: 2024-10-30

There are nearly 600 muscles in the human body, so that means there are nearly three times as many individual muscles as their are bones. Skeletal muscles also make up around 50% of a person's entire body weight. Needless to say, muscles are vitally important. Muscles that aren't healthy or aren't functioning properly can cause a lot of pain and make it nearly impossible to get around. Just a simple muscle cramp in the leg can be entirely debilitating and leave people unable to move around. Now, could you imagine if something like that became a serious issue and left you in that sort of pain? Whether it's for fear of atrophy or just wanting to look and feel more fit, millions upon millions of people exercise their muscles often in hopes of growing bigger and more defined muscles. To do so, most of these people will turn to some type of weight lifting. But is this the best way to build muscle mass?

Whether it's free weights, resistance bands, or just a bunch of heavy books in a burlap sack, people have lifted weights for many centuries now, and there are tens of millions of people who work out every single day and lift weights. Of all the ways to grow muscle mass, lifting weights is the most effective. This is because a muscle or muscle group is directly targeted and put to work, which then causes the muscle to physically become stronger and grow. High protein diets and other dietary methods can help a person to maintain their muscle mass. However, if you want your muscles to actually grow and become stronger, then lifting weights is the best way to ultimately go about it.

Here are a few different reasons why lifting weights is the absolute best way to increase muscle mass in your fitness routine.

Feeling the Burn

The muscle grows when you damage the muscle. Yes, it sounds very counter-intuitive, but what actually happens when you put your muscles to work is that they begin to rip and tear in tiny places all along the structure, and as they heal, what happens is that amino acids and proteins are filling the gaps. So, your healed muscles end up becoming larger muscles. This is why people get sore after they work out. Their muscles have been torn to shreds, so to speak, and they're healing. A lot of people refer to this as "feeling the burn," which means you're pushing your muscles to the point of physical damage in a workout and they're healing in better condition than what they started.

This isn't the only way possible to grow muscle. It is possible that your muscles will grow some naturally by just ingesting the right types of protein. Though when it comes to true physical fitness and wanting to develop actual muscle mass, you're going to have to feel that burn if you want those results.

Increased Weight, Increased Muscle

Muscles also grow the best by lifting weights because the weight that you're going to lift will increase in regular intervals. If you start out doing arm curls with 30 pounds, you're going to initially feel that burn and grow your muscles. Though if you never advance past that 30 pounds, then that particular muscle group is very unlikely to keep growing, because you won't be physically stretching and tearing that muscle anymore. Now, of course, you can keep your muscle very toned and chiseled and keep it from deteriorating, though it's unlikely to grow anymore unless you increase the weight.

The more you ultimately increase the weight, the more your muscles are going to grow. This goes for all of your body's muscles. Your biceps, triceps, glutes, pecs, and every other muscle in your body. This is why people who constantly work out will change up their targeted muscle group with each workout. They will have a leg day, arm day, chest day, etc, and they will slowly increase the amount of weight they're using to grow their muscles. Once they reach a desired muscle size, what typically happens is that the weight is reduced to something manageable so that they can just stay toned.

There are a lot of different things that different people try, such as special diets and protein shakes, etc. Though when it boils down to it, the best way to increase your muscle mass is good, old-fashioned weight-lifting.