#15: Why your muscles aren't growing part one: poor muscle stimulus

 Listen to this episode to learn about resistance curves, phase loading, levers, and how much to stimulate a muscle to see better muscular growth. 

Muscle is the most metabolically expensive tissue in your body. It burns more calories and takes more energy to maintain than any other tissue. Therefore, the more we have, the better our metabolism and the healthier many other processes in our bodies. We also resist aging, and are able to stay limber and fit and independent for much longer. We all need to be focusing on building muscle as we age, it’s extremely important for our longevity. 

We all want the time we are spending in our workouts to actually be doing something. So to do this, we need to select exercises that are the highest bang for your buck. 

The reason my workouts are so short but effective is because we cut out all the fluff, and we apply the principles that I’m going to talk about in this podcast to each exercise. This means you are getting better muscle stimulus in 30 minutes than you do in most hour-long workouts that choose ineffective exercises that make you feel “tired” and are burning calories, but aren’t going to move the needle for you long-term because they aren’t accurately stimulating your muscles. 

Levers are what will magnify the resistance of an exercise. The weight you’re holding is not the amount of force applied to the muscle. The amount  of force being applied to the muscle is the weight of the resistance multiplied by the length of the lever. So the magnification to the muscle, or how hard the muscle has to work, isn’t just about the weight you’re holding, but also how long the lever is. 

Exercise is physics, and not enough fitness professionals understand this which is why the work is there, but the results don’t seem to match the hard work and frequency you’re putting into your workouts.

1:14  Why Women Shouldn’t be Afraid of Gaining Muscle

5:28  Exercise Selection and Proper Muscle Training

7:20  Levers

16:43  Video Example of Levers on Instagram Reels (April 20th) 

20:25  Resistance Curve 

22:33  What Exactly is the Resistance Curve?

24:20  Phase Loading

40:25  Favorite Early or Middle Phase Loaded Exercises 

43:15  Favorite Late Phase Loaded Exercises 

44:23  Late Phase Loaded Exercises to Avoid

46:42  Why You Don’t Need to Feel Exhausted After Your Workout

To take our free 35-minute Upper Body Build class taught by Dr. Shannon, visit portal.evlofitness.com.