It’s no secret that working out improves your health and makes you feel great, but there’s more to it than just feeling good: Your body undergoes some pretty dramatic changes when you get into the gym.
The science behind workouts can help you understand what happens to your body when you exercise and how that helps you reach your fitness goals faster.
If you want to get the most out of every workout, it’s essential to understand the science behind workouts. Here are some of the most critical aspects of workouts, how they work, and what they do in your body.
Why Start Working Out?
It’s relatively common knowledge that exercise is good for your health. Whether a quick jog around the neighborhood or an hour-long high-intensity cardio session.
You’ve probably heard time and time again that exercise will improve your energy levels, help you sleep better, make you stronger, and generally make your life better. While all of these claims have some merit, when it comes down to it, we still don’t know exactly why people get these effects from working out.
The only way to truly answer that question is through years of trial and error. Still, luckily for us, there are thousands of dedicated researchers looking into how our bodies respond to exercise on a cellular level.
What Are The Different Kinds Of Workouts?
A workout is typically divided into strength training and cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise requires full-body activities such as running, swimming, or cycling.
Strength training targets specific groups of muscles through resistance, which means it doesn’t focus on a whole-body part (such as your legs). With weights or weight machines, your body moves through space to lift a certain amount of weight against gravity.
Aside from individual variation, there are three major types of workout routines: resistance training, interval training, and steady-state cardio. Each type of workout is designed to burn fat in different ways.
Interval training and steady-state cardio are known as cardio exercises since they keep your heart rate up while you exercise. On the other hand, resistance training builds lean muscle mass through repetitions of strength-building moves (e.g., squats or deadlifts).
Bodybuilders use resistance training to build lean muscle mass, which helps you lose weight by increasing calorie burn during and after a workout session. So even though bodybuilders have larger muscles than endurance athletes or sprinters, their metabolic rates remain about equal due to their higher ratio of muscle mass to fat.
What Happens When You Workout?
When you work out, your muscles burn calories to fuel their movements. However, your body can only use some of those calories to rebuild and repair itself. Most of those extra calories are lost as heat, which makes working out an excellent way to keep from gaining weight—but also means that your body must be fueled by more than just food.
If you want to build muscle or strength without adding a lot of extra fat, which could offset any gains in mass. Focus on eating enough protein and carbohydrates after every workout. Because protein synthesis is necessary for building new muscle tissue and repairing it when damaged during a workout, focusing on both nutrients is essential for maximizing results.
Aim for about 1 gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight; if your goal is 150 pounds, shoot for 150 grams per day. Your total carbohydrate intake should not exceed 100 grams per day.
The amount will vary depending on what kind of exercise you do and how many meals you eat per day: Aim to consume 10 to15 grams at each meal until you reach 100 grams for the day; then repeat at each meal throughout the rest of your plan cycle to make sure you hit your target.
And don’t forget that exercise alone won’t give you all—or even most—of these benefits if they’re not followed up with proper nutrition post-workout!
How Do To Build Muscle?
Muscle tissue is a lot like fat tissue in that they are both made up of cells that store energy. The critical difference between them is their size. Muscle cells have nuclei and tend to be smaller than fat cells.
Nuclei are vital because they are where new muscle proteins are created. These newly-created proteins are what make muscle grow larger and stronger over time. The one thing these two types of tissue have in common is that you need to eat a surplus of calories to create energy and grow. Remember, energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
This means you must keep your body from breaking down its muscle tissue stores by feeding it more calories than it burns each day—or else it will use protein as fuel instead!
Why Do You Keep Losing Muscle Mass?
If you’re trying to lose weight but see no results, it might be because you’re losing muscle mass, not fat. You see, as you go about your day—whether that means working out or going to work—you are using energy that comes from two sources: fat and muscle. Every time your body uses energy, it has to take it from somewhere. If it takes from its fat stores, then you’ll lose fat.
However, if you spend more than you take in through diet, exercise, etc., your body will first use stored carbohydrates for fuel, therefore, burning off calories before turning to fat stores. On top of that, excess protein intake is converted into carbohydrates; therefore, a high-protein diet can also make it more difficult for you to lose weight.
What does all of this mean? Simply put, when trying to lose weight, you need to do just that—lose weight. Be careful not to spend too much energy on intense workout routines (for example, CrossFit) when your main goal should be shedding pounds instead of building muscles.
To accomplish both goals at once may prove challenging — even counterproductive. To shed fat while keeping your metabolism high, perform strength training exercises 3 to 4 times per week with 2 to 3 days rest between sessions.
Choose compound exercises such as squats and deadlifts rather than isolation movements like bicep curls or triceps extensions. This ensures maximal calorie burn while toning muscle at an efficient rate.
Weight Gain Instead Of Weight Loss
If you want to put on weight, eat more than you burn. It sounds simple, but there’s a little more to it. You can gain muscle or lose fat. You can manipulate your body composition by either gaining muscle and losing fat or losing muscle and gaining fat.
A study published in The Journal of Physiology found that young men gained 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) of lean muscle mass after nine weeks of resistance training while losing 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) of body fat—all without changing their diet or increasing their calorie intake at all.
It is not possible to gain mass overnight, but it is possible if you work out consistently and make sure your calories are not lacking anywhere else in your diet!
How Does Nutrition Fit Into This?
Proper nutrition is essential to recovery, and a study suggests that it may play a more prominent role in exercise than you might think. The study found that protein intake is directly related to the quality and quantity of sleep you get regularly.
More specifically, those who consumed more than 50 grams of protein per day slept better than those consuming less—and they also reported feeling less fatigued during exercise.
In short: Getting enough protein appears to enhance your body’s ability to fully recover from strenuous activity, leading to better performance and faster results. Try adding lean proteins like chicken breast, fish, or tofu after each workout for best results.
But protein alone isn’t enough when it comes to muscle growth. Preworkouts are supplements which not only help you boost your workout performance, but are a great source of aminoacids and vitamins. Amino acids are essential for muscle growth and muscle recovery. Gym Molly is a preworkout brand which uses premium quality ingredients, Amino acids and is Vegan Friendly and Caffeine Free.