Muscle Flexing: Improve Your Contractions to Grow Muscles
When we talk about the ideal male physique, most people instantly think about having a chiseled body with abs, muscular chest, and giant biceps.
The first thing that most people think about the fitness of a man is the girth of his biceps; we all love to see some mass peeking through a well-fitted shirt or long sleeved sweater.
To make this possible, people turn to quick fixes, artificial adjustments, and a lot more. Additionally, we have seen that people are struggling with gym training as well.
There are so many different kinds of exercises that are just for helping an individual with gaining muscle. However, you will see no improvement in your muscle strength. Your muscle strength must complement the overall look of your body.
This is the reason we hear a constant debate about the weight and reps ratio. Most people want to speed up the process and get results quickly, which means you will compromise your health.
Let’s analyze reps and weight affect the body. According to fitness instructors, increasing weight may help you, but you will get tired easily.
On the contrary, if we talk about increasing the number of reps, this might not speed up the process, but it helps with muscle strength. In short, you have to choose very wisely, when it comes to your exercise plan.
For the biceps, the most effective form of exercise is strength training or weight lifting. For strength training, you need to focus on diet, exercise schedule, and the right choice of exercises.
While starting the exercise, focus on bicep curls and muscle contractions. As long as you are doing enough contractions and you are investing time in refining your posture and polishing your technique, you will get desired results.
Importance of Contractions
Before we jump into the importance of contractions, we need to know what qualifies as muscle contractions. For easy understanding, let’s explain it by muscle anatomy.
Whenever we perform an exercise that involves the action of lifting or pushing, our muscles lift the weight with the help of our bones. As a result, one muscle contracts whereas the other relaxes.
The actual word that most fitness trainers will use for explaining this is concentric muscle contraction. This is the kind of contraction where the tension increases on the muscle, and this happens as the muscle gets shortened for the pull.
For muscular growth, concentric contractions play a very important role. With the contraction, the muscle starts going through muscular stress, and this results in hypertrophy.
We usually see people talking about the muscular fibers breaking down and repairing; that’s what happens here. The muscle fibers that are known as myofibrils end up splitting, and this increases the muscle mass as a result.
Types of Contractions
There are various contractions that are involved in the movement of the anatomy, each one that accomplishes a different result. Within the physiology of the muscles, there are two kinds of proteins that are present within the muscle; myosin and actin.
These proteins help in muscle connection and cross-bridge formation, so it can be said that it is quite easy to stimulate the muscles for mass production.
To explain muscle production, use sliding filament theory. This theory helps in explaining the production of force in a muscle. The fast-twitch in which the muscle fiber is involved then triggers the stimulation that makes the fiber fatigue, and this results in the production of muscle fiber.
Concentric Contraction
This is the contraction most weightlifters are familiar with and is a phase that’s a part of every exercise. If we go down the list of the best exercise phases for muscle growth, we can surely list concentric contractions at the top.
During a concentric contraction, the muscle shortens as the load is being moved from one point to another. Every time the muscle shortens during this contraction, it causes a strain on the muscle fibers that stimulates growth. As a result, the muscle becomes more developed and more visible as a result.
The concentric contraction can be observed in bicep curls. You can see that every time you curl, the upper muscle gets contracted and that’s how you’re able to flex your biceps.
Eccentric Contraction
Eccentric contractions are the opposite to the concentric contraction as you can see them in effect when the muscles are in the most extended position. As you lower the weight in the biceps curl, you will see that the muscle elongates and this length of the muscle helps you with the eccentric strength training. During the eccentric contractions phase, the muscle has a great amount of power and there is a great potential for work load production.
As we have already discussed, there are two kinds of proteins within the muscle, actin and myosin. Here these proteins detach from one another, and this helps the eccentric phase. This contraction allows the muscle to contract with better force and helps with increasing the development of the muscle.
Isometric Contractions
Muscle contractions are generally associated with the movement of your muscles. Even if you are lifting something, pushing a door, or pulling someone closer, your muscles are doing all kinds of contractions.
On the other hand, isometric contractions are a little different. While performing isometric contractions, there are changes to the length of the muscle and the static joint angle.
When you hold the weight in the static position, the muscle goes partially into the concentric phase. Usually, the muscle is in the isometric contraction phase. This helps in sustaining the load at a fixed angle to develop a particular portion of an exercise.
Basic Exercises That Involve Contractions
Since you understand the importance of contractions now, it would be useful to learn some of the workouts to train your physique. Surprisingly, a lot of individuals discuss various contraction-based exercises without knowing much about them.
Almost all muscle-flexing exercises involve contractions and if you are interested in learning about them, there’s examples on some of the basics exercises below.
Many bodybuilders favor weight lifting exercises such as the bicep curl, using dumbbells and a fully extended position of your shoulder. Your biceps muscle will get active as a result, and you will see significant change over time.
It’s recommended that you master the weights by lifting lighter weights to prevent unwanted injury
You can activate your muscles for growth with the help of so many different other exercises; some of these exercises have been listed:
Barbell curls, yes that’s right. Barbell curls, just like dumbbell curls, are very effective in the weight lifting process, and this helps in contractions which eventually helps in gaining muscle more easily.
Squats are the best exercises that you can add to your leg workout plan. Even if you squat for a few minutes, you will feel a tingly and sore feeling, which is evidence that it is working.
Pull-ups and push-ups are a great way to help your upper body in gaining muscles. It includes muscular contractions, and you will instantly feel that your muscles are growing.
Sit-ups are a great exercise for core contraction, especially even for kids. If you want to include your family in your daily exercise, this exercise will be great for you.
The Wrap Up
Exercise contractions can make a noticeable difference in your training by polishing up your form and technique. The concentric, eccentric, and isometric phases during an exercise are all important contractions to develop as you make progress to develop hypertrophy for your muscles. This can make a lasting impression on your physique if continued with consistency over a considerable amount of time with resistance training. Continue working on fine tuning these contractions as you advance further with different exercises and routines.
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