The difference and connection between male fitness and muscle gain

Many men who are new to sports always equate "fitness" and "muscle gain". In fact, the core relationship between the two is very clear - fitness is the collective name for all active exercise behaviors with the goal of improving physical condition and enhancing athletic ability. Muscle gain is only a highly directional subdivision goal in the fitness category. The two are included and included, but there are very clear differences in the three dimensions of goal orientation, execution logic, and result evaluation.

Last week I met a young man who had just graduated in the gym. He was holding a novice training chart copied from the Internet and chasing the coach and asked, "If I want to keep fit, do I have to eat 10 eggs a day and practice until I vomit?" ”It is a typical practice to apply the requirement of muscle gain to all fitness activities, which has caused quite a bit of misunderstanding.

The goals of fitness are really too broad. Some people are forced to exercise by doctors because they have discovered fatty liver during physical examinations. Some people are preparing for a marathon in the second half of the year. Some people have shoulder pain after sitting at work all day and come to the gym for half an hour to relax their shoulders and back. There are even uncles who live nearby. The baths at home are cold in winter and they apply for a card just to take a hot shower every day and walk two steps on the treadmill. As long as they take the initiative to move for good health, it is considered fitness. But muscle building is different. Its goal is very single, which is to achieve thickening of skeletal muscle fibers through the combination of resistance stimulation, nutritional supplements, and rest and recovery. To put it bluntly, it is pure muscle growth without any ambiguity.

Let’s be honest, the execution thresholds of the two behaviors are not even close to each other. When I was trying to improve my arm circumference two years ago, those days were really "harsh". Each arm exercise started with a warm-up with 2.5kg dumbbells. Curls, dips and extensions, and hammer curls were performed one after another. Each set had to reach the failure range of 8-12RM. I rested for 90 seconds between sets, and I rested for half a second. I felt like I was losing every minute. I had to take out the bananas and whey protein that had been chilled in advance just after wiping off my sweat, for fear of missing the so-called "golden replenishment window." Even when I went out to eat hot pot with friends at night, I had to rinse my belly in water three times before eating it, for fear that the excess fat would affect my body fat. But if you are just for fitness and relaxation, you don’t have to suffer this problem at all. You can walk around the neighborhood twice after get off work, go hiking with friends on the weekend, or even do 10 minutes of stretching at home following the video. You will have completed your fitness goal for the day. No one will ask you to count calories to calculate your training capacity.

Speaking of this, I have to mention a point that has been controversial in the circle. "Whether ordinary fitness can achieve the effect of building muscle?" Two groups have been arguing for many years now: One group is the fans of natural trainers. They believe that as long as the training intensity is sufficient and the diet and rest are consistent, it is absolutely fine for ordinary people to gain 4-6 kilograms of pure muscle in the first year of natural fitness. There is no need to do those fancy things.； The other group is a group that agrees with technological assistance. They feel that the ceiling of natural training is very low. Men's natural fitness will basically reach its peak in three to five years. To break through the dimension, exogenous anabolic drugs must be used. But no matter how fierce the arguments between the two sides are, there is a consensus that has not changed: the underlying logic of muscle growth is always that micro-tears occur after the muscle fibers are stimulated by sufficient resistance, and then excessive recovery is achieved through nutrition and rest. This core logic is true in any training system.

But having said that, the relationship between the two is not black and white, but is inextricably linked. After all, muscle building is a subset of fitness. If you don’t have the most basic fitness habits and can’t even persist in exercising for 40 minutes three times a week, talking about muscle building is simply a castle in the air. Several friends around me got into the trap by just "moving casually". They were obese at the beginning. They ran three kilometers every day after get off work to lose weight. After running for three months, they lost 20 pounds. However, they found that the T-shirt was dangling on the body and could not hold it up. Gradually, they started to engage in strength training and started to build muscle. Now, putting a mobile phone on the chest muscles does not dangle at all, and they have to take off their clothes to show off at every party.

Don't believe it, the boundary between the two is often blurred. Nowadays, many street fitness masters have never been to a commercial gym. They rely on the horizontal and parallel bars in the community to practice pull-ups, muscle-ups, and push-ups. Their muscle mass is even more exaggerated than that of many people who go to the gym every day and lift irons. Do you think they are exercising or gaining muscle? In fact, the two overlapped. His fitness behavior just met all the requirements for muscle gain, and he naturally achieved muscle gain results. I also know a 52-year-old brother who has been working out for more than 20 years. He has never deliberately calculated his training volume or protein intake. He just goes to the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to practice strength for 40 minutes. He rotates his chest, shoulders, back and legs, and eats home-cooked meals. He likes to drink some wine. Although his body fat is not low now, his muscle mass is higher than that of many thirty-year-old boys. He himself jokingly calls it "passive muscle gain" - in fact, it means persisting in intense fitness for a long time. Even if you don't deliberately pursue muscle gain, your body will naturally give you feedback.

In fact, in the final analysis, there is really no need to draw such a tight line between fitness and muscle gain. If you just want to move around and sweat, and relieve your back pain after get off work, then you can do it however you want. You don’t have to force yourself to eat protein powder to gain weight. ； If you just want to have stretched deltoid muscles when you wear a T-shirt in the summer and have clear abdominal muscles when you take off your clothes, then follow the logic of muscle gain and implement it. Fitness is all about making yourself more comfortable. Don’t be bound by rules and regulations, right?