What is the difference and connection between male fitness and muscle gain?

To put it simply, the relationship between the two is to include and be included. Fitness is a collective term for all behaviors that improve health status, adjust body shape, and improve sports performance through active physical activities. Muscle gain is only a subdivision of many fitness goals, and is specifically targeted at directional training to increase skeletal muscle mass and shape muscle lines.

I have been practicing for almost 6 years, and I have seen too many novices who have just joined the gym confuse the two. They either think that fitness requires building a body like Schwarzenegger and are too scared to touch it, or they think that not practicing is equivalent to being weak, forcing themselves to carry heavy weights every day and eventually hurt their waists. In fact, if you go downstairs in the community and see the old man who swings the unicorn whip for half an hour every day, the programmer who rides 10 kilometers around the city greenway after get off work to lose weight in his beer belly, and the office workers who practice Frisbee twice a week just so they can play with friends on the weekends, these are all fitness, but their core demands have nothing to do with building muscle. I used to take care of a young brother who had just graduated. When he first came to the gym, he wanted to change the rounded shoulders and hunchback caused by working at a desk all year round. He only practiced core and shoulder and back correction three times a week, and occasionally ran two kilometers for aerobic relaxation. After practicing for three months, his posture became straight, and he visually straightened up by 5 centimeters. This was definitely an effective fitness, but he had never touched a barbell exceeding 20 kilograms in the whole process, and his muscle mass had basically not increased, and he could not say that he had gained any muscle.

The difference in goal orientation also makes the execution logic of the two very different. If fitness is just to improve the heart and lungs and adjust the state, as long as moving is better than sitting, there is no need to stick to the training plan, and there is no need to count the intake. Even walking two extra stops on the subway after get off work will be considered effective. ； But if you are aiming to gain muscle, you have to pay attention to training volume, rest time between groups, caloric surplus in diet, and protein intake must be calculated in grams, and even the smallest effect will be reduced in half. There is a lot of controversy in the circle now. Some people think that the upper limit of muscle gain through natural fitness is very low. The average man only gains 2-4 kilograms of pure muscle in a year. If he is not competing, there is no need to put in the effort to gain muscle. ； Some people also think that muscles are the body's "anti-aging reserves". Even if you don't do heavy exercises, you can maintain muscle mass with light weight strength training twice a week. A high basal metabolism will make it less likely to gain weight, and it will be less likely to fall when you get older. The cost-effectiveness is much higher than simply doing aerobics. Both opinions are actually reasonable. It all depends on personal needs.

After talking about the differences, it is not difficult to find that the relationship between the two is deeper than many people think. Muscle growth cannot exist apart from the larger framework of fitness. All muscle growth training is essentially a branch of fitness. On the other hand, even if your core goal of fitness is not to gain muscle, adding some muscle-building strength training can underpin the effect. I once met a man in his 30s who initially ran 5 kilometers a day to lose his beer belly. After running for two months, he lost 10 pounds, but his belly was still loose. Later, he was advised to add squats and bench presses twice a week to train his core and lower limb muscles. After another two months, his weight has not changed. His waistline has shrunk by 8 centimeters, his stomach has tightened a lot, and even the problem of breathing while climbing the third floor has disappeared. This is the effect of muscle-building training on other fitness goals.

To put it bluntly, you can think of fitness as a large-scale lifestyle supermarket near your home. Fat loss, posture correction, improvement of athletic ability, and muscle gain are all products on the shelves. You can go specifically for the popular model of muscle gain, or you can grab two small items for strength training while shopping. There is no need to tie "you must gain muscle before entering the gym" as political correctness, and there is no need to sneer at gaining muscle as dead muscle. After all, fitness is a personal matter, and what suits you is the best.