What is the difference between men’s fitness and muscle building?

In fact, the essence of the two is a subordinate relationship. Muscle gain is only a subdivision of the many goals of male fitness. All differences are centered around "goal orientation", and there is no completely opposite difference at all.

If you go to the gym regularly, you must have seen two completely different types of people exercising. Take the Shangjian I often go to. Every day after get off work, I meet Mr. Li, who works in Internet operations. He walks slowly around the venue twice, does a few sets of lat pull-downs, and pedals on the elliptical machine. The whole process is completed in 40 minutes, and he picks up his daughter from school on the way. This is a typical ordinary fitness. His goal is to relax his muscles and bones after sitting for a day, and his body fat does not increase to the warning line of fatty liver. He has no burden at all when going out to eat barbecue and cold beer with friends on weekends, and never calculates how much protein he eats in a meal.

If you were someone with a goal of building muscle, then this "just practice" logic wouldn't work at all. Xiao Zhou, a sophomore who had been training with me for more than half a year, first started working out to lose weight. He ran five kilometers every day and ate salad. After losing 20 pounds in two months, his face collapsed, and then he turned to building muscle. Now every time he goes to the gym, he does compound exercises first, including bench presses, deadlifts, and squats with a weight of 8-12 RM. He holds a stopwatch between sets and dares not take more rests. He does aerobics only once a week at most for fear of losing muscle.

Nowadays, the fitness circle actually has different opinions on the boundary between the two. Many old-school enthusiasts who have practiced for more than ten years believe that only resistance training aimed at muscle growth can be considered serious fitness. Those who run and play ball can only be called "moving the body" and cannot be considered fitness.； There are also many people who are new to sports who think that any exercise that actively improves physical fitness is considered fitness, and there is no need to regard muscle gain as the only standard answer to fitness. In fact, there is nothing wrong with either statement. It is just that everyone has different definitions of "fitness".

To put it bluntly, it’s just like when you go out for fun on the weekends. Fitness means just hanging out. You can go for a walk in the park, explore stores in the business district, or go hiking. You can do it however you feel comfortable. The key is to feel good.； To gain muscle means to queue up specifically for limited-edition fashion brands. The route must be planned in advance, and the queuing rules must be understood clearly. No matter how interesting other stores on the road are, you will not visit more. All actions throughout the process are directed towards the goal of "getting that shoe." There is no need to separate the two. Many people just do fitness casually at first. After practicing, they feel that they want to have some lines, so they turn to building muscle. When they get tired of training, they can go back to playing ball and running. Originally, exercise is for their own comfort, and there is no need to be bound by definitions.